RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: chiddicks on Sunday 19 December 21 11:30 GMT (UK)
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Over the last month or so I have been publishing a few things that I remember from growing up as a kid in the 60’s. So I hope you enjoy my little piece of nostalgia and my trip down memory lane…….
https://chiddicksfamilytree.com/2021/12/19/do-you-remember/
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Some iconic images there that made me smile....I remember the polio sugar lump. Also team house colours at school where we wore a coloured band across the body depending on which team you were in. School apparatus for PE, bean bags, rope ladder, the beam etc. Ice cream man on a push bike with a cart on the front! Rope swing hanging from the lamppost in the street, you had to use your jumper or coat as a seat. Playing marbles and jacks!
Thanks for the memories.
Carol
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That brought back some memories. I had a tape recorder just like that, and also had a viewfinder which was a present from someone.
Very interesting reading and images Chiddicks.
Treetotal, I recall the polio vaccine given on a sugar lump. There was another vaccination given by injection in school when I would have been about 8/9, can't remember what it was for, (maybe for rubella, or it could have been the BCG) but there were a lot of crying children that day.
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I too could relate to most of the images.
One thing I wish I could bring back is that old fashioned Hoover vacuum cleaner. I bought my first Hoover for £39.00 from the official agent, who conveniently lived next door to my parents.
I currently have one vacuum cleaner upstairs and one vacuum downstairs, both produced by different manufacturers and neither designed for ease of use.
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I don't know if it was a Scottish thing but we drank our milk outside in the playground, the crates were never in the classroom! Even in the winter when the lids were lifted by the expansion.
Cheers
Guy
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It was certainly not a Scottish thing, Guy. I am still trying to get over the trauma of warm school milk some 60 years later. In my Edinburgh primary school the crates were frequently stacked beside the radiators and we drank it in the classroom. Sadly I was very rarely able to palm it off onto someone else.
William
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Lovely happy memories! I wish I still had that kitchen cabinet, can't bend to see at the back of low ones anymore!
rayard.
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Ah the space hopper - they were always orange :D
I remember the sugar lump too, we had to file up onto the stage at school one by one to be given our dose. And the team house colours which for us were named after rivers. Avon yellow Kennet green Windrush blue and Thames red. Amazing what you can remember when your memory is jogged.
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A lot of memories in that post! I vividly remember standing on my etch-a-sketch and being very upset when my foot turned silver. I was told it was my own fault for having a messy bedroom floor! I remember helping with the twin tub too, dragging the heavy wet washing from the wash side to the spinner with a pair of wooden tongs.
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Some iconic images there that made me smile....I remember the polio sugar lump. Also team house colours at school where we wore a coloured band across the body depending on which team you were in. School apparatus for PE, bean bags, rope ladder, the beam etc. Ice cream man on a push bike with a cart on the front! Rope swing hanging from the lamppost in the street, you had to use your jumper or coat as a seat. Playing marbles and jacks!
Thanks for the memories.
Carol
Thanks for those additional memories Carol, my school house was yellow and they were all names after famous explorers, my house was Chichester
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That brought back some memories. I had a tape recorder just like that, and also had a viewfinder which was a present from someone.
Very interesting reading and images Chiddicks.
Treetotal, I recall the polio vaccine given on a sugar lump. There was another vaccination given by injection in school when I would have been about 8/9, can't remember what it was for, (maybe for rubella, or it could have been the BCG) but there were a lot of crying children that day.
I think a lot of people of a certain age bracket will remember a lot of my memories plus have plenty of there own to add
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I too could relate to most of the images.
One thing I wish I could bring back is that old fashioned Hoover vacuum cleaner. I bought my first Hoover for £39.00 from the official agent, who conveniently lived next door to my parents.
I currently have one vacuum cleaner upstairs and one vacuum downstairs, both produced by different manufacturers and neither designed for ease of use.
You know its a good product when everyone refers to it by your brands name
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I don't know if it was a Scottish thing but we drank our milk outside in the playground, the crates were never in the classroom! Even in the winter when the lids were lifted by the expansion.
Cheers
Guy
Thanks Guy, I think ours was stored indoors in the classroom, normally in direct sunlight, so in a classroom full of windows, it sat there warming nicely. I think we did go outside sometimes to drink it, but can't remember if it was a regular thing.
