Food in the 1950s Part 2: Well, I may... - Lung Conditions C...

Lung Conditions Community Forum

54,982 members65,771 posts

Food in the 1950s Part 2

Lynne1955 profile image
28 Replies

Well, I may not be able to do any more until Monday as we are ways this weekend in Malvern with friends. I was born in 1955, so many of these things were still true in the early 60s. I love all the additions you are coming up with.

Herbs were used to make rather dodgy medicine

Bananas and oranges were only seen at Christmas

A chinese chippy was a foreign carpenter

Oil was for lubricatiing your bike, not for cooking. Fat was for cooking

Tea had only one colour - black. Green tea was not British

Coffee was only drunk when we had no tea, and then it was called Camp and came in a bottle

Healthy food consisted of anything edible

A seven course meal had to last a week.

If we had eaten bacon, lettuce and tomato in the same sandwich, we would have been certified

Cooking outside was called camping

Lynne xx

Written by
Lynne1955 profile image
Lynne1955
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
28 Replies
jandan profile image
jandan

Mushy Peas weren't an instant food they took 12 hours to make

Penny arrow bars, lucky bags and a Bunty comic with high tea on Sundays at Nanny and Granddads. I was born in 51 and am proud to be a baby boomer. :)

libby7827 profile image
libby7827 in reply to

I had Bunty then swapped to Judy. I can remember waking before anybody else on a Saturday morning when they came and listening for the paperboy. And if there was a free gift due, well, I hardly slept for the excitement of getting another plastic ring!! Kids today don't know what they've missed by getting everything they want, do they?!

jandan profile image
jandan in reply to libby7827

Girl and School Friend were my comics. Bunty came later I was born in 46. Do you remember the toys that used to come in cereals? For example a diver that you had to put bi-carb in to make it rise in the water lol

libby7827 profile image
libby7827 in reply to jandan

Lol! Yes, and the cardboard things with an elastic band that you held between your two hands and as you moved your hands in and out it would whizz round and make a noise, my brain can't quite get the fine details of it, yours might!

Milestone profile image
Milestone in reply to libby7827

They were called 'bizzy buzzers'. I used to make them for a company in Ascot when I was at home when the boys wre babies. Sadly I used to get an absolute pittance but needs must. I had Girl comic and read my brothers Eagle as well. When I was 12 I had womans Own instead and swapped with Mum for her Woman!

libby7827 profile image
libby7827 in reply to Milestone

Bizzy buzzers! I didn't know that! Womans Own at 12 - you must have been very mature for your age! I started getting a magazine called Petticoat when I was about 14, just about the time Twiggy was all the rage, that's when I knew I was nearly a grown up! Thanks for telling me about the bizzy buzzers. Libby

Lynne1955 profile image
Lynne1955 in reply to

I adored lucky bags and wondered what treasure would be in the one I had every week. I loved sherbet dabs too.

KingoftheCocktails profile image
KingoftheCocktails

Tripe and onions mmmmmmmmmmm.My Gran always had a tripe type stew on the range all winter long and the farm workers could just go into her kitchen for a meal anytime,as long as it was tripe!

KingoftheCocktails profile image
KingoftheCocktails

Pigs trotters ,superb

Lynne1955 profile image
Lynne1955

I remember all those but I wish I didn't remember pigs trotters and tripe lol.

I cannot tell a lie, these were all printed in a local free paper and I am copying out a few every day as I think they are great and they do bring back memories.

I remember our weekly treat, shared beween 4 of us, was one bottle of either cream soda or dandelion and burdock.

My comics of choice were Bunty, Beano and Look & Learn. When older it was Jackie.

More on Monday, possibly sunday but that depends what time we get home from Malvern.

Lynne xx

ivyleaf profile image
ivyleaf

School Friend and Girls Crystal before them I used to love Enid Blytons Sunny Stories

Used to be 2p [[old money!] I used to collect them.

Jam jars taken back to grocers for pennies, if you were lucky mum would let you buy sweets with the pennies .

Grocers kept the biscuits loose in open tins you bought them by the pound.

Ponds cold cream.......and face powder

California poppy perfume

powder shampoos seem to remember Vaseline and Sylvycrin.

Rinso washing powder.

x

.

libby7827 profile image
libby7827 in reply to ivyleaf

Lin-co-lin beer shampoo and Vosene and Sunsilk (?). Soaps, Camay (Katie Boyle) and Cadam (for madam!). Fairy Snow and Tide. I can still smell my mum's face powder in my imagination!

It annoys me that I cant remember about the 50s. I was so busy doing this and that. Withing the space of 11 years, I have left school, scretarial course, SRN training, got married and had a child. I do remember having bad flu, bloodstained sputum, xrayed, got better.

Does anyone remember bath chap?

lavender1 profile image
lavender1

A great and nostalgic blog Lnne I was born in 1945 and so remember all of this, bath chap escapes me Annie but might have been called something else in Scotland. Oh lord

Rinso washing powder and the sylvicrin I can almost smell that now plus of course

Evening in Paris perfume, dark blue and silver bottle the height of decadence.

lavender1 profile image
lavender1

Oh and the co-op had broken biscuits cheap but only after school when you were sent for them (the worst of them were shocking pink sickly cream layered wafers -lol) and a local newspaper which had Gossip and Grumbles and Little Stories from the Police Courts which even the youngest of my siblings used to grab once they could read and hoot with laughter at the most hair raising stories. Dried egg yeuch and National Milk (giant tins of babies milk powder) cod liver oil and orange juice and, if I remember properly, a somehow marked shortage of bananas.

