What our parents did that wouldn't be seen now

My mother had some sort of pink ointment that was meant to "draw" out the pus, I can still remember how a big lump would form and then burst with all the pus and blood ousing (can't spell) out. Sorry for those with a delicate disposition!

Soutra my father had a black bowler that he wore every year to take the salute at the memorial garden in Wednesbury. He was president of our local branch of the British Legion.
I used to watch from our dining room window as it was opposite the garden (and even better next door to the library. The librarians never bothered to file my brothers and my tickets away until closing time as we would choose a book, sit on our doorstep, read it, take it back and choose another!)

Galen, our local library wouldn't let you do that! I'd go on Saturday morning, would have read the book by mid-afternoon and they wouldn't let me take out another on the same day on that ticket!!!

I got tonsillitis when I was young and I remember the doctor coming to visit me - mum got me out of bed, wrapped me up in a blanket so that she could change the sheets before the doctor came! He gave me M&B tablets which seemed huge but worked a treat.

My dad had a bowler hat, I wish I had kept it.

rosesarered Until your post of 21.01, this had been quite a light hearted, nostalgic thread. You then decided to make some critical comments about a thread on the politics forum and referred to contributors as "whining" and "posturing".

If you disagree with the comments on a particular thread (and I don't know to which thread you were referring), why not put your point of view on that thread?

As to taxes being "our money" - yes, it is your money, and it is my money also, and I too have a view as to how it should be spent.

As other posters have pointed out, your characterisation of our parents'/grandparents' generation as all being happy with their lot and "just getting on with it" is a sweeping generalisation.

Whitewave, I wonder was the pink ointment Germolene ? Smelled like Peptobismol.

My father always wore a hat too - never, of course, indoors and always raised to ladies. I think it was a fedora. I also remember M & B, presumably May & Baker. I had pneumonia when I was three and recall the bottle of pink medicine that was kept on top of the wardrobe in my bedroom. I also at one time had thread worms but have no intention of describing the primitive and deeply embarrassing treatment of the 1950s. Nowadays, a readily available tablet solves the problem.

Wow some of you have some seriously interesting memories from the 40s.
My grandmother was in effect one of my parents and she was a keen gardener. She used to "take a little cutting" if she saw a plant she fancied (e.g in the "educational gardens") and if she heard the rag and bone man (the only trader who still had a horse and cart) she would nip out with bucket and shovel in case there was any horse manure she could commandeer for her rose bushes.
My parents both had rheumatic fever in their childhood. No antibiotics and the after effects killed my father at 34.
They both rejected christianity and were agnostic/atheist and we were not christened. He was involved in trying to set up a new political party after the war and, I believe, stood for election (which I have never done). He had a beard and relatively long hair. He used to wear a hand-knitted tie that a child made for him. Pretty unusual in the post-war years (he died in 1955).

JessM, my mum's behaviour was exactly like your grandmother's. No walk, or visit to any country park or garden was complete without mum snipping cuttings of any plant she fancied. She also nipped out with a bucket and shovel whenever the rag and bone man came down the road.

We didn't have germoline (luxury!), mum made a poultice of sugar and soap if we had a cut that went sceptic. I confess to doing the same thing when my children were small.

Grannie always had the family baby on her knee, and as soon as the baby was ready for solids, would chew bits of food, to feed to the baby. Amazing that so many of us are still here to tell the tale, given we roamed the countryside unsupervised, and lived in smoke filled homes.

Back to the knee injuries theme - Mum used to put the pink ointment onto a piece of lint and then bung it onto my knee then wrap it in a bandage, which if the wound was bad enough would stain with the puss etc. It was always horrible when it came time to change it as the lint stuck to the would and always made it bleed.

My grandfather always wore a trilby - even when gardening. He worked before WW1 as a gardener for a big estate in Somerset, and was entitled to 1 Sunday in the month off. H e was required to attend C of E church every week regardless of faith or denomination (he was Methodist).

Was injured at Gallipoli (is that the the correct spelling?)which put paid to his war effort.

Those were the days!!

Its interesting that there were all those puss-y knees. I was moisturising MIL's back the other day. Smooth and white as when she was born, as never exposed to the sun, and asked her about a scar. An abscess when she was a child apparently. I remember my gran having abscesses on her bottom.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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).

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.

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.]

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.

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.

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.

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