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A lot of memories in that post! I vividly remember standing on my etch-a-sketch and being very upset when my foot turned silver. I was told it was my own fault for having a messy bedroom floor! I remember helping with the twin tub too, dragging the heavy wet washing from the wash side to the spinner with a pair of wooden tongs.
I think that's why my nan had arms like Popeye
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I remember that we had a Ewbank Carpet Sweeper and a Bex Bissell Carpet Shampooer. On cleaning day, the house always smelt of Carbolic soap and San Izal Disinfectant. On washing day, the water from the Dolly Tub was used to swill the front of the house and step which was then Donkey Stoned.
Happy, uncomplicated days!!
Carol
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We must have had the milk in Summer but I only remember the winter when it was frozen and sat by the stove at the back of the room. it was still half frozen when we drank it. The lids were saved for making pompoms.
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Ah - the Etch-A-Sketch.
I remember my parents buying me one for Christmas and I found it when they were out one day. Every time they went out after that, I dived into the hiding place and spent the lone time playing with it. Then, it was wrapped up and I had to wait until Christmas before I saw it again. Strangely, it was not as exciting as I thought it would be.
Many memories there - thank you. Only about two that were before my time.
Rishile
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Lovely memories, thanks for posting.
The twin tub reminds me of my late mom. She was using hers until the late 1980's possibly early 1990's! I eventually persuaded her to get an automatic washing machine, but she would not leave the kitchen whilst it was running "in case it went wrong". Bless her.
Carol, I remember the team colours at school, I was most upset when I was put in the green team, of the 4 colours green was my least favourite.
I remember my nan collecting foil for the guide dogs, as a very young child I was confused about what the dogs actually did with the foil ::) ;D
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The washing machine mom had before the twin tub was an English Electric tub with a mangle/wringer on the top. I have just found one for sale on Ebay (£159.99 plus £45.99 postage :o)
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01r4b/
One day when she was out pegging clothes on the line I climbed on the draining board and tried to poke my fingers in the mangle (why I thought that was a good idea I'll never know). Luckily she came back just in time to hit the bar over the mangle to open the rollers. I could have been in up to my elbow if she hadn't come back in time.
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Several things I remember well; others were after "my time".
For example, "Thunderbirds" fitted, but "Joe 90" didn't. "Four Feather Falls" and "Supercar" preceded "Stingray". I was already preparing for secondary school by the period when "Playschool" reached BBC2.
My brother's first car was a 100E Ford, precursor of the 105E shown. We had already practised gear changing in my dad's cast-off A35 van, in which the family had ventured as far as the St. Gotthard Pass.
Never really liked the Blyton books, but Biggles hit the spot. Both, these days, are lambasted by the "woke" generation.
Two of those villainous characters would have involved trips to the pictures, but our town had lost its cinema by the time those films came out. Pocket money could cover the cinema entrance OR the bus fare to another town, but NOT both, so we lost the habit, and I have visited a cinema only twice since leaving school.
Our school milk was placed under a roof, in an open corridor between buildings, so only suffered in really hot weather, though the foil tops lifted in the frost.
Yes, we had a coal fire, as did everyone else. The bunker was outside though.
We did have rag & bone men, but their cry was "RA BONE!" - not much chance of scrap metal round our way.
Our first phone was a Trimphone in 1967, though ours was on a Party Line, so had an extra button to claim the line. Later models had a numeric keypad.
No twintub for us, but we had (and still have) outside space for drying. Our washer did have an electrically-driven mangle.
I only remember 13A sockets where I lived, though various relatives had round-pin ones. Those lamp adaptors had already been consigned to the backs of drawers. For some weird reason, hotels and restaurants still seem to use round-pin sockets, sometimes sharing the same faceplate as a 13A one.
I already had a "real" bike by the time the Chopper came on the market (though mine was distinctly second-hand).
My eyesight means that I have never seen any of the "3D" effects touted at me. I see two images which don't line up (often a red one and a green one).
Between age 4 and 9, the house we lived in had the toilet at the far end of the back yard. In winter a small paraffin lamp kept the worst of the frost at bay!
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I was before the sugar lump for the polio vaccination. it was the injection.
The whole school lined up, one class at a time, to get the polio injection, and also the TB injection. It would have been about 1955-56.
Whether our parents knew or gave consent, I have no idea after all this time.
