Things you never see nowadays

The late Mr.G used to reminisce about those stone hot water bottles; said he used to stub his toes on them in the night and also got chilblains!!
Grannylin I think my (newly polished) stair rods are fixed for life now - it took ages to get them into place over the new carpet!
I remember my Mum's Mrs Mop (Kitty) polishing the tiles and steps with Cardinal polish. She used to give me a rag so I could help her.
I remember crouching on the playground playing Jacks. In fact I still have them although the little rubber ball has disintegrated.
We had a 'pig bin' into which all leftovers were put. Strange isn't it that Fife Council have just 'discovered' Pig Bins after all these years and have issued us with the modern version in brown plastic. It all goes in with the garden refuse and gets macerated!
The pay-booth in Sainsburys. Mum would go from counter to counter buying half a pound of butter which was patted into shape and then wrapped in greaseproof, a quarter pound of biscuits from a box with a glass lid, bacon cut from an actual beast and then it would all be paid for at the booth.
The knife grinder who wheeled his barrow along the street every few months.
The Gypsies,(toothless mostly) dressed in long skirts and shawls selling wax flowers and pegs at the door and subtly threatening you with damnation if you didn't buy!
It sounds like Victorian times but all this was in the 50's and 60's

MacFisheries shops.

Horse-drawn milk cart. All the kids waiting with a bucket & shovel to collect the horse's droppings to take back for the veg patch.

Bags of coke or coal being wheeled home in an old pushchair.

Gulleys at the front of butcher shop windows where the blood ran off the slab and gathered.

The rag and bone man with his horse and cart. The man who sat on a bike and sharpened knives and such. Three deliveries a day by a postman in full uniform, complete with a smart hat. Schoolchildren wearing smart uniforms and not eating and drinking in the street/on the bus [because the school had strict rules.]

Marelli

Your DH sounds a good old soul. He would have gotten on well with my mum. She loved 'doing the brasses'. Her favourite was the fender and horse brasses. I feel bad to this day I gave the brasses away but I HATE cleaning brass, too messy.

the demise of cowslips, primroses and violets on the banks and hedgerows.

Obridges cough medicine.

xmas/ sugar mice paper chains etc.

school satchels, boys wearing school caps.

My favourite. The beautiful silver cash tills and money shoots in shops.

The cool box outside in a shady part of the garden to store the weekend's meat and cream etc in. It was wooden with mesh sides.

Lady next door had an outhouse at the bottom of her garden with a copper heated by a fire underneath I can remember the chimney stack smoking. She used blue for her whites, and hard green soap to scrub the washing.

Lady down the road who made cream down the bottom of her garden - we would potter over with a bowl and buy it for tea - bread jam and cream -- utterly divine.

Monica the milk lady who had a black van and sold milk ladled into our jugs. I can remember the smell of the van.

People having a singsong around the piano.

playing in the road and pig bins

Going to the farm up the road to get (really, really!) fresh milk.

Taking our food slops to the small holding over the road and throwing them over the wall for the pigs.

Taking the 'order' to the shop on my way to school and it being delivered shortly after by a boy on a bike. The order was always the same and always cost the same! The grocer's had one of those enormous black and brass coffee grinders in the window. We thought it was a real treat to be allowed to turn the handle - bit of clever marketing from the owner!

Lots of children potato picking in the summer AND not being allowed to join them - they seemed to have such fun. I have told you my mum is a snob haven't I?

Our television which was huge (!!) at least a 12" screen which had an integral radio and massive knobs that looked like gold cake cases.

My birthday cakes, which were always victoria sandwiches (with strawberry jam in) and icing on top, decorated with fruit pastilles cut in half and balancing precariously round the top edge! One year my present was red ballet shoes!

The greengrocer's horse drawn cart coming on Saturday morning and being allowed to have monkey nuts, which cost 3p.

Car drivers doing hand signals (not that sort!) for "i am slowing down, turning left or right" etc, then later cars had orange indicators that popped up out at the side of the car.
Big improvement as there was no need to open the window to indicate, - the rain used to come in!

mrsmopp

Oh yeah, my first car was a Morris Minor and I had to do that.

Anyone remember seeing nylons being MENDED?

In Hale, near the railway station (you see less of those these days!) a woman sat in a shop window, using a tiny hook to hook up the ladders in stockings.
It must have done her eyes in!

Yes! A lady sat in the window of what was the roller skating rink on Abington Square in Northampton. It was a full-time job....repairing nylon stockings.

The local blacksmith, who had his forge next to a row of wooden shops. Precarious but there was never a fire. In the winter, he would let us get warm before we trooped back come with the bags of shopping.

Wash tubs with rubbing boards and possers, and mangles. I used to love turning the handle on the mangle and seeing all the water come out.

The funny thingy in which the Co-op staff put cash and a bill of sale...it was sent hurtling across the ceiling on a track and finished up in the office [upstairs]. Change was returned with a receipt and divi wotsit. I remember it well. The highlight of a Saturday traipsing round the shops with my mother.

My Grandad was a knocker up in the 50s and 60s. Always an early riser he used to give several of his neighbours a knock at 5 am every work day morning. He collected his payment, a pint or two of Guinness every Friday in his local. He suffered with pernicious anaemia and had been told to indulge in Guinness as much as possible as part of his treatment or so he said.

Ella...when not catching fingers between the rollers.

Oh when, I'd forgotten the blacksmith. It was lovely and warm in there. We had a shoemaker next door to that. He had lasts with (rich) people's names on!

We also had a farm in the middle of the village which a butcher's shop on the high street. It had been in the same family for years and (luckily for them!) there were always two brothers in each generation, one of whom ran the farm (called Farmer Clarke!) and the other, who ran the butcher's (called Butcher Clarke) Our order always included lights which mum cooked for the cat (yeuk!!!)

Oh we'll I remember the mangle! Ours was huge when I was a child, and kept outside with a large galvanised container under it. The water was then poured back into the wash boiler in the kitchen.
My first washing machine was a top loader with an electric mangle- such progress. I remember feeding the shirts through it with those wooden tongs, only for the buttons to snap in half as I did so. Evening spent sewing new buttons on the shirts!

Taking Yorkshire pudding to local baker on Sundays. He would cook several at a time in his vast oven. Picking cooked pud up and calling in the Bold Dragoon to have large jug filled with ale.

Allie I have a wooden egg shaped darner with a groove cut out of it for darning nylon stockings. I also have a little leather case full of spools of flesh coloured silk again for darning stockings although I don't think it would be fine enough for the nylons of the 50/60s. Both are interesting little items.

I can still remember Mums divi number 74509 if I had been a very good girl (rare) I was allowed to collect the divi money and keep it for myself. In fact I still have the original dividend book. These days the CO OP use a plastic card not half as nice as the original book.

45009. (but I can't remember my own, sook!)
Penny in the slot to use a public loo. I expect young people these days would be puzzled by the term 'spend a penny'.

Several Saturday morning cinema bits....

Frozen Jubblies, cost 3d.

Hundreds of us standing to sing the National Anthem before the films began. The Manager stood on the stage and if he saw one child turn to put their seat down before the very last notes had played, he'd make us sing it again!

The smell of sour milk in the foyer, from the bags of unwashed milk bottle tops brought in to raise money...for blind children I think?

I remember mending stockings and then, later, tights. I also remember putting odd stockings that didn't need mending into a saucepan and boiling them up together so that the colour became even and you had more matching pairs.

My mum's co-op number was 499638. So I haven't got Alzheimer's yet. [smile [relief emoticon]