Old Prices

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.

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.

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.

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.

*listen to me...

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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!

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!

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 ?

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.

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

Trebor Chews were 1d each; the very small Trebor Fruit Salads were 1/4d each, and some shops sold five for a penny!

When I went up to university in 1963 a pint of the local brewery's bitter was 1/3d.

Oh, don't get me started on house prices! Our first purchase was a 2 bed terrace. We would have preferred a 3 bedroom, but it was out of the question, costing £350 more. This was in 1969.

My 18ct gold wedding ring cost £4.10s in 1963. We did our weekly shop at the Co-op in Rochdale for just over £3. A large sliced loaf was 1s and 3ha`pence. The rent on our dilapidated 2 up 2 down plus cellar cottage was £1 a week. W e had an outside toilet across the yard, shared
with one other house. When we wanted a pushchair for our daughter in 1964, we bought a brand new Cumfifolda with hood and apron for £3, then in 1965 replaced it with the twin version of the same for £6. At the end of 1965 we bought our first house, brand new in a terrace of 4, 2 large rooms downstairs, upstairs 3 bedrooms and bathroom, oil fired central heating, it cost £2,250.

Whatever happened to Spangles?