Being a boys school, there was a certain amount of stirring happening, to the extent that three of us made another boy faint, before he got to the injection place. All we did was to describe the multi needle injector used at that time.
Honest, we were just "helping" him to be prepared for it :o :o :o
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I loved Blue Peter & all the wonderful things they made from old coat hangers & used loo rolls.
The one thing that defeated me was what exactly was sticky back plastic & where could you buy it.
The fact that the Beeb couldn't call it cellotape escaped me so the old coat hangers & used loo rolls
remained unused & my creativity unsatisfied.
A Christmas staple prezzie the pen & pencil set became a thing of wonder when it included a Biro, no
more blue fingers.
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Thanks everyone for sharing your childhood memories as well, some obviously a bit younger than myself but it's nice to sometimes share some of the fond memories from growing up. It was a far simpler life back then, demands on parents and even kids were so much less than they are today. No such thing as league tables for schools, you just went to the closest school to your house!
I was an avid comic reader as well, Beano, Dandy, Roy of the Rovers and Tiger amongst others and of course this time of year, no Christmas day would be complete without an annual or two.
Please keep sharing your memories as they create a few more from my own childhood.
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A TV with only 2 channels & a front room that no one was allowed in except at Christmas.
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A TV with only 2 channels & a front room that no one was allowed in except at Christmas.
That made me smile...we also had a front room that was only used at Christmas too. We had a piano in there and when Mum played Christmas carols on it when friends came round for a Christmas drink, I had to sing along to her piano playing, often yawning my head off. They would all have whip round and give it to me.
Happy Days!
Carol
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On the subject of carpet cleaners, I thought this one may interest you. It's an 1870s Carte de Visite. How I wish that I could claim it as one of my own ancestors, but it's one from my collection, but I love it :D I think that she was just modelling for it :D
Carol
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Here's one of mine you can have Carol.
I've been assured it's genuine.
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Aw cheers Jim and Merry Christmas, she's wearing a watch and is that a moble phone she is holding :D
Carol
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I was a bit suspicious of the early mobile & didn't notice the watch.
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On the subject of carpet cleaners, I thought this one may interest you. It's an 1870s Carte de Visite. How I wish that I could claim it as one of my own ancestors, but it's one from my collection, but I love it :D I think that she was just modelling for it :D
Carol
What a great picture and this is the earliest form of advertising that I have seen!
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Me too...It's a great addition to my collection.
Carol
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"I am assured that this was a perfectly safe thing to do, plug your iron into the light socket! Why would you even think of that as an option?"
Because that was the only electricity wiring in the house! It was done occasionally in my childhood, but then we had very few electrical gadgets. Radios were battery powered.
A lot of these things were well after my childhood, but we had the bottles of milk, of course, and I read The Famous Five (and Biggles). The magazines that were bought for me were Swift, then Girl and Girl's Crystal, but an aunt used to send bundles of magazines for me and my mother, which included Mickey Mouse and Radio Fun.
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I was an avid comic reader as well, Beano, Dandy, Roy of the Rovers and Tiger amongst others and of course this time of year, no Christmas day would be complete without an annual or two.
I read the Beano, and also the Eagle. I have at home about 6-8 of the hardbacked annuals they put out. I had them transported from England to Australia at some stage after I arrived.
I think my parents wanted them out of the house :-[
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I remember the milk crates were left in the school yard or in the entrance and two lads from the nearest class were given the job of carrying a crate to each classroom.Sometimes there was a couple of bottles of orange juice among the milk and a fight over who should have it.At home the coal wagon tipped coal in the street and we wheelbarrowed it to the shed to tip it out.Them that lived in the old rows could shovel the coal straight into their shed from the road through a small wood door in the wall.Every morning the the ashes had to be cleaned out the grate,newspapers crumpled up with few sticks on top before the coal was put on.If you wanted a bath,the damper had to be pulled down at the back of the fire to heat the water.So no just turning the heating on or popping in the shower anytime like now.
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If you wanted a bath,the damper had to be pulled down at the back of the fire
Hot water! posh or wot.
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Ugh, school milk. We always had it outside and for some reason it was either frozen or had been left in the sun. Still dislike neat milk to this day.
And John Noakes with the Xmas decoration.... We made one every year for yonks. Along with yards of paper chains.
Brie
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I was a war time baby, so some of your memories apply more to my sons born in the sixties.
