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Genealogy/memories

Old Prices

(97 Posts)
mrsmopp Sat 18-Nov-17 10:11:58

Can you remember prices of various things from years ago?
As a child I had the Dandy and Beano comics for 2d each. A postage stamp was 2d. Large loaf 9d. Cinema ticket 1/- and Trebor chews were 4 for 1d. Polo mints 2d. Bus fare to town 1d. School dinners were 5/- a week. I'm thinking of the late 1940s, and mum still had her ration book.
What prices can you remember?

lemongrove Mon 20-Nov-17 21:29:12

Yes, same price as black jacks! Four for a penny ( never five though.sad)

callgirl1 Mon 20-Nov-17 21:46:00

I was a bit peeved when we went decimal, because 1/- had 12 pennies in it, but then it became a 10p piece, so penny sweets for my kids went from 12 for 1/- to 10 for 10p.

Gaggi3 Mon 20-Nov-17 22:10:57

My wedding dress cost 17 Guineas from Keddies in Southend in 1965. They sent a greetings telegram for the wedding day. Still have the dress and it still fits me, though I don’t wear it often ?

Bathsheba Mon 20-Nov-17 22:35:34

But callgirl1 - with decimalisation a shilling didn't become a 10p piece, it became a 5p piece. I do take your point though - you got 10 sweets for the same amount of money as 12 sweets pre-decimalisation. I recall my 1/7d bus fare became 9p - a healthy round-up for the bus company!

gagsy Mon 20-Nov-17 23:28:58

When I qualified as a physiotherapist I got £36 a month.
When I got married I had an order book for the grocer (I have it still!) I got groceries, green groceries and tins of baby food for £1 6s 11p and if I had 4d over at the end of the week I bought my husband a chocolate biscuit!

varian Tue 21-Nov-17 01:11:01

I remember travelling into the centre of Glasgow on a tram in 1950. The fare was a "three halfpenny half" so the fare for an adult would have been 3d. This was quite a long journey -about six miles. I think the cheapest fare for a child then was 1/2d.

lemongrove Tue 21-Nov-17 09:00:22

Is Keddies still there Gaggi3 ? You still fit the dress? Respect! grin

lemongrove Tue 21-Nov-17 09:01:59

Who would like a time machine.....to go back there with a full wallet/purse bursting with old money!

Lindylo Tue 21-Nov-17 11:17:45

I remember Mars bars were so much more expensive than other chocolate bars - 5d I think. Mind you they were huge compared to the bars today.

varian Tue 21-Nov-17 18:46:19

The ultimate treat when I was little was a bar of butter tablet. I think it cost 3d, which was quite a lot of money.

Nowadays I don't have a sweet tooth but I think I might try to make some. It would take me back sixty or seventy years. Have any of you Scottish grannies got an easy reliable recipe?

Bathsheba Tue 21-Nov-17 18:58:28

lemon I would love a time machine to go back to my youth, full purse or not ?????

mrsmopp Tue 21-Nov-17 18:58:55

Cadbury Creme eggs used to be about the size of a chickens egg, but they have shrunk every year. They will be the size of a sparrows egg next year!

lemongrove Tue 21-Nov-17 20:39:44

Bathsheba would you stay there ( the past) would you meet yourself there? Tell yourself not to do certain things?grin

Cubagran Tue 21-Nov-17 21:09:23

School dinners 9d a day in the early 50s. Mum used to send me to the butchers for 2 shillings worth of stewing beef, have no idea what the weight was, but that was to feed a family of 7! My first school holiday job in 1960 paid £3.5 shillings a week - that was a fortune to me, but mum used to put her hand out on a Friday and take £2 of it for board.

Cubagran Tue 21-Nov-17 21:11:05

Had a paper round, 1960ish, 6 days a week, got paid 7/6.

Bathsheba Tue 21-Nov-17 21:49:11

Yes lemon there are definitely one or two things I would tell myself to do or not to do. Knowing me though, I probably wouldn’t listen me grin

Bathsheba Tue 21-Nov-17 21:49:54

*listen to me...

callgirl1 Tue 21-Nov-17 23:48:41

You`re right of course Bathsheba, I was getting myself all confused, thinking of 10 1/2p items for the 5p. I blame me age!
I had a bottle of Madeira wine given to me this afternoon, brought back from their Madeira holiday by my daughter and her hubby. I `ve never tried it, hope I like it.

varian Sun 26-Nov-17 17:58:23

I was paid £5 a week in my first job in 1963. I thought it was a fortune. My student grant was £80 per year.

grannyticktock Sat 16-Dec-17 16:02:21

Great to read all these familiar recollections. It's funny how these prices from our youth stick in our minds, but not those of later decades. I can tell you what a Mivvi cost in 1959 (6d), or a half of cider in 1968 (10d); I know that a Mivvi or similar lolly would now cost about £1, and a half of cider about £1.60 but I wouldn't have a clue what either of these cost in, say, 1980 or 1995. The only fixed points for me in later decades are what we paid for houses or cars, and (sometimes) what our salaries were.

I do remember what I paid for certain items of clothing over the years, and am astonished at how (relatively) expensive they were. I treated myself to a very pretty T-shirt in about 1990, for £10; today I wouldn't pay much more for a fancy t-shirt and could probably get it for less.

mrsmopp Sun 17-Dec-17 12:36:27

My first holiday abroad was a week package to France. Flight there and back full board hotel plus coach trips out and about. It cost £20. I had saved up for it from Christmas.