1950's Childhood.

But I never remember feeling cold, even though we kept our coats on the bed to keep warm. Being sent home from school cause the fog was so thick none of the buses were running.

And a coal fire in the sitting room but ice on the inside of the windows in my bedroom in winter - getting dressed underneath the blankets!

Winter coats with velvet collars and hats that matched
Angora beret and gloves that made me sneeze
Going to the fair on my own (!)
Walking a long way home from school on our own age 7 (and calling into the library on the way)
Clark's sandals with the toes cut out at the end of the summer
Learning to ride a bike - thinking my brother was holding the saddle but he had let go so I was away!
Learning to swim in the very cold small pool at the Corporation Baths
Swimming in the river
Mum using Dolly Blue to whiten the sheets
Running 'errands'
The grass on the wide verge in our road grew to head height - they never seemed to cut it!
The school dentist and the nit nurse
The 11+

Virol, cod liver oil and that thick orange juice from the clinic.
Dick Barton
Forces Favourites and the smell of Sunday roast dinner

I was about to say the same, gillybob. Not a coal miner dad, but we lived in a big old cottage in the country, and I remember my mother getting upset when the gas lights went, but letting me have the old bulbs as 'earrings' that she would twist up with fuse wire for me, because they were beautiful once they had blown. We had a well in the courtyard, and sometimes we had to use it. We had a big outhouse that housed the mangle, my mother and grandmother would put the eiderdowns through it once a year.

We had the rag and bone man, and I would be sent out with knives for him to sharpen - aged five! And the excitement when they decided to tar our dusty lane was immense, great big noisy steamrollers inching towards us, and my grandmother getting upset because I had tar on my new long white socks, having to have tar removed from my legs with butter.

Ice on the insides of the bedroom windows, my mother saying that Jack Frost had been in the night, and we believed her.

All of our shopping had to be done in one small, dark crowded shop. We did however have a washing machine and fridge and television. My mother still talks about how damp the kitchen and scullery were, but I remember the massive bath that all three of us and my father could get into together! Heaven only knows why it was that big, back then.

I loved it there, all of us did apart from my mother, and watching the Back in Time for Dinner programme, I can see why, with three of us and another on the way, so we moved into a brand new house in a village, with all mod cons and schools near by. A whole new world - we had jumped in a day from 1935 to the late 60s!

I was born in 1962 and my childhood involved alot of what others have described in the 1950's. My dad was a coal miner and we lived in a two roomed upstairs flat in the only street left standing in the area. We shared a spider ridden outside loo with 3 other families.

Cod liver oil and ( thick ) orange juice
Gas mantels and the smell of polish and apples in my Grans front room
My Grandads caraway seed cake and arrowroot blancmange
Ovaltine and candles at bedtime

My Gran had an ovaltine mug with a lid shaped like a nightcap.

Grans biscuit tin full of broken biscuits

Desperately wanting a bike for Christmas but getting a scooter instead because Father Christmas didn't have enough money.
Sitting on a step outside a.pub with a pkt of crisps. Dad inside having a pint.
Saturday morning cinema- bedlam!
Usherettes yelling us to shut up!
Trips out with our motor bike & sidecar, wow!
Getting badly sunburnt on bank holidays.

Virol and cod liver oil
Making shampoo by soaking bits of soap in water
Helping to put the sheets through the mangle
Playing in the street - no traffic!
Taking a bowl to buy ice cream.
Long train journeys by steam train

Sitting in my dad's car on Sundays to listen to Life with the Lyons while he washed the car. We didn't have a radio indoors!
Stone hot water bottles.
Home made jam tarts.
Making paper chains at Christmas with flour and water paste - and trying to stop the cat eating it!
Fireworks ONLY on Guy Fawkes Night - not on any other day of the year, ever!
Oxo tins
Black jacks - 4 for a penny.
Palm toffee
Izal loo paper
Chicken for dinner being a real treat, only for high days and holidays.

Coal fires.
Freezing cold bedrooms in the winter.
Eiderdowns and blankets.
School dentists and libraries having squeaky lino on the floor.
Taking a primus stove on family picnics.
Everything being closed on Sundays.
Being able to buy sweets with one penny.
Postal orders for birthday presents and thinking you were doing very well if you got more than half a crown.
Lots of cowboy series on TV.
Being very excited to stay with my aunt because she had ITV and adverts!
Always having to call adults Mrs or auntie.

Gas lighting at school

The school classroom made with asbestos walls

Making camps in the woods and lighting a fire to cook toast on ('elf & Safety?!)

Crowning of the May Queen

Trying to catch grasshoppers

Walking home after school up the 1 in 6 hill

Trying to break into my own house after reading how to do it in a comic (would have worked if the key hadn't bounced too far!!)

The coalman delivering sacks that were bigger than he was

Setting up camp in the garden to sleep overnight - we lasted about 5 minutes with all the strange sounds coming from the woods!

Getting stuck up a tree in the other woods where I wasn't meant to be

Only one car in the road

Sitting on the front steps playing with woodlice and other creepy crawlies, or picking at the fresh bread that had been delivered, leaving a huge hollow in the middle

Neighbours calling each other Mr or Mrs - no first-name terms until they'd known each other for at least thirty years!

Gas poker to light the coal fire

Shops selling broken biscuits and broken chocolate more cheaply than perfect ones

The foot Xray machine in the shoe shop

Fillings at the dentist with no anaesthetic injections

Party lines on the phone

Having to call the operator to book a call Person to Person to the US

Envelopes and letters being addressed to ". . . . . " Esq

The twitching sound of trolley buses

Blancmange and junket

Winkles for Sunday tea - using a pin to twiddle them from their shells

How lovely to walk down memory lane!