Our school milk was brought inside out the of the sun in the summer. I liked milk, so swapped my empty bottle for full one from a classmate who hated it. There was trouble if we got caught.
Polio vaccine hadn't been invented, I had Polio. The ‘nit nurse’ was never part of my school life.
The house we lived in until 1948 had an outside toilet, but we also had an indoor one upstairs. We had a Ewbank carpet sweeper, a vacuum cleaner came into our house some years later. Two luxuries, a telephone, I still remember the number 323, my father needed it for his job. We also had a car for the same reason, a 1936 Morris 8 (BRU641). I remember it in the garage with the wheels off and up on blocks until the war ended, so it was a good ten years old before I got to ride in it.
My mother never had a washing machine, it was the washboard and mangle. (Not sure why you needed a mangle with a twin tub, the whole point of the twin tub was the spin drier that did away with the need for a mangle). My first twin tub was similar to the one illustrated, my first machine was a single tub with an electric mangle attached.
I remember my mother ironing with a flat iron. After we moved house it was an electric iron plugged into the light socket as per you illustration.
In your second school photo, the lederhosen remind me of those my sons had when we lived in Germany.
How different our lives are today.
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A large spoonful of malt given regularly at school, I thought it was delicious and can still remember the taste.
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Like Jebber, I never saw a "nit nurse", and never had nits. I wonder if they had been partly eradicated by the 50s, at least in small country schools. They were back by the time my children were at primary school!
I had the polio vaccine, but having read on here of people lining up for it at school, I wonder why my mother and I had to traipse into Canterbury on a cold, wet winter day to some sort of clinic? (On the far side of the town!)
Added - no malt at my school either.
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A large spoonful of malt given regularly at school, I thought it was delicious and can still remember the taste.
I had my malt home, I also loved it, I also had the cod liver oil and the orange juice (Which I liked undiluted).
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Oh my goodness, I've just been transported back to Lancashire. One of my memories is the pie shop at the bottom of the street. Dad was in hospital, dying; mum was running the shop (groceries, haberdashery etc), looking after 3 under 13s and also visiting every day. Saturday lunchtime was our favourite - eldest (13) went to the pie shop for S&K pie or pudding while middle (9-10) and I went to the chippie round the corner. We had a small back yard in which to play (older brothers having to look after young sister while mum went to the hospital) - not much bigger than a patio today - if the weather was nice, otherwise it was books in the living room. Saturdays were particularly busy and we all had to do our bit with the housework (at 6, I'm not sure how useful I really was!). Sunday mum would do the laundry (washtub, boiler and board in the washhouse) and run around with the Ewbank on top of preparing the shop for the coming week. All in times of rationing too! How did she do it? And how come my memories are all good? Happy days!
PS: My schools (primary) had a nit nurse in Lancashire and in Lincolnshire in the late 40s-very early 50s!
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A large spoonful of malt given regularly at school, I thought it was delicious and can still remember the taste.
I had my malt home, I also loved it, I also had the cod liver oil and the orange juice (Which I liked undiluted).
Clinic Orange Juice and Cod liver oil...My cousin had Cod liver oil and malt from a spoon, my Aunt used to give me one too, we didn't have it at home...maybe two expensive with four children.
We had an outside toilet, you could see the stars at night as there was a couple of slates missing off the roof. At night I always sat with my legs off the ground in case there was any spiders.
Our water was drawn from and outside tap which used to free in the winter and had to be thawed out with lighted paper. our bath was a tin one that hung from a nail on the backyard wall.
Carol
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Our milk came in red and white, half-pint, waxed cardboard cartons. It was kept cold. It cost three cents for those whose families were above some poverty line. Lunch cost 25 cents if you were above that line.
As for outdoor toilets, I never had one until I was in my 30s and then it was just a hole in the floor of the [quite spacious] outhouse. I lost a top-of-the-line Swiss Army Knife down that hole.
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I am loving some of these wonderful memories, these are conjuring up memories that I had forgotten myself, thanks for adding these, it's a very nostalgic run-up to Christmas now.
Talking of Christmas memories, I remember buying the decorations in Woolworths which had an amazing parquet flooring. I remember the lights never working and Grandad spending hours testing every bulb, I remember nan baked everything, so the kitchen was always the hub of the house, I'm sure she baked enough mince pies to feed a battalion. Every boxing day all the family came to nans house for a party. I remember stockings filled with fruit and nuts and a selection box. Lots of happy memories.
