Your Kitchen Through Time

I went to the 1966 Ideal Home Exhibition and we came back with free tins of soup.
A famous soup maker had a stand there and if you could prove that your name was the same they gave freebies! I don’t know what proof my mum and dad had with them though.

I remember tiny Hovis loaves. What they were promoting I have no idea - brown bread?

You could buy those tiny Hovis loaves in the shops, Gin. I haven't seen any for years.

I went to an Ideal Home Exhibition just before got married and bought an 'everlasting' bread knife which I still use.

That was a lovely memory Gin these exhibitions/shows get so packed you can barely move. The Gardeners World one at NEC was like that when I went too.

I think the show at Earls Court was sponsored by The Daily Mail and my uncle was an employee so got free tickets. We would go every year and I would run around collecting every freebie I could find. I remember tiny Hovis loaves. What they were promoting I have no idea - brown bread? My parents bought a twin tub there, can’t remember the make but it had a red trim with a paddle you rotated with a handle on the lid. A mangle was attached to the top that folded down for storage. A vast improvement on the big gas heated boiler and dolly stick.

I went with a girlfriend, we were 19 or 20 and after a few hours It got so hot and stuffy that I fainted. A kindly foreign lady found me a chair on her stand and gave me a drink and as I left gave me a stainless steal tea strainer on a little drip stand that I still use to this day! It is a beautifully Swedish design and made of really thick steal.

It used to be my job to stick the Green Shield stamps in the book after a shopping trip 😄

Hostess trolley ✔️ mum wheeled it out at Christmas when we dined in the dining room but the rest of the time it served it’s true purpose as a general dumping ground for everything when doing a panicked tidy up😺

I used to love my annual trip to Earls Court for The Ideal Home Show, A few times I went with a friend, but actually preferred to go by myself, so I could go exactly where I wanted as I wanted.

Most year I would come home ith a 'gadget', often they proved reasonably useful for a short time. The worst one was a sausage maker. My youngest son never let me live that one down!!!

The Kenwood mixer was one of my ambitions as soon as I married in 1964. I think I finally got one in 1969. (It is still working with one of my daughters (with .a replacement bowl).

My parents passed on to us one of those twin washing tubs when first married. Tried it twice, gave up and used launderette from them onwards. Continued with this even after birth of first baby (his things hand washed each day), when second child arrived eleven months later we purchased a washing machine. This had to live in our bathroom so that for use, we would put the inward hose onto the taps and draper the exit hose over the bath. All too often as the water exited machine would go for walkies, pulling that exit hose off the bath and flooding the bathroom.

One of the best IHE I attended had a wonderful rain forest feature built there, which we could wander around and take shelter as it rained, each time.

Only once bothered to do the large queues for the houses, but spent one wonderful time at an exhibition there of caravans.

When I retired from work I used some of my retirement money to treat myself to a Vitamix. Used it for a few years before passing it on to one of my daughter who also got a good few years use out of.

At another one I was introduced to 'washing sheets' at one of the market place stalls. I was attending with a friend and they had a special offer of several packages of these for tenner, so we did that between us. Many years back, never used anything other than these sort of sheets since.

Always took a packed lunch with me, found the food sold there very expensive.

In the last few years I went there was always offers of free entry tickets.

I had a hostess trolley for years, but it was rarely used and ended up as a dumping ground in the dining room. Needed the space for a piano after I took it up again, sold the trolley in no time on eBay for £80.

I forget who mentioned Kenwood mixers - my Chef was a wedding present in 1974! We had to send it off maybe 10 years ago for a repair and service, but it’s still going strong.

I would add, as an aside, that I have never been “bent over backwards” on it😁!

I have a hostess trolley too. DS won it in a raffle in the senior NCOs mess at his RAF station. As he had neither house nor wife at the time, he gave it to me and it was very useful as we used, then, to entertain. However, it’s only used at Christmas time now. The rest of the time, it houses my laptop and a load of paperwork I haven’t the energy to look at!
DH had a mania for kitchen gadgets. We used to go to the Great Yorkshire Show every year and he would come back with some wonderful gizmo that had worked beautifully in the demonstrator’s hands, but refused to work for him (or me)!