Chilblains
Frost on the inside of the windows like fairyland
Sitting on Dad's knee in front of the coal fire & getting hot knees
A stripey deck chair type material over the front door in summer to protect the paintwork from the sun
Summer school sports - high jump, potato race and 3 legged race
Elastic garters to keep socks up - very uncomfortable
Having to wear a blazer in the hot sun - it had a certain smell when hot
Kicking through the leaves on my way home from school in Autumn
My Mum's pressure cooker whistling away in the kitchen
Roller skates
Sleeping on Dad's army camp bed in the garden
Making a 'house' out of an old packing chest
Playing in the rec behind our house and being called home to the sound of a bell
New shiney leather school shoes - ooh, the smell
Looking out of my bedroom window to the aerial at Crystal Palace some 7 miles away
Visiting my Grandma and getting Rose's chocolates and a 5/- note
The smell of sherry and cigars on Christmas Day

I could go on ........

Playing in old air raid shelters on the allotments
Shelling peas in the garden
Picking black currants and destalking them
Rhubarb crumble and custard
Liver and bacon yuk
Admiring grandads WW1 medals and bayonet he had
Knitted swimming costumes
Riding donkeys at Margate
Waving to TB patients who were in outdoor hospital which was overlooked by the guest house we stayed in at the seaside

Tying dusters of my feet and skating about on the lino pretending to be a top class ice skater.

Mum thought it was a great game and encouraged all my friends to do it.

'Fat Bob' who came round with his fruit n veg van.

Making dens in the long grass of the open space behind our gardens.

Camping out over night in the garden with my friend.
Mum polishing the lino.

Being jealous of my older brothers Lego and large wheeled trike.

Dads annual holiday being spent having day trips out to Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs. ( I was 11 when we had our first holiday away)

Plus all of the previous posters memories.

... and messing on the pavements petallus

Dick Barton, Special Agent (on the radio).
Lots of dogs running freely around the streets.

Building dens out of all the cut grass after the council cutters had been.
Skating down the paved hills on the local council estate because we loved the noise. (our estate had tarmac paths)
Feeding buns from the visiting baker to a jackdaw that used to sit on my shoulder.
Bunty comic every Tuesday, swapped with friend's Judy each week.
Going to mass every Sunday - picking all the French knots off my 'best' dress because I was so bored there
Taking a tobacco tin full of beads to school every day and spending break-time swapping them with friends.
Collecting PG Tips cards (always called 'cigarette cards' )
Playing on bombsites and later, when we'd moved from London, playing on building sites in the half-built houses.
Corned beef fritters.
Fry's balsam - loved this and often used to 'steal' a spoonful when unobserved, even when I didn't have a cough...
Honey and borax on mouth ulcers.

Hot, Hot, Hot.
Sun, sea, boats, swimming, shopping at night.
School finishing at lunchtime. No homework.
Tomato ketchup sandwiches.
Flip flops.
Playing the recorder.
Elvis Presley.

Impetigo.
Sunstroke.
Asian 'flu (in Asia)
Salt tablets.

Shooting, grenades, mesh grills on school bus windows.
Letters home.
Comics (at least a month old)
Enid Blyton.

Back in UK just in time for the sixties

Pigs trotters for tea. Ugh!
Red blotchy legs from sitting by the fire. The rest of the house like an icebox.
Fog and smog.
Smell of smoke from coal fires.
Mum and dad smoking woodbine and coughing all the time.
Sweets four a penny.
Gobstoppers.

1d toffee chews (Penny Dainties) - filled your mouth so you couldn't speak
Sweetie tobacco and cigarettes (!)
Digging soft tar out of pavements in summer with a stick
Annual purchase of Clark's sandals-hated getting the crepe soles dirty
Bird's Eye roast chicken dinners.
Piano lessons
People still talking about first WW
Walking to school by ourselves
Hiding in the canes of sweet peas

Waving to steam train drivers as they passed our house. Piano lessons, awful, hated them. Collecting shit manure from milkman's horse.

The salad lady pulling her cart around the streets on Sunday followed by the shrimps and winkles man.
Bread and sugar instead of dinner
Socks that always fell down
Chapped legs
Knitted pixie hats
Hospitals that reeked of ether (had to have my finger sewn back on)
Playing on the bomb sites
Skipping in the street while two men turned a huge rope
Red cardinal doorstep paint
Plimsoles that had to be whitened
Washing drying by the fire
Women wearing scarves as turbans over their curlers

I grew up in the East End of London in the 50s - dire!!

Spotting steam train numbers from the railway embankment, with biscuits and a bottle of lemonade.
The man selling oatcakes and crumpets from a wicker basket with a red gingham cloth on top.
Getting a goldfish fom the rag and bone man with his horse and cart.
The man from the water board who used to listen to the flow in the pipes with a metal rod with the end fitted in his ear. He would let us listen too, but we didn't really know what we were listening to!
Before they were converted to electricity, the man who lit the gas lamps in the street.
Saturday morning childrens cinema shows.
Gymslips and gaberdine raincoats.

Boring piano lessons
Sledging down the road at high speed
Riding my bike with no hands
Reading under the covers with a torch
Hiding out in granny's old air raid shelter
Climbing the big sycamore tree
Picking blackberries - and eating them.