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No lights for us, a seven foot tree in bay window with clip on candleholders with candles, lit only briefly with buckets of sand and/or water on hand in case the tree caught fire. ;D
Table decoration, a car inspection lamp on a meat platter, under a glass dish covered in coloured Christmas paper, I still have the glass dish my mother used. :)
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Remember Woolworths wooden flooring. (Not sure it was parquet?) However, they seemed to creak as walked along. The counters were far too high for young people to see what was there.
Milk at school - frozen tops in the winter, so that the aluminium caps lifted up. It was the monitor's job to jab a hole in the top of these caps, so that we could put straws in.
Dinner money was 9 pence a day (three and nine a week)
Our coal was delivered in a hole in the pavement outside the house. Straight into the cellar.
Outside toilet - yes. But, we did have a plumbed in bath inside the house.
FS
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Our coal was delivered in a hole in the pavement outside the house. Straight into the cellar.
FS
When we lived in Bury St Edmunds, that is how the coal was delivered. I cannot remember how it was delivered at the other places we lived at.
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Village shop (early 60's) sold 'Jumping Beans' - they were in small packages and showed a middle aged gentleman jumping over a style on the cover - what exactly were they and what happened once you took them - never asked and never saw anyone buying a pack.
Taking 'old' woollen jumpers to school and being 'rewarded' with a goldfish.
Being told by my parents that if a stranger offered me a lift in his car I should always say thank-you when I got out !!!! (I lived in a rural area.)
Not all good memories tho' - a couple of ex-army teachers - bullies!
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I loved Blue Peter & all the wonderful things they made from old coat hangers & used loo rolls.
The one thing that defeated me was what exactly was sticky back plastic & where could you buy it.
The fact that the Beeb couldn't call it cellotape escaped me so the old coat hangers & used loo rolls
remained unused & my creativity unsatisfied.
A Christmas staple prezzie the pen & pencil set became a thing of wonder when it included a Biro, no
more blue fingers.
You can't have been a serious Blue Peter fan if you didn't know what sticky-backed plastic was. When I was in primary school in the 60s I'm sure most of the class watched BP regularly and sometimes they would bring in to school and show off their models made according to the instructions. I think you could write in to the BBC for a copy of the instructions "in case you missed any" and perhaps that would tell you where to buy the raw materials.
Anyway you could buy sticky-backed plastic from the afore-mentioned Woolworths and probably department stores too. The brand name was most commonly "Fablon" but I also remember "Con-tact". It came in rolls like wallpaper or wrapping paper, but you would choose the colour or pattern you wanted and ask for the amount you wanted by the yard and the assistant would cut that length from the roll with a sharp knife.
I think the grown-up use for the plastic sheets was to re-cover old furniture. I have got an old wooden tea trolley that would look much better covered in some Fablon but it doesn't seem to exist any more even in somewhere like B&Q (may be wrong though)
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I loved Blue Peter & all the wonderful things they made from old coat hangers & used loo rolls.
The one thing that defeated me was what exactly was sticky back plastic & where could you buy it.
The fact that the Beeb couldn't call it cellotape escaped me so the old coat hangers & used loo rolls
remained unused & my creativity unsatisfied.
A Christmas staple prezzie the pen & pencil set became a thing of wonder when it included a Biro, no
more blue fingers.
You can't have been a serious Blue Peter fan if you didn't know what sticky-backed plastic was. When I was in primary school in the 60s I'm sure most of the class watched BP regularly and sometimes they would bring in to school and show off their models made according to the instructions. I think you could write in to the BBC for a copy of the instructions "in case you missed any" and perhaps that would tell you where to buy the raw materials.
Anyway you could buy sticky-backed plastic from the afore-mentioned Woolworths and probably department stores too. The brand name was most commonly "Fablon" but I also remember "Con-tact". It came in rolls like wallpaper or wrapping paper, but you would choose the colour or pattern you wanted and ask for the amount you wanted by the yard and the assistant would cut that length from the roll with a sharp knife.
