I’m old enough to remember..

I remember the lamp lighter lighting a gas lamp opposite our house he was called a leerie.
We had a little row of old cottages beside us and they all still had gas lighting . I still have a gas mantle from my old aunt's house . The cottages had a washouse behind them where the mothers would do the washing. It was hot and steamy.
We took a trian to Kent with my aunt and uncle and the car went on the train . We had ordered a picnic and under the seat was a hamper of food and drink for the journey.
We used slates to write on in primary one and took a ponds cold cream jar with a little wet sponge in . It could get smelly.
Our local jute factories had what we called the bummers which was a call to work . We knew at lunch time if we were late for school.
I remember the day our primary school headmaster pointed out flags at half mast from the factories because king George had died.

Grammaretto

I spent my first 10 years in NZ but arrived in London in 1958. I took the 11+. School dinner was 1/- .
Bomb sites everywhere.
Slums.
Notices in windows of guest houses NO COLOURED
NO IRISH.
Fish & chips on Fridays in newspaper. Cod or Rock Salmon.
What is rock salmon?

😁
Rock salmon is dogfish which is a type of shark.

Interesting thread, I remember some things but not the very early ones from way back, so enjoyed reading about them.

Pressing Button B in the phone box to get tuppence out that someone had forgotten

I reckon I could still double de-clutch even though my car is an automatic now.

Darning mushrooms.
Way before the twin-tub, dolly tubs and mangles.
Suet puddings, savoury and sweet, to fill us up.
Dick Barton on the radio.
Three quarter wool socks (darned) held up with garters.
Sitting round the one coal fire in the living room.
Smog!

Listening to Dick Barton, Snowy and Jock on the radio before bed.

Being washed in the big stone wash tub in the shared outside wash house along with my cousin, after the washing was finished.

Getting lost on the way home from school in a peasouper and ending up in someone’s garden. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face!

Frozen outdoor toilet and the under the bed alternative.
Cool box ( polystyrene) for the milk.
Our Coop number ( yes-still)
Saturday morning cinema for kids.
Mum berating my sister for her ( very long) mini dress.
Booths to listen to records, then tapes, you might buy.
Potatoes from a massive sack at the shop.
Catching a steam train to grandparents.
Proper rice pud, plums and custard and scratching at the fish shop.

Hand-me-down clothes, often with repairs. Cardigans often had darned elbows.

Mum making jelly and blancmange for our birthdays.

No fridge so the milk was stored in the pantry on a marble shelf. Mum and Dad's tea often had little blobs of cream swirling around on the surface as the milk was just about to turn sour.

Mum using Marshall Wards catalogue to buy sheets.

Playing " Cowboys and Indians" outside. Western films were so popular. I remember being tied to a lamppost and the boys hopping around me making whooping noises as they patted their mouths.

The boys would have metal toy guns with caps, and tomahawks with wooden handles and false blades as well as " Red Indian" feathered headbands. Days of innocence. We grew up and grew wise.
Imagine that today!

Most indoor places with rooms, once white, but turned yellow and brown, stained by smokers.

Two ball against the wall.

Navy school knickers.

Doing hands stands against every available wall outside.

The nit nurse and classmates with shaved heads, purple-dyed by treatment.

The net curtain shame. People would talk if they got dingy. Same with doorsteps. Scrubbed and red-polished until they gleamed.

I remember the Corona man on coming on a Sunday and the man selling cockles and whelks.
Also the bakers van. He sold wagon wheels as well as beautiful fresh bread. They were huge compared to the ones you buy now.
My recall my mum getting our first fridge in the middle of winter and begging her to make ice lollies in the little icebox. She did and we thought it amazing!! I can recall wonderful Christmases when my favourite aunt and uncle came with my 2 cousins. We would roll up the rug,play records on their portable gramophone and dance ourselves silly usually the twist ...chubby checker...until we collapsed on the floor exhausted. Our parents would laugh at our antics and think we were mad!! Oh what happy memories 😊

Playing that game with elastic joined together and hopping in and out of the middle. One person at each end. Pea shooters.

