Things you don't see any more.

Three years ago beside the Kennet and Avon locks, near the café, I lost a soft camera case with an SD card in it. (Luckily didn't lose the camera.) I don't suppose any of you Devises folk happened to find it.

Black Swan gone a bit upmarket but still has the wonky elements and still the Wadsworth shires deliver the beer around the town, wonderful sight!

That's mighty kind, loopylou, if only the diet would permit, but thanks for the offer. Another Devizes memory - lunches in the Black Swan in the Market Place, they were fantastic, floors and tables so crooked that your plates would slide about.

I like hot bovril in the winter. No open fire so can't do the crumpets & chestnuts

Drinking hot Bovril by the fire, toasted crumpets done over an open fire, hot chestnuts baked on a shovel.......

Alas no Devizes railway station, now a car park, but still a lovely market in the Marketplace and Market Hall (minus livestock!) on a Thursday and a lovely place to visit especially to wander along the Kenneth and Avon canal and down the locks on Cain Hill to the little cafe at the bottom. Am not a Devizesite but worked there for some years.
Been in to Bath this morning and plenty of Bath Chaps on sale! Happy to send you one papaoscar!

Fireside tartan was what we called it!

We used to call mottled legs "corned beef legs" anno.

Chilblains.

Mottled legs (mum, granny and auntie) from sitting too close to the coal fire. Not glamorous!

Elothan. You can still get a brand new Motor cycle and side car from Watsonian here :-
www.watsonian-squire.com/

Papa, just bought some sherbert lemons to suck while we are driving to our DD today.

envious I agree this thread is an education (I only came to the UK in 2000 - and am still learning! Love this thread.

What memories you bring back, Loopylou, of Devizes in the 50s. The railway station, Corn Exchange, Littlle Brittox, Wadworths, the Moonrakers, the cattle market, junior school, the Crammer, snuff factory. Southbroom School, Devizes Grammar, Cards coaches. And to think Bath chaps and lardies still exist. Wonderful. Many thanks!

You can still by Bath chaps in the Guildhall market papaoscar, and Lardy cakes here in Wiltshire are still yummy!

Thank you lovely ladies for the education you give me!

My next door neighbours have only just got rid of their air raid shelter.

Bubble cars.

Are there still motorbikes with side cars?

Mods and rockers.

Rossi's ice cream dished up from refrigerated steel bowls - the ice cream had a lovely flavour and consistency.

Instant Whip, Spangles.

A policeman standing in the middle of the road directing the traffic.

Little metal trays of hard toffee, Batgers I think, which came with a little hammer. Tinned salmon sandwiches with cucumber, followed by tinned pears or peaches with condensed milk - heavenly! Sherbert lemons that would scour your mouth out they were so acid. Big, sticky brown lardy cakes in Wiltshire, dripping with lard, currants and sugar. Bath chaps - fatty cone-shaped bacon joints covered in breadcrumbs.

I still have one of those metal strips with my name on, stuck on a cupboard in my kitchen.

Tripping down the lumpy hall runner because my grandmother used to fold damp jumpers between newspapers and put them under the runner to get them pressed! Soap scraping round in an enamel basin...thank goodness for plastic. Plastic everything.....flowers with the soap powder, basins, cutlery handles in wonderful colours; matching plastic budgie cage cover and little base cover with elasticated top which was meant to catch the seed; paper Xmas bells that folded out, a tiny Coronation coach and horses ornament, plastic deer that came with Babycham....

Things you don't see any more ? Does my feet (among other things) count?

Air raid shelters, I can remember ours being used as a store for garden stuff in the early 50's. There must still be some around. I think ours was an anderson shelter, corrugated iron dug in and covered with soil.

I might add that, as this thread is about looking back, I can remember when I used the poss stick in the tub for my grannie and then the mangle and while we did that the dinner was in the oven at the side of the fire. The clothes were hung on a string in the front room, almost dripping if it was raining outside and the smell of soap along with the sooty coal fire smell brings back memories.

Pam, I still use a spinner for some of my washing, my ultra modern piece of crap machine is useless for spinning and as it is a washer/dryer it just does not have the power to spin well, the clothes are almost dripping wet and if put onto dryer mode will take over 2 hours so I get out my spinner and remove dishfuls of water then they are well on the way to going in for a short burst of maybe 45 mins or less in the dryer.
The old ways are the best and most economical.
Mind you must be careful what you spin, not woolys or delecates etc.

Those one-penny machines on station platforms that printed-off a little metal strip with words you could choose with a big circular pointer. Then the little bell that would ring when the train was due and the groan and squeak as they closed the level-crossing gates. Exciting stuff!