I think the grown-up use for the plastic sheets was to re-cover old furniture. I have got an old wooden tea trolley that would look much better covered in some Fablon but it doesn't seem to exist any more even in somewhere like B&Q (may be wrong though)
It is still available, and is having a bit of a moment with instagrammers doing kitchen and furniture makeovers! Fablon is certainly available in Dunelm and there are more upmarket versions available online too. Bring your own toilet roll tubes & empty washing up liquid bottles!
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I've mostly got the same memories as other chatters who experienced coal fires in winter.
Our father was the official holder of the toasting fork and our task was to sit on the hearth rug and admire how the bread turned evenly brown and then passed to our mother who would spread Co-Op margarine or butter onto the surface. . He was also the official chestnut roaster. after he and our mother had made a small cut with a sharp knife on the top of the chestnuts, then the chestnuts were placed on the hearth shovel and toasted - or in the words of the song "chestnuts roasting on an open fire". The thick hearth rug was pretty important - it was warm and welcoming to sit on whilst listening to Dick Barton or Biggles. The woolly winter coats of yesteryear increased in weight during heavy rainstorms and snow blizzards as we youngsters ran home from primary school and the sight of our mam waiting for us with a warm towel and Vick's chest vapour rub in front of the fire encouraged a few tears of self pity and pain as blood returned to our fingers and toes. Schools in those days had two playgrounds, one for girls and one for boys. At the start of each winter the boys yard would host a massive pile of coal. The winter of 1946-1947 turned the school into a crystal maze of extremely long icicles hanging from the roof. That winter meant we had the longest ice slides that also lasted the longest time in our generation's memory. Our father tried to best our experience by telling us that one of his brothers married in a snow storm in July.
We lived in a three bedroomed house; well, actually a two bedroomed house with a small "box room". Box rooms are usually placed over the unheated entrance hall and I experienced icy cold cotton sheets and the thickest frosty patterns on the inside of my bedroom window than my brothers did. In those days we didn't have a kitchen, our cooker and washing/laundry facilities were in the concrete floored scullery which held a concrete floored pantry, in which was kept pots, pans and food. We only used the front room in summer when the sun shone into it,
The fireplace in the front room held a lit fire only during the Christmas festive period when a party was hosted for each side of our family. I've still got a couple of boxes of party games from those days. As a child my favourite party was wherever Uncle Fred was because he organised exciting and fun games for everyone - he would urge everyone out of the room, except for his "helper" and we would all squirm with excitement when we heard an aunt or cousin scream followed by a gale of laughter followed by an exclamation of "Oh Fred"!
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Oh no Rena, not margarine on toast, it had to be beef dripping with the jellied meat juices. I would forego my Christmas dinner to taste that again.
We had an enormous chestnut tree in the garden, but none of us liked them. I sold them to the greengrocer every year, to boost my pocket money. ;D
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Oh no Rena, not margarine on toast, it had to be beef dripping with the jellied meat juices. I would forego my Christmas dinner to taste that again.
My memory goes back to ye olde fashioned white bread where the flour still retained all the goodness from the grain that nature intended - not the air filled excuse for bread that we get these days.
Our daily bread was the old fashioned "farmhouse loaf". Our dad had been trained by his father to cut each slice exactly half an inch thick. The only time there was a glut of dripping was when we once had a roast duck.. For the rest of the year a slice of bread spread with dripping with a sprinkling of salt, from either mutton, pork or beef was on the weekly menu. We used to be rationed on how much each person was allowed of the jellied meat juices at the bottom of the dripping basin.
Oh joy, when I started work and found the winter's mid morning trolley held hot tea AND slabs of bread and dripping.
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Several things I remember well; others were after "my time".
For example, "Thunderbirds" fitted, but "Joe 90" didn't. "Four Feather Falls" and "Supercar" preceded "Stingray". I was already preparing for secondary school by the period when "Playschool" reached BBC2.
Between "Supercar" and "Stingray" there was "Fireball XL5". And I think "Torchy the Battery Boy" was an early Anderson production too, but that came before my parents decided to get a television from Radio Rentals. It was the newest thing, a dual standard (405 lines and 625) to watch BBC2 from its first day.
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An earlier mention of Dick Barton reminded me that it was my job to run upstairs after "Dick Barton- Special Agent" (was it aired at 6.45 pm, now The Archers slot?) with hot water bottles to put in the beds of my brother and me. Sometimes I found the episodes quite scary and ran like a hare up those stairs and back in case one of the evil characters was waiting for me!
