A bath after food? Or that you shouldn’t swim after a meal

Don’t wash your hair during a period, or am I possibly mis-remembering that?

Getting piles from sitting on a radiator, chewing gum gunging up your insides if you swallowed it.

I do nott hink it ws uperstition, at least none of the old wives tales told so far are.

They are just wrong health information. The belief was that if you bathed or went swimming after a large meal, you would get cramp and could end up drowning.

i remember the not washing hair during periods story. There is/was probably a misunderstanding of some kind behind that as well.

If I swallowed an apple (or other) pip I would get appendicitis.

I had to have a bath, or rather a shower, last night after I dropped my entire bowl of strawberries and cream into my lap!

My friends mother had my friend's hair cut very short because she thought it was sapping my friend's energy and would stop her growing. Her mother even lied and said the doctor had told her this.

My mother made me have a fortnightly haircut to keep my hair ultra short so that it would be naturally curly when I grew up - it didn't work.

my Mother told me that if you hoovered under the bed when you were pregnant you would miscarry the baby...so when I'd given birth there would be an inch thick of dust and dog hair

oh and not having the pram in the house too, brings bad luck.

I believe in the wet hair thing though. It makes your neck and ears ache if it's cold

Getting piles from sitting on a cold surface, like an outside wall or kerb.
Swallowing chewing gum would stick all your innards together (and you’d die)!

yes, those too

Not washing my legs properly during the 6 weeks school holiday would make the skin on my legs into Elephant skin!

Swallow an Apple pip and I would grow a tree in my Belly.

I remember all of those! My grandmother was a stickler for them so I was brought up to believe them. I thought that now I’m old, I’d have grown out of this, but no! When my adored granddaughter bought a pram for the baby she was expecting two months later, I found myself asking her not to have it in the house until after the birth! She was quite taken aback, having never heard of this, but she asked the shop to keep it for her, and they did.
My great-grandson had a traumatic birth, but is, thankfully fine, but I did wonder, just for a second, what would have happened if she had ignored me. Common sense tells me it wouldn’t have changed anything, but………..?

I remember being told that if you picked dandelions that you'd wet the bed.

Crossstitchfan

I remember all of those! My grandmother was a stickler for them so I was brought up to believe them. I thought that now I’m old, I’d have grown out of this, but no! When my adored granddaughter bought a pram for the baby she was expecting two months later, I found myself asking her not to have it in the house until after the birth! She was quite taken aback, having never heard of this, but she asked the shop to keep it for her, and they did.
My great-grandson had a traumatic birth, but is, thankfully fine, but I did wonder, just for a second, what would have happened if she had ignored me. Common sense tells me it wouldn’t have changed anything, but………..?

There’s sense in the pram thing, a relative bought one and when she sadly miscarried had to return it.

I always believed this, having been told blood and oxygen went from muscles to your stomach to digest the food, hence you could get cramp.
😯

I remember being told that if you picked dandelions that you'd wet the bed.
Dandelion tea is a diuretic!

Isn’t the French name for a dandelion pis en lis or something similar?

Jaxjacky

Getting piles from sitting on a radiator, chewing gum gunging up your insides if you swallowed it.

Getting piles from sitting on a radiator
That is not an old wives' tale.
I speak from experience - and two colleagues could corroborate! We were warned.

Oreo

Isn’t the French name for a dandelion pis en lis or something similar?

Yes 😀

My mum would say ‘It’s all my eye and Betty Martin’ to not bath after you eat.
I have no idea what that means, but my mum is 96, and a woman of strong opinions, so I go along with her.

Don't wash your hair when you're having a period!

I ignored that one.

my granny in glasgow never let me have a bath after eating, she always said your tummy is full and i might fall asleep, during my period i had to wear slippers and not stand on cold floors, put a cover over my legs and not let them get red from the fire or i would end up with varicose veins. she had lot's of these but that was how they lived, i am 62 and until i got rid of my bath i always went for a bath and then had food.

We weren't allowed to swim for half an hour after eating, the idea being that one's bodily energy was being used for digestion, making the muscles less strong.
Is there anything in this? I do seem to find that my legs are weaker until the meal has gone down.

'Ne'er cast a clout, till May is out' used to drive me mad when I was small and summer arrived early. My Mum insisted on me keeping my vest and liberty bodice on until 1st June, irrespective of the weather. The temperatures could plummet on 1st June but I would then be allowed to wear a summer dress.

Not bathing during periods.
I wondered whether it was something to do with religion or, as my Grandmother said “If you’re lying down in the bath to wash your hair, you don’t want any of that on it!”
That was before the invention of showers or those rubber tubes you attached to taps but she must surely have used jugs of clean water to rinse.
Dandelions -I avoided them and I thought the bubblegum story was because Mum didn’t like us having it.

Some people say it's May, the flowering tree, rather than May the month, Sarnia.

I was allowed to wear summer dresses on Whit Sunday or the end of May whichever was earliest, but I don't remember having to wear a liberty bodice that late in the year. Perhaps Aertex vests instead of those wool Chilprufe ones!