Things you don't see any more.

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

Chilblains.

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

Fireside tartan was what we called it!

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!

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

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

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.

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!

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.

I was chuffed when I discovered Caen Hill locks unexpectedly while I was cycling from Bath to Cliffe Pypard.

Anyone remember company open days? I can't imagine a company "wasting" money on those nowadays!

Pompa, why don't you put your chestnuts in the oven and your crumpets in the toaster. Be better than not having them if you like them. I tried my chestnuts on a gas fire once but made a helluva mess, I was cleaning bits of nut out of the grate for ever and the smell was horrendous. I have an open flame type of fire but I stained all the front with cleaning stuff too, not a good idea.

At home in the early 50's, we used pink slabs of Lifebuoy soap for everything - washing clothes, floors and ourselves. When I think of the array of cleaning and laundry products, not to mention toiletries, that I now consider essential ...

Something I still miss is the 5 in a packet Brown and Polson's blancmange. There was a vanilla (boring), a chocolate, a strawberry, a raspberry and a banana flavour which was great for bananas and custard. We used to have chocolate sponge pudding with pink blancmange and always used the raspberry one in the Christmas trifle. The Pearce Duff blancmange you can still buy just isn't the same.

Love this thread- so many things I had almost forgotten. Rags and home perms for my hair-yes my mum wanted Shirley Temple as well!
Food- instant whip and blancmange. I also remember ice-cream bought from the van that came down our street. A 'brick' bought to save for tea, wrapped in newspaper and stored in the bottom of the pantry (no fridge) then cut into slices. I'm not sure the puddings were better I think we had so few treats they were simply very special.

Dad's first car I always thought that radiator grille looked ugly, even at the time. He sold it because it was going to cost £15 for welding to get it through the MoT.

Mums washing machine, I've still got the motor out of it somewhere in the loft. Mums Flatley clothes dryer

Getting blotchy red marks on the front of my legs from sitting too close to the fire. I was told if I did it too much the marks would be permanent. Yes, burning my legs, but the rest of the house was like a fridge.
Years later when my parents had a centrally heated pensioners bungalow, Dad wouldn't put the heating on, as it was a waste of money warming up a room if nobody was in there.

I used to kneel on the kitchen floor with my head in the gas oven to dry my hair. If it was still damp at bedtime, i slept in my rollers. My sister had those spiky rollers, remember them? Mine had elastic and a little ball that fitted in the end of the roller.
In the morning it would be back combed and lacquered before going off to work.

When I was about 7, to light the coal fire my dad used to use a gas poker. I can remember how nervous I used to get at the strong smell of the gas and the hissing sound it made passing through the flexible tube.

My mums neighbour used to wear a dead fox around her neck. Do you remember seeing those? It was complete with head, eyes, paws and tail and was the most horrific thing to see. What possessed women to wear them? They were quite common, weren't they? Ugh!!

Has Bronco been mentioned?
Pink or blue curry tins
Pull chain toilet (not loos!)
Dansette gramophones
Two bar leccy fires

Oh, I am 10 again...

I loved C & As, used to get some nice wool coats there, and also Richards Shops. Actually I confess I still have a red wool smart knitted jacket C & A Sixth Sense, which I keep for Christmassy do's. It has lasted so well, wish I'd bought more. I always seek them out when in Europe.

I also remember Mac Fisheries at Lewisham South London, they seemed to sell a variety of groceries, not just fish. I also remember buying my first pair of shoes with my own wages in 1967, from Lily & Skinner for 69 & 11.

I worked as a Saturday girl at British Home Stores - they then sold meat pies and other groceries. I was on the hat counter along one side of the building. I was told that if I needed to open the sliding cupboards under the counter to find further supplies, I must always first poke around with the long wooden stick, to avoid possibly getting bitten by a rat!!!

There's a C & A in Prague.

Who remembers chimney fires. My dad used to kneel down in front of the fire with an open newspaper to create a draught. The newspaper - on fire would often fly away up the chimney. We would wait nervously to see if a fire had started in the chimney.

The chimney sweep was called in every so often to clean the soot out of the chimney. Large sheets had to be laid everywhere to stop the spread of soot.

It all seems so old fashioned now but I can remember the sweep coming to my house in the 1970s.

Oh God yes...... the sheet of newspaper held in front of the fire. My dad used to do it... and I'm ashamed to admit so did I ...in the 70s when I lived in a little cottage with an open fire that was a bugger to light! I was(and still am) addicted to reading anything, so consequently I would hold the newspaper up to the fire, and then start to read it. Next I knew the sheet of paper was smouldering and often caught light depending on how good the news story was. And this with a baby in her carrycot in the sitting room!. Bad mummy!

I used to buy men's cheap silk shirts from C&A as cover-ups on holiday. I miss those.
An admission about 'drawing' the fire with a newspaper: I shared a house with two friends in my first year of teaching. One evening, I turned my back on the newspaper and it fell on the carpet, still burning. I promptly stamped it out, but it left a scorch mark. We managed to cover it up with a strategically placed hearth rug and it was never mentioned by the landlords. After 50 years, I think I am safe to confess!

When I was little, before I went to school we lived way out in the countryside. We had a well in the garden and it wasn't even covered up! A proper well, with bucket and little roof and winding handle.

In the washhouse, rarely used because we had a washing machine, there was a huge washing boiler and fireplace underneath. We used to rear ducks and capons, my mother did it as her 'little job'. My grandmother would arrive before Christmas to help with plucking them, the feathers would be kept and singed in the Aga, and new eiderdowns would be made. Every spring everyone's eiderdowns would be washed in the huge copper boiler, then put through an enormous mangle before being manhandled outside to dry over big racks. What a performance. My mother and grandmother would be very short-tempered on those days.