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As well as Dick Barton, Children’s Hour with Uncle Mac, Journey Into Space and Paul Temple were also favourites. Who remembers Life With Lyons?
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"Village shop (early 60's) sold 'Jumping Beans' - they were in small packages and showed a middle aged gentleman jumping over a style on the cover - what exactly were they and what happened once you took them - never asked and never saw anyone buying a pack."
I remember the plastic toy version of Jumping Beans - a capsule which appeared to jump if you rolled it in your hand. If broken into, there was a small ball bearing inside. Probably not allowed today under health & safety, although still available from online retailers.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-1960s-box-toy-jumping-beans-1953076281
Inspired by the live Mexican Jumping Bean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_jumping_bean
Not to be confused with Jelly Beans which are sweets.
Tony
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Yes, Jebber - I remember Life with the Lyons! In fact I heard part of an episode recently on Radio 4 extra. ::)
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Yes, Jebber - I remember Life with the Lyons! In fact I heard part of an episode recently on Radio 4 extra. ::)
Plus others ssuch as Meet the Huggets, Beyond our Ken, The Clitheroe Kid The Clitheroe Kid, H_H_Hancock's Half Hour and many, many more. We did not have a TV in the 50s and so the radio was the prime source of evening and Sunday afternoon entertainment during the winter.
Cheers
Guy
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In my youth, various stores held New Year's Day sales, clearing lots of Christmas-related items and making room for those things which would sell better as spring arrived.
People queued up, sometimes overnight, to get the best bargains.
Nowadays the chain stores have their sales earlier and earlier. Some run telly ads year-round, just changing the "name" of the sale - Boxing Day, New Year, Valentine's Day, Easter, Spring....
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Several things I remember well; others were after "my time".
For example, "Thunderbirds" fitted, but "Joe 90" didn't. "Four Feather Falls" and "Supercar" preceded "Stingray". I was already preparing for secondary school by the period when "Playschool" reached BBC2.
Between "Supercar" and "Stingray" there was "Fireball XL5". And I think "Torchy the Battery Boy" was an early Anderson production too, but that came before my parents decided to get a television from Radio Rentals. It was the newest thing, a dual standard (405 lines and 625) to watch BBC2 from its first day.
Some of those were before my time ;D
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Several things I remember well; others were after "my time".
For example, "Thunderbirds" fitted, but "Joe 90" didn't. "Four Feather Falls" and "Supercar" preceded "Stingray". I was already preparing for secondary school by the period when "Playschool" reached BBC2.
Between "Supercar" and "Stingray" there was "Fireball XL5". And I think "Torchy the Battery Boy" was an early Anderson production too, but that came before my parents decided to get a television from Radio Rentals. It was the newest thing, a dual standard (405 lines and 625) to watch BBC2 from its first day.
Some of those were before my time ;D
Junior :D :D
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Lots of lovely memories. The "wireless", battery operated, one large dry battery and one wet accumulator which had to be charged every week and the man came and collected it and brought another in return.
Childrens Hour
Toytown with Larry the Lamb and Dennis the Dachshund, Ernest the Policeman and Mr Growser.
Norman and Henry Bones - boy detectives
A story about a family, can only remember Mompty the cat
Every so often there was a "request week" when you wrote in and asked for a favourite programme.
Then there was Jimmy Jewell and Ben Warriss "Up the Pole" and Dick Barton of course - goes without saying really.
Take it from Here with Jimmy Edwards and Dick Bentley and
Much Binding in the Marsh with Kenneth Horne, Richard Murdoch and Sam Costa (and others)
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"The "wireless", battery operated, one large dry battery and one wet accumulator which had to be charged every week and the man came and collected it and brought another in return."
Jeff - I remember the accumulator, but was it really as I remember. a square glass jar full of acid?
I was a Children's Hour listener, but Much Binding was either a bit earlier or it was banned in our house!
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That's correct ToH.
I think Much Binding transferred to Radio Luxemburg from about 1950 for a few years but came back to the Beeb.
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Another old radio series I have vague memories of “The Luscombes” I think it was on a Saturday. I think it was by Denis Constanduros.
I haven’t read back through all the posts to see if anyone has mentioned “Mrs Dale’s Diary” and her Doctor husband Jim. “Workers Playtime” and “ In Town Tonight”. Gosh where have all those years gone? :'( ;D
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Yes I remember The Luscombes. It was a BBC Bristol/West of England production. Lewis Gedge the lead character lived in Bath, as did Leo McKern (Rumpole) and Jack Watson.
