Things you don't see any more.

Lapwing, the high wire money containers were still in use in the Midsomer Norton Co-op when I moved down that way from London in 1971. I really felt we'd discovered Olde England. Phone boxes still had Buttons A&B - & we didn't have a telephone either, or a washing machine, & a freezer was still 10 years in the future.

Very non-U to 'cock your finger' when drinking your tea!!

The smell of the coal fire I used to sit in front of on a sunday night to dry my hair for school the next day and the coal shed out back. My Mum still had a traditional corner shop right up until the mid 90's where you could sit whilst they sliced your ham or bacon or whatever, did your shopping or squeeze the loaf to choose which crust was best (and fresh). I remember the taste of the cream from the top of the milk and how Id get told off if I didn't put a cover out for the milkman to cover the bottle tops with or else we'd find the sparrows or robin had been there and inched the cream through the foil top 1st! My dad was a milkman for a short while on a horse and cart.
I still drink my cuppa with my little pinky in the air- it just sticks up naturally honest!
The smell of monday washday; the boiling clothes either washed first in the bath or later a twin tub, the mangle and later a separate electrically spinner which used to let out seemingly tons of water into a bowl below it and then hopping for a dry day to dry the clothes (especially sheets) or else the smell of damp items on the clothes horse or child guard in front of the coal fire. Funny how smells, and tastes, can take you right back to a memory eh. My youngest, age 12, and 2 grandkids have no idea what a coal fire is when I asked recently!!!

We used to scald the milk every day to stop it going off but the bonus was the cream which we used to have with bread and jam. Couldn't scald the milk today anyway because of pasterization

Ice on the inside of windows was usual as a child. These days it would be a news items pointing out poverty. Used to warm PJ's in front of the fire. Quickly change and then clutching hot water bottle rush upstairs into bed under a mound of blankets and eiderdowns.
Parents then left the living room door open to let some heat up.

Ice on the INSIDE of the windows - especially during the winter of 1962/63. I remember being off school for over a week when the snow was at its worst.

That reminds me - Toni perms and the advertisement 'which twin has the toni'. My mother used to give all her friends home perms and it was quite usual for us to come home from school to find the house reeking of perming lotion. But she didn't inflict them on me.

A Yorkshireman on TV this morning was wearing a double breasted suit, not seen one of those for years, the suit, not the Yorkshireman.

Twink perms. That disgusting smell. Mother really wanted Shirley Temple for a daughter so from the age of 10 I was subjected to this every summer.

We had no fridge in the old days. Mother had a 'meat safe' made of perforated zinc kept on a cold slate shelf in the larder with the butter, cheese and other perishables. It seemed to work, but I remember that things used to get quite smelly. Soap - in the kitchen we had a small wire mesh ball on a stick into which you put all your bits of soap so as not to waste them. You used this for washing up so that your plates had the faint aroma of coal tar. For washing clothes mother had a boiler, wash-board, mangle and drying frame in a pulley over the bath. Yes, we had a proper bath, but auntie in the country had a tin bath once a week in front of the kitchen range. Tooth paste - gritty pink paste in a tin which you mixed up with water and tasted awful. Think it was called Gibbs Dentifrice. Entertainment - all sat round the fire listening to the radio. Happy days? They seemed to be, but I don't want to go back to them.

Anyone remember sticking Green shield stamps into little book (can still taste the glue)? And Cadbury chocolate bars in 3 sizes - for a ha'penny, 1old penny or tuppence?
Certainly remember the mangle and Monday being washing day, with the washing hanging in a rack suspended from the ceiling and carbolic soap....

Do you remember the large 2lb tins of South African jam-usually peach or apricot it was delicious. We lost that when we joined Europe.

As a little girl I remember looking in the chemists window at the packets of Dr Whites and puzzling how they came to get towels into such small packages.

Amami setting lotion - I think it was pink and very sticky
Gypsy women at the door with baskets of 'flowers' made from coloured wax.
Red Mansion polish for the brick step to the house
Treadle drill at the dentist (used to frighten me to death)
The Rag & Bone man on a horse drawn cart (did they really collect bones?!)

number, my two eldest granddaughters were doing that to their hair a couple of years ago. They are 21 and 14.

My GDs go to Sunday School, and call it that. Sometimes it's 'Messy Church' . I think they just do crafts or painting on those days...probably with a christian theme!

They call it "junior church" now numberplease.

I wonder if any little girls with longish hair still get their hair wrapped up in "rags" overnight to make ringlets? Mine was done once a week, for Sunday School, it looked nice, but was tedious sitting there for ages whilst my mother wrapped the rag strips around portions of hair. Come to that, do children still go to Sunday School?

All I have to do is go to Beamish Museum, ten minutes drive away, and it soon cures me of the nostalgia of coal fires and ranges, no electricity and the old fashioned Co-op with butter pats, and blue bags for sugar. The bakery is very good, with one of the first industrial mixers in the country, but they run out of bread just as quickly as I remember.

I remember my mothers coop divi number, but I'm not sharing it with you because I use it as apart of my password. So it's still in use

Does anyone remember the Coop divi. Every time you bought something had to give divi number, 1648, and you got a little ticket.

Worked for me - I never noticed the colour was wrong on my link!

Now that link doesn't work! I give up!

are they colour blind?

Christmas visits to London to see the lights and decorated shop windows in Oxford Street and Regent Street. Strolling arm-in-arm with the crowds. The smell of chestnuts roasting. Tea at Lyons Corner House. Admiring all the toys and stuff in Hamley's, Selfridges and Derry and Toms etc. Cheerful sound of the Sally Army band playing carols. Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. All the noise, hustle and bustle and I don't recall there being any trouble. Falling asleep on the train on the way home. Those were the days...and you could probably still do it, I suppose.