What our parents did that wouldn't be seen now

ROSES, I DO go to the good old US of A when I say ^STATESIDE !
a lot!
Poor NONU couldn't fathom yr post BUT I will ^CHUCKLE anyway!!

Nonu doesn't go to the US whitewave when she says Stateside she means she loves driving on the RIGHT side of the road, it suits her to do this as she loves a challenge!

Yes I can remember it - both the smell and how it felt - a bit hot at first but after OK. Not sure how effective it was although better than nothing presumably.

Kaolin is a kind of clay used in making porcelain, and in papermaking to give a shine to the surface of the paper, and in face packs.

It was heated over hot water and spread on a bit of cloth to be bound on to a wound that was going septic, or a boil that was swelling up. The wamth would bring the boil to a head and the clay would absorb the toxins and moisture and draw the pus out of the wound. The warmth was comforting too (unless it had been heated a bit too much!).

You can still buy jars of kaolin poultice, believe it or not (on Amazon, of course)

Kaolin poultice - it had a very pleasant smell. A sort of grey paste which you warmed up somehow and placed over the infected place on some lint. It was supposed to "draw out" the poison.
One of the remedies that was tried on my knee before the gentian violet.
I still have the scar!

I don't know what a kaolin poultice was but I can remember having one put on. It was hot and it hurt. Think I had swollen glands.
I can remember my Dad rubbing my chest with goose grease too.

People who had cars when I was young were terribly posh!

My dad never could learn to drive, although he rode a motor bike in the army, so we never had a car.

We all had baths in front of the fire in a big tin bath. I was first!

I didn't live in a house with a bathroom until I was 18.

When you say STATESIDE nonu do you mean USA?

My parents likewise never took a test, as the tests were suspended during WW11.

Having said that, they both drove very well, and continued to do till their 70"s and 80"s, my father in particular would think nothing of driving from B"Ham to Suffolk when he was past 80.

I think I have that trait in my genes as I love driving STATESIDE, we usually do 3.000 to 4.000 miles each trip!!

whitewave was it a kaolin poultice? My mother was very fond of those.

My father taught himself to drive and never took a driving test. I think they were suspended during the war.
He used to scare me when driving through the assists andAustrian alps, by looking over the edge and commenting on the drop as he drove. I used to have my eyes shut and half moon marks in my palms from clenching my hands so tight.

Guess what? I still am scared of heights.

My granny had some months previously had a stroke but had seemingly recovered reasonably well. Mum let her take me in the pram to the fishmongers. She returned with the fish but minus me. Mum ran all the way to the fishmongers and found me, still outside in the pram, chortling contentedly.

Do kids still get 'scabby' knees? Remember them?Always told not to 'pick them off' but we did anyway, then more ointment had to be put on.I think it was because we were allowed to be much more daredevil in those days.

littleflo [great name!] How silly of the woman to do that.In a real case of need, nobody seems to do anything, but this was just ridiculous.
Yes, we all used to be left outside shops, but they were small shops where our parents could see through the windows[you can't get those double buggies through some doorways anyway.]

Our kids were always left in prams outside the front door or outside the shops. My son recently left the butchers and immediately realised he had left his purchase behind. He put the brake on the buggy dashed back in had his eye on the pram all the time but in those few seconds a woman outside in the street started berating him and called him irresponsible.

My dad never learned to drive a car - though he did have a motor cycle licence.

When I was about 12, my Mum got a Bond "minicar" - a 3-wheeled contraption with a narrow "seat" (more of a board) at the back for a third passenger. Because the engine was the same as a motor cycle engine, my Dad was legally able to "teach" my mum to drive, even though he was a non-driver.

Dad sat in the front passenger seat, pressing his foot on his imaginary brake as mum drove down the road, gears crunching and engine screaming, and I sat scrunched up in the back seat. I think I was more embarrassed about the awful racket the Bond made and its strange appearance than worried about the danger of the whole enterprise. (My mum did pass her test eventually and only stopped driving eight years ago when he sight deteriorated).

Yes I think it was Micelf but the only info is via my mother's cousin and she did not know him at the time the politics were going on. I expect someone has written a PhD about it.

Jess, I think it may have been mentioned somewhere before, but was the party you referred to the Commonwealth Party? My father was an active member and came to it through the Christian Socialist movement led by Richard Ackland.

I remember him coming to visit us at our little Council House and my mother making the house spick and span and borrowing my Auntie's best tea set. He gave me a silver sixpence and told me, in front of my parents, that it was mine to spend exactly as I liked.

I was diagnosed with scarlet fever when my sister was about a week old. Mum refused to do as the GP advised, and have me hospitalised. Gran came to the rescue, my bed was put in the downstairs back sitting room, with mum promising the doctor she wouldn't come in to protect the baby. I didn't realise it was strep throat Jess and I do have a heart murmur. Galen's comments about antibiotics do raise alarm, don't they

Scarletina went round DC's primary school, supposed to have been a mild form of scarlet fever.

I have seen it. Easily cured with penicillin in the past, but now
1) resistant bugs are occurring
2) GPs are reluctant to prescribe antibiotics because of resistance so we may see it in the future again.

Scarlet fever is strep throat that has started to spread around the body. If the streptococcus infection spreads to the heart its rheumatic fever. It still crops up but is easily nipped in the bud with antibiotics. S. fever used to be mentioned as one of the common childhood illnesses when I was a child but I never knew anyone that had it.

I had a septic knee when I was about 10, fell off my bike. Gentian violet finally cleared it up.
Another medical thing: scarlet fever. You never hear about it now. I was quarantined for 6 weeks.