Do You Remember

[Familysearch]

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

[a chesters]

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.

[zetlander]

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!

[JohninSussex]

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)

[PurdeyB]

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!

[Rena]

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"!

[Jebber]

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.

[Rena]

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. 

[JohninSussex]

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.