This is such a lovely thread, it’s jogged many memories for me.
On a side note I was recently ‘told off’ by someone on Facebook for being an entitled boomer, a member of the most privileged generation ever-her words.
Reading some of these posts I can’t help feeling that maybe we were privileged to grow up when life was harder but simpler.

The washing being done in the stone wash house in the back door. We were sent round local shops to ask for wooden boxes for the boiler fire. My mother would get up at 6am to light it.
The reject wooden bobbins from the local Anchor Mill were also used.
All the women in the tenement would gather on Monday and work together, while the children played.
The thought of everyone's washing in the same water, makes me gag. Our neighbours were not very hygienic. My mother was always complaining about the state, in which they left the toilet.
A dolly blue to whiten the whites.

Sharing the outside toilet on the landing, with two other families. YUK! Izal toilet paper.
The potty under the bed.

The lamplighter lighting the gas lights in the tenement close.

Getting washed in front of the coal fire in a tin bath.

My granny's cast iron stove, which heated the house and where all the cooking was done.
My family worked down the pits, so there was never a shortage of coal to light it.

Cremona foam. We were too poor to afford it.😧

I forgot about a home made cart. We called it a geeg, my cousins in Central Scotland called it a ^ geggie^.
It was basically, an old pram chassis, two planks of wood, one for sitting on, one for steering and a piece of rope.

My mother had just knitted me a new cardigan to go accompanied my Brownie uniform, when I caught it in the wheels. It unravelled and she was not the most loving of mothers at the best of times. She was so angry.😔

Hundreds of children attending Sunday School.
My mum boiling up the nappies in a bucket
Norman and Henry Bones a children’s radio programme
Walking to school with friends not parents

I remember radiograms too, I would love one now, my grandson and granddaughters are now buying records and lps, I gave my granddaughters money to spend in the shops when they visited from England and instead of clothes they came back with dvds from charity shops and techy shops, then my granddaughter spotted a portable recording machine that came out of the loft and asked for it to record her notes at college, it was in a pile heading for the charity shop,can't think what we called them? Rectangular box,pop up lid to put tape in,about 8 inches by 3 inches approx

On the war theme I remember going to the local “rec “ ie recreation ground where a temporary building had been erected to be issued with a gas mask, when I started infant school a couple of years later we had to take it every day with a few sandwiches in case we were bombed, as we lived in the country that never happened.
Yes the milkman coming round when we took our own jugs and he had measuring ladles to dole it out.
And the dreadful rationing when every scrap of food had to be utilised.
Our next door neighbour, a very scary old man named Ambrose, kept chickens in his back garden for eggs, one night a fox got in and killed them all, they only kill, don’t take away, so several families had the tremendous bonus of a chicken, or rather scraggy old hen, to eat that day.

"The potty under the bed."

I forgot that, Marydoll. The Gazunder!
Also a large china wash basin and matching jug in the bedroom.

The coal hole, I can still hear the sound of the cwts of coal being thrown in there. Our coalman was called Mr Pitt, very apt.

The fireside companion set for shovelling the coal on to the fire and the poker.

"Hundreds of children attending Sunday School."

You got a lovely coloured Bible stamp to put in your book each week, luluaugust. 🙂

Radiogrammes - big, polished, clunky pieces of furniture that were a radio and record player combined. They, in theory, could take 10 singles at a time and play them consecutively. But they were useless except for supporting ugly vases of plastic flowers.

Our radiogram was used constantly and it was a beautifully crafted piece of furniture.

Babies( girls and boys) wearing long nighties day and night ( except when visiting when they would wear a matinee jacket) , swaddled at night and being put to bed lying on their sides. These were the days before babygros.

Both the car and the television breaking down regularly, and the rag and bone man.

Ditto the coal man, and the pink parrafin man who came and poured the parrafin into a large jug.

Then there was the Bunty comic every week, with the cut out clothes in the back page. I loved my Bunty clothes!

I'm sure there's a lot more.

JenniRen

Our radiogram was used constantly and it was a beautifully crafted piece of furniture.

Ours was the exact opposite - when Mum and Dad died and I had to empty the house I couldn't leave the stupid thing behind fast enough.