Things you never see nowadays

What a wonderful flood of memories. I remember all of those in Lancashire especially donkey stones,rag and bone men and knocker-up
.
Some other things.
Mum had a small iron which was hollow and heated by inserting a small shaped brick made red hot by heating in coal fire.
'Walking days' -church events with banners,ribbons and flowers
Clog irons and sound of miners coming home in early morning.

Anyone remember Allen Hanbury's Glycerin and blackcurrant pastilles in the lovely blue and yellow tins. still have one of the tins in my garage.

My Sunday best coat always had a velvet collar and sort of bonnet thing to match. We used to wear liberty bodices and wooly vests in the winter. Long socks with nicker elastic garters that made marks on our legs. Ribbon bows in our hair all different colours to match our clothes presumably.

When my mum was a little girl, two older brothers made a "swing" by tying one end of a rope to the fence and the other to the mangle. They sat her on the rope, whereupon the mangle fell over and broke her leg. My grandfather then carried her, stretched out in his arms, a couple of miles to hospital.

My mother used to deliver milk from a horse and cart, whilst in the Land Army, which is how she met my father. He made her a milking stool (3-legged of course) and, as thay say, the rest is history.

daisy you must be younger than me, our Wright's Coal Tar vaporizer was a metal lamp into which liquid coal tar was poured. I agree it did a great job.

Daisy - couple of drops of Olbas Oil on the pillow at bedtime is very effective.

I was an 11year old 'milk girl' on a horse and cart during the summer holidays. Was 'paid' a pint of milk and a pint of orange juice daily, but made lots of money on a Saturday when we collected the money and got a threepenny bit tip at most houses. I learned how to carry twelve empty milk bottles at a time - 2 tucked under your arms and 10 fingers in the others and sometimes got to drive the horse and cart but not on the main road.

A few years later, when hurrying home for lunch, I inadvertantly said 'cluck, cluck' to the fruit & veg cart horse, who was waiting patiently while his master delivered a sack of tatties. Well of course he set off up the road with me in hot pursuit, desperately trying to remember the word for stop. He had made it to the grass at the pond before I shouted Whoa! He stopped and I sauntered casually back down the street to tell a bemused man where he might find his missing horse.

Hairdressing salons with a long row of hair dryers and we were sitting under them with big rollers in our hair. When your hair was dry, out came the rollers and you were back-combed and lacquered ready for Saturday night on the town..

One of the most useful things when my children were small (in the 1960s) was the Wright's vapouriser. Whenever they had a cold or a cough, these little nightlights heating the block infused with the special fluid kept their airways clear and so they were able to sleep. I suppose they were discontinued because of the flame, but they really were safe in their saucers of water. Have they been replaced with anything so effective?

I had a mangle when I was first married, wish I still had it now my hands can`t wring things out very well anymore.
When I was a child, we had batteries delivered and changed every week, for the radio, but they were kept in the pantry. We were always warned not to touch them, under pain of death, but I never even wanted to, they were large containers, open, and full of gooey looking black stuff, acid maybe?

We still have a mangle in our back garden!!!! It was Mother in Laws and well used by her!!! My hub rescued it from her garage many years ago and it stood in our shed looking very sad!!!He eventually took it apart, painted it dark green and now it stands resplendent in all its glory and reminds me of what 'wash day' really used to be like.
I worked with a country lady, many years ago, whose favourite saying was 'I never laughed so much since granny caught her t..s in the mangle' Painful or what
p.s. it has been disabled so that inquisitive grandchildren cannot mangle each other.

I have twice seen people demonstrating a mangle on TV and both times they were turning the handle backwards with the wrong hand!

There was a mangle on one of those antique challenge shows the other week. It sold for peanuts. I wonder how many children were hurt by them? We always had one in the brewhouse. I used to go to the corner shop and buy a few woodbines for my mum; they would put them in a paper bag for me.

mrsmopp my granny had a mangle like that, and I helped her mangle things when I was evacuated there during the war.

(slightly off topic - anyone heard this rhyme?
'My mother had a mangle
She filled it full of stones
She made me turn the handle
and it nearly broke my bones'.........?
I couldn't imagine what this could be like until I visited a 17th century house in Bristol with my sister....see
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_mangle !!)

New Easter hats for going to church.

Sunday best ( when you only wore your best clothes)

meriotgran,,,,,,yes thats right jacks were like a metal silver thing,,,, and yes dibs were the ridges little wooden cube

i remember i used to buy dog bones from the butchers and tell him they were for the dog,,,,,but i used to take them home and make stew, i would go down the market and wait around till they sold off the veg at ridiculous prices and that would go in the stew,,,,i used to top it up and it would last a few days, my freind used to have bread and milk for tea sometimes,,,,,,my mum never gave us that but we had oxo cubes for soup,,,,,,,,my mum would also boil potatoes then we would have a can of tomato soup poured over them, lovely dinner. we would have bread and jam for tea perhaps a boiled egg. i remember her beating up evaperated milk with margerine to make it go further, we had jelly ......................where is twink perming solution gone with the perming rollers,,,,,,,,,,my freind often used to perm freinds hair,i dont think you can buy perming stuff now adays,,,,,you have to go to the hairdressers,,,,do they still do it, ?i think they should bring back cooking good food and baking,,,,all the stuff you buy in the shops have stuff we dont know about,,,,,just to keep it on the shelves for longer,...baking is great,,,,,one thing i do like about being retired,,,i can be at home and cook and bake,

Dibs sounds like what I would call five stones but I have never heard the term. Is it regional? Yes, jacks were spiky and you bounced a rubber ball.

Have I got this right? Jacks were metal and spiky and you threw a little rubber ball. Dibs were square and ridged and you didn't have a ball. I think dibs came first.

Jacks, yes, but not dibs.

do/es anyone remember dibs and the game of jacks

And what about the heated brick wrapped up in a sock or cloth to warm your bed. Didn't it hurt when you stubbed your toe on it!

And, as has been mentioned in other threads, but no here, I think (sorry if I am being repetitive) waking up with ice on the insides of the bedroom windows. Also the foil tops of milk bottles on the doorstep popping off or bulging because the milk was freezing.

nelliemoser gosh what memories that brings back, I can remember the s towels being wrapped in paper, such discretion in those days.

nowadays we just chuck them in the supermarket trolley!!

Cannot remember barrow boys but think does ring a bell, we did not live in Frinton when I was small just for last 28 years.

Yes my Mum had a mangle in the back yard!! gosh how on earth she coped, no washmachine and twins (me and brother) plus another one, she used to heat water in copper no constant hot water must have been so hard.

In the mid 50s at Clacton small boys with push carts meeting the trains at the station, to transport your luggage to the guest house.

A rag and bone men with a horse and cart who would give out goldfish in exchange for old clothes.

In winter my Nans outside toilet with its smell of damp newspaper and the little paraffin lamp under the valve of the toilet cistern to stop it freezing, and adult sized Potties under her beds.

My mum being very embarrassed when buying those awful sanitary towels. These were taken from the top shelf of the wool shop, and then very discretely wrapped in brown paper to take home.

AA men with motor bike and side car saluting you if you had an AA badge.