1950's Childhood.

Ginger beer bubbling in the pantry
Milkman's horse - Dobbin
Malt extract and cod liver oil
Vicks rubbed on our chest when we stayed with grandarents in the summer hols!
Whip and top
Skates with ballbearings in the wheels
Jacks (got some in Lakekand last Christmas - identical)
Listen with Mother
White sandals polished and laid out around the dustbin lid to dry in the sunshine
Grandad spreading cinders on the path in his veg patch
Cutting through the gap in the hedge to call for friends to play out
Village smithy and cobblers

Black canvas 'pumps' - we ran around on them all summer.
Five bob a pair from Woolies.
We used them for PE as well.
Ah, P.E. Standing in rows arms stretch, knees bend..
Throwing beanbags to one another.
The pop man, with Corona, 3d back on the bottle.

petallus; Journey Into Space sounds like a radio forerunner of Pathfinders in Space which was my favourite tv series.

I still have old fashioned sticky fly papers hanging in my workshop, but as said, there are no where near as many flies now.

Petallus - flypapers We used to have one shaped like a basket of flowers and another shaped like a parrot.

They were coated with DDT and I used to play with them!!!

Asbestos - we used to play on an asbestos roof and mum's ironing board had a hole in it and inside was crumbling asbestos!!

Where have all the flies gone - there used to be thousands of them in the 1950s summers, also wasps.

Fly papers
Journey into Space
Chilblains
Po under bed

The 50s were my teen years - and when I consider the 60s I'm glad of it!

Our milkman's horse was named Rosie - fancy being able to remember that! We had United Dairies - Express Dairies had a horse-drawn float too, but the Co-op had an electric affair like a dog-cart with one shaft. The milkman walked, holding the control section of the shaft, and thus drove the float!

Roses and rhubarb did well in our avenue... the net curtains would twitch as the horses progressed and decided where to deposit their loads, at which point people with shovels and buckets would erupt from the sideways that led to their back gardens! It never failed to amuse me...

The Beano and Dandy which my dad thought were unsuitable reading for a nice little girl. Loved them.

The smell of Mansion House furniture polish.

Five stones.

Hardly any cars parked in the road.

Plasticine

Also roaming about all day (as mentioned) and coming home for tea.

Marbles in the gutter and manhole covers.

My collection of bus tickets.

Dolls' prams.

The milkman's horse. Ditto the coalman.
The baker's van and his big basket of warm-smelling goodies.
Glass milk bottles in a bowl of water with a wet tea towel over the top in a shady place in the garden in summer.
Frocks with masses of smoking on the bodices.
Brown paint – indoors and outdoors.
A cuckoo clock money box in which I lovingly inserted my sixpence a week – every week.
Frost on the insides of bedroom windows on a winter's morning – and hot water bottles the night before.

Mums at home all day.
Children's Newspaper.
Coronation on tiny TV, (curtains closed).

Liberty bodices
School outside toilets

Ink wells with dip in pens and the 'ink monitor'
Skipping ropes with a person turning on each end and skipping rhymes
Dinner money being 5 shillings a week
Saving stamps with Prince Charles and Princess Anne on them
Sunday school on Sunday afternoons
Roaming all over the village and just turning up for meals
No school uniforms at primary school