Someone has already mentioned accumulators, can you imagine a small child carrying a heavy square glass
container full of acid to a shop to be charged and carrying a fully charged one back home so the radio could be used? elf and safety!!!
Equally as a small child with a couple of pennies to buy sweets looking at the sweets in the shop window with the sticky fly paper full of dead flies just above the sugared almonds and dead flies sometimes in among the sweets, we called then candies back then late 40s early 50s because sweets were still rationed we had to have "candy points" as well as money to buy them, candy points were torn from ration books to give to the shopkeeper, so if you ran an errand for someone sometimes you were given some candy points and perhaps a jammed crust from a fresh baked loaf as a reward.
Moving house on a hand cart, one or two items at a time.
A cousin who spent her early life sleeping in the bottom drawer of a Scotch Chest, until a crib was available
The circus arriving in town and the animals moving to the venue from the rail depot, elephants in line and camels with frothy mouths, llamas and wild cats in cages.
The popcorn man selling "chocolate coated pop corn" to the cinema queue from a converted pram.
The Cinema Commisionaire who only allowed one person in as one came out.
The roast chestnut man with his mobile brazier and cart on freezing November nights.
Clearing snow from Pub frontages to earn some extra cash.
A great topic I've enjoyed reading it, sometimes I think it was a great introduction to life living in a time when you had to contribute to the home, errands, bringing coal, chopping kindling etc, but then would I want the same for my grandchildren?
James