They must be collectors' items now kittylester.
Soon to be seen on the Antiques Road Show.

Ours makes me think of Abigail's Party.

Nit even sure there was one in it but there definitely should have been

kittylester

We still have an electric carving knife which DH wields periodically.

We have a hostess trolley which I always feel slightly embarrassed to admit to. But, it comes into it's own when we have big family gatherings.

We have a hostess trolley too kittylester.

I offered it to DS who seems to be the main chef/host for family gatherings now be he declined.
It stores some of our larger 'best' serving dishes.

Reminiscent of Barry and Freda 😁

Over 50 years ago, when Tesco used to pile special buy goods in the window and sell them cheap, I bought a Kenwood Mixer for £24. I bought it on a Tuesday so that I could get double green shield stamps. I then used the green shield stamps to get myself a really sturdy prestige hand whisk, as my cheaper unbranded one had broken.

Both are still in regular use!

I went to the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1970 and also bought an auto chopper after seeing one demonstrated. I still have it although the box is a little battered. I use the chopper quite regularly for chopping nuts when I make a fruit loaf. The bowl on my food processor which is supposed to do the same thing reduces nuts to dust so I much prefer the older gadget.

We still have an electric carving knife which DH wields periodically.

We have a hostess trolley which I always feel slightly embarrassed to admit to. But, it comes into it's own when we have big family gatherings.

Granmarderby10

Did anyone collect Green Shield Stamps, Co-op stamps, or shockingly Players coupons?
…. Then choose things from the catalogues😊

Green Shield stamps, there was a shop in the city where we lived years ago where you could go to exchange your stamps for goods.

We also collected Bsrclaycard reward points and you could choose gifts from the catalogue. Every time I thought we'd got enough for the Royal Doulton dinner service they'd increased the number of points you needed.

The electric carving knife? Redundant
The juicer? -ditto-

Did anyone else collect PG Tips cards? You could stick the cards into a book. We used to have an exchange club at school, but I never did manage to get a full set.

Granmarderby10

Grannynannywanny the loose tea dispenser is one of the things I picture in my minds eye of being about aged 3 in our kitchen. ours was a “ 60s yellow”

Ours was yellow and we had a small yellow cabinet in the kitchen with a matching yellow bread bin 😊

Granmarderby10

Did anyone collect Green Shield Stamps, Co-op stamps, or shockingly Players coupons?
…. Then choose things from the catalogues😊

Yes to the first two. My parents also collected the Kensitas tipped coupons, and my Mum went to the show room to get kitchen things in exchange.
I remember my Mum having one of those tea caddys.

Did anyone collect Green Shield Stamps, Co-op stamps, or shockingly Players coupons?
…. Then choose things from the catalogues😊

Grannynannywanny the loose tea dispenser is one of the things I picture in my minds eye of being about aged 3 in our kitchen. ours was a “ 60s yellow”

Gosh yes. Our first freezer came from Bejam. We had one of their shops in our town. They had a good freezer section, and we also bought meat in bulk. Half a hind quarter of beef, half a pig and half a lamb. We did have three children to fill. The only downside was having to bag it all in readiness for the freezer. I dread to think how much that amount of meat would cost in today's prices. Good luck our appetites have got a lot smaller and we don't eat much meat these days.

kittylester

I bought my first freezer from Bejam too. It was a huge chest one and we had great fun going round Bejam buying stuff to put in it.

And, I subscribed to Home and Freezer Digest which I loved.

Yes, our chest freezer was from Bejam, we went to a farm and bought quantities of meat and to a new frozen food outlet for vegetables and icecream to fill it. Arctic roll was a treat as well as Vienettas

Auntieflo

We had one of those tea dispensers Grannynannywanny .
Allira, did your mum's single tub washing machine, with mangle, have a "paddle" in the top lid to agitate the clothes? My mum also had one and donated it to us when we married in 1961. It was great, but we did have quite a flood once when opening the tap to empty it!
DH and I visited the Ideal Home Exhibition before we got married and bought our G Plan Dining room furniture, table, chairs and sideboard. Also a 3 door G Plan wardrobe. All still going strong, and looking good.

I think so, can't remember.

I was going to post a picture of a Dean washing machine with attached Acme mangle but I think the image costs £350!