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The Billy Cotton Band Show and The Clitheroe Kid are two that I remember.
Carol
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So many fond memories to share, i wonder how many of the Christmas traditions do we still keep up in our families, or are they just left to happy memories and not passed on anymore?
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Village shop (early 60's) sold 'Jumping Beans' - they were in small packages and showed a middle aged gentleman jumping over a style on the cover - what exactly were they and what happened once you took them - never asked and never saw anyone buying a pack.
Taking 'old' woollen jumpers to school and being 'rewarded' with a goldfish.
Being told by my parents that if a stranger offered me a lift in his car I should always say thank-you when I got out !!!! (I lived in a rural area.)
Not all good memories tho' - a couple of ex-army teachers - bullies!
Are you sure you were supposed to swallow the Jumoing beans .
There are tropical beans with a small insect grub inside,,if disturbed by the bean being shaken for example ,the grubs can make the beans move ,actually
jump a little .Honestly !
Victoria.
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I remember them as Mexican Jumping Beans toy. If you moved them around in your hand, they would flip over, I think they had a dried pea in the end....or maybe I just imagined that was how they worked.
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I remember them as Mexican Jumping Beans toy. If you moved them around in your hand, they would flip over, I think they had a dried pea in the end....or maybe I just imagined that was how they worked.
That's how I remember them too . We got ours from Hull Fair.
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I suppose if there were tiny magnets inserted when opposite poles were near each other they would repel and the peas/ beans would flip away.
You would have to have two though, whilst real jumping beans would move when just one was held.
Now is it opposite poles or like poles ?
So long since we did that in science .
Viktoria.
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Village shop (early 60's) sold 'Jumping Beans' - they were in small packages and showed a middle aged gentleman jumping over a style on the cover - what exactly were they and what happened once you took them - never asked and never saw anyone buying a pack.
Taking 'old' woollen jumpers to school and being 'rewarded' with a goldfish.
Being told by my parents that if a stranger offered me a lift in his car I should always say thank-you when I got out !!!! (I lived in a rural area.)
Not all good memories tho' - a couple of ex-army teachers - bullies!
Are you sure you were supposed to swallow the Jumoing beans .
There are tropical beans with a small insect grub inside,,if disturbed by the bean being shaken for example ,the grubs can make the beans move ,actually
jump a little .Honestly !
Victoria.
The jumping beans we bought looked like those sweets you can buy from a sweet shop, and more or less the same size:- licorice comfits/licorice torpedoes. Except the jumping beans were little toys to amuse little minds. The toys could lay flat or stand on end, even though the end was curved like torpedoes. Put them on a slope and they tipple tailed down the slope. You could race your bean against your pals' beans
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The modern version:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/b/jumping-beans/bn_7024848102
Carol
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How long do they stay alive though?
If they get out do they cause a problem ,do they gobble stuff up, if so they might have been the cause of the turnip shortage this Christmas!
V.
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How long do they stay alive though?
If they get out do they cause a problem ,do they gobble stuff up, if so they might have been the cause of the turnip shortage this Christmas!
V.
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The toys we are talking about have a tiny metal ball inside them (think of a small ball bearing) and it's the little ball rolling about inside the capsule that causes the capsule to move.
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Oh sorry I was referring to the later ad for the Mexican beans that do really
have a grub inside them ,the last part of your post .
Viktoria.
PS ,I bet Compo Simonite would have liked one of those to scare Norah Batty!
Viktoria.
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Oh sorry I was referring to the later ad for the Mexican beans that do really
have a grub inside them ,the last part of your post .
Viktoria.
PS ,I bet Compo Simonite would have liked one of those to scare Norah Batty!
Viktoria.
I'm in my 80s too and I can't imagine England having any good reason, or any spare money, during or just after WWII, to import a grub from Mexico. However, any entrepreneur who had seen the grub could have had a money spinning idea to make a cheap toy that impersonated the actions of the grub.
The Mexican jumping bean comes from the mountains in the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua. Álamos, Sonora, calls itself the "Jumping Bean Capital of the World". They can be found in an area approximately 30 by 100 miles where the Sebastiania pavoniana host tree grows.