Things you never see nowadays

I loved the Twist! Did you have one of those twist dresses that were straight shift type but covered in little fringes that moved when you 'twisted'?
Some girls were overdoing it a bit and sprained a muscle in their side- were taken to hospital with suspected appendicitis?
I am sure it was good for the figure though!
So was the hula hoop!

When I was a child Indian men in turbans went from door to door selling household items from a suitcase.

What year would that have been Cannybairn? I`m not from Glasgow, but when I was 15 I met a nice young Scottish lad whilst walking along the"front", and he went round the pleasure beach with me as well, think he was called Brian.

Numberplease

you couldn't be that young girl from Glasgow who I met in the tower at Blackpool, and who promised to love me forever and never wrote?

Why has no one mentioned the street singers after the war, beautiful voices
that carried on the air, men walking slowly in their old army greatcoat singing such wonderful songs that lifted a child's heart and stopped women working.

Oh, the twist! I'd had a fall - tripped on the edge of a manhole cover - as a student and my knee was bruised, bloody and wrenched. After an evening of the twist at a student ball, it was completely recovered!

Dancing! I still love dancing.

It was very much the Twist. Twist and Shout by the Beatles and Let's Twist Again by Chubby Checker. I even won a twist competition when I was away on holiday in Wales with my family. I think I was 14 or 15, can't remember what the prize was.

I missed out on the jive, and certainly on the jitterbug! There's a group of young people meet every week near where I live to dance Jitterbug!

Some lovely posts here! Very nostalgic.

What about dances down the local swimming pool? They used to board it over - nice and bouncy to dance on! I doubt health & safety would let you get away with it these day.

If you're interested in recording memories - or helping someone else do it - this is an interesting idea for Christmas: www.yourstoryforever.co.uk/

Yes, I used to feel so sorry for the animals in that zoo, it was far too small and confined, glad it`s not there anymore. As far as I`m concerned, the only thing of beauty in Blackpool is the gorgeous Tower ballroom, I can remember going to see Reginald Dixon on the organ, as a child I was absolutely overawed at the organ (and Mr. Dixon) coming up out of the stage floor!

I was at school in Blackpool about 1951-5.
Never went up the tower but remember there was a zoo underneath it?

Sel, last time I was in Blackpool was 1989, and that was the first time in about 15 years, due to us moving across the country. At that time, I thought it was even shabbier than it used to be, but I believe that a lot of changes have been made recently, for the good. But there`s still no Fairyland!

numberplease I just met you on the 'where are we' thread! Blackpool eh? I used to go there to the Mecca Ballroom - I'd told my daughter that and she told me to watch '999 what's your emergency' about the Emergency services in Blackpool - wow, it's certainly changed! Happy days

The Fairyland ride at Blackpool, always my favourite attraction there in my childhood, alas no more. It was opposite Central Pier, on the corner of, I think, Chapel Street.

yogagran and gramps Yes, I do remember those aluminium strips! They were even more exciting than the chewing gum machines (I think I had a deprived childhood!)

What a lovely thing gramps that you still have that strip, so romantic. I wonder if you've been to Waterloo Station recently - it's enormous, they've managed to add a whole new level with lots of shops and restaurants. The clock is still there

I still have an aluminium strip from one of these machines Yogagran.
I wrote a love message to my then girl friend. Now my wife of 57 yrs.
The machine was on Waterloo Stn. near where the lost property office used to be!
Doesn't time fly?!!

Jumping jacks were terrifying!

Was it not pistachio?

I remember the machines that used to be on railway station platforms where you could print out your name on a long strip of tin by dialling the letters on a huge disc, like the modern Dymo machines but HUGE

Thanks Grannylin, if there was an edit button I'd do that now ;)

Re fireworks - how about those ric-racs/jumping jacks?

I used to be scared they would jump into my wellies.
And in the 60s I was in a cinema and someone let one off! I left.

Thanks for sharing that trishs It seems almost archaic.Easier to follow if you tick the'converts links automatically' box under your message

Berthillon, Ile St Louis, Paris. You can avoid the queue by ordering it in a café.

The thing about the Neapolitan ice cream wasn't just that it was lovely but it was a treat. For us it was a Sunday only thing - Sundays were different and reserved for treats. Tinned fruit with evaporated milk - only on Sunday! Imagine children being excited by that now. We always had a family walk on Sunday afternoon and often round the harbour in Heysham. There was a railway station there with two vending machines. A huge treat was a packet of chewing gum, or a chocolate bar. There just doesn't seem to be that attitude now, things seem to have stopped being special. Ah well.

I was going to say that the green stripe was almond, but Absent beat me to it! Modern Neapolitan ice cream is nothing like the original.
And no, Ana, they don`t make Terry`s neapolitans anymore, but then Terry`s is no more, either.

People have mentioned old people with rickets and children in leg irons. Back in the fifties I was in hospital for a year, most of the time 'attached' to my bed. I was lucky, I wasn't in a 'plaster bed' like the person in this post http://margueriteheptonhospital.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/colin-welbournes-further-recollections.html., but some of my friends were encased in plaster from head to foot.
Some of my fellow ward inmates spent years there, with their parents and relatives only allowed to visit weekends. Siblings under the age of 14 weren't allowed to visit at all. Children spent most days outdoors, even when it was snowing, sometimes sleeping outdoors, and the hospital was between a remand home and an open prison! I can't imagine parents of today letting their children live under the conditions that I and many more children in the past had to cope with. My account of my time at the hospital is here http://margueriteheptonhospital.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/patricia-senior-nee-tasker-recalls-her.html