Lynne1955 profile image
Lynne1955

These really are my memories:

My older brothers listening to Saturday Club on the radio and my sister practising the jive with a piece of elastic and the door knob.

Saturday morning cinema at the local cinema just down the road (now a co-op) and having fish and chips in newspaper walking home.

Fish and chips being a cheap meal!

Dad never went to the pub unless we all went in summer and sat outside as a family with our vimto and straw.

Dad had Davenports beer at home.

Being sent up the road to the house of the local milkman when we ran out, to buy some more off him.

In summer, being sent to the shops for a block of ice cream which they wrapped in newspaper with orders from Mum to run home with it before it melted.

Lynne xx

ivyleaf profile image
ivyleaf

Yes I remember the National Milk and orange juice.

and the Evening In Paris perfume then came Max Factor Pan-Stick and Pancake makeup.

Remember Twink and Pin-Up home perms?

no tinned peas! remember mum soaking the Batchelors dried peas overnight ready to cook for the sunday dinner.

blackberry picking so we could have apple and blackberry pies and jam.

going home from school we could go through a local orchard and buy a penny apple.

Reckitts starch.

Mary x

libby7827 profile image
libby7827 in reply to ivyleaf

I still have a half used Max Factor Erace (like a lipstick but for concealing blemishes), it was very popular in the early 60's as a pale lipstick. I always kept it because it came a gold metal case - Max Factor was a bit upmarket in those days!

I was born in 53 in Glasgow. I can remember the lamplighter lighting the gas lamps in the closes (stairwells for the non Scots among you).

Going to the sweet shop and asking for the penny tray.

Riding on the trams

The rag and bone man

Getting my photo taken every Christmas at Lewises.

Going to the outside loo in the close with newspaper hanging on a nail for loo roll.

Andy Pandy, Bill and Ben and either Oor Wullie or The Broons annual every Christmas ( they were published year about)

I can remember my mum collecting free plastic tulips with a box of wash powder, omo I think it was, We had poodles on our bathroom curtains and tiny wine bottles on the wall paper in the kitchen. Ahh happy days. :)

hajoed profile image
hajoed

Born '47. Coalman and Milkman were horsedrawn carts as was the rag and bone man. We played ball games in the street, a very wide road as the houses were all huge and it had once had been a posh area, and you could wait days to see a car. Born in the upstairs front bedroom, doctors fee..sixpence.

This was the East End of London and we went Hop Picking for our holidays. I think I was about 6 when I fell in love...with the Goons and am still faithful. As per. the horses,one job we children didn't have to do as the mothers went out with the shovels, best fertiliser in the world! No comics or anything but on sundays my cousin would cycle to the Oil Shop and bring back Tizer and a block of ice cream! very happy days!

chopsticks profile image
chopsticks

Does anyone remember Icilma (hope I've spelled it right) it was a face cream my Mum used to use

caroleoctober profile image
caroleoctober

I remember bath chaps, just as nice as a of piece ham, how about liberty bodices then, used to hide mine under the mattress so I didn't have to wear it! No playing out on a Sunday and no buses either!

sassy59 profile image
sassy59

School milk, sometimes with a straw containing strawberry powder, lovely. I also remember winter mixture sweets and everybodies mixture, jublies, black jacks, fruit salad, spanish wood, pear drops, five boys chocolate, Vim to clean the bathroom, kitchen and most other things. Lifebuoy carbolic, sunlight soap, Omo and walking just about everywhere or going by bus. I was born in 1952 and we weren't well off but we were happy. xx

kris123 profile image
kris123

Used to love 3d bag of sherbet and a halfpenny liquorice stick. I found a shop that sells the crystalline sherbet but can't find the liquorice stick anywhere. They are not the hard type that snaps just rubbery like pontefract cakes

ivyleaf profile image
ivyleaf

Camay and Cadum soap I remember well also Omo.

Liberty bodices with rubber buttons so they could be put through

wringer. wooly pixie hood hats, best coat and shoes to be worn only

on Sundays or for visiting or trip to town.

Vim powder I still miss sometimes

Chopsticks are you thinking of Vimelda or something don't think

that's the right spelling either.

x

mackem profile image
mackem in reply to ivyleaf

yes I remember it well the fog seemed thicker the cold colder and despite wearing liberty bodices I still got pneumonia I was born 1952

remember Friday night (I cant recall how old I was)the cast iron bath in front of the range and before that vaguley recall sitting in the stone sink my chest been rubbed with menthol and eucalyptus out of a green poison bottle,teaspoon of cod liver oil (given in the bath) a spoonfull of liquid pariffin,sulpher tablet(keeps the blood clear yo u know) I must admit I have never have been bothered with spots hair as well as body scrubbed (yes scrubbed with all I can describe as been a floor brush)with carbolic soap

then my hair put into rags by grandmother tosome attempt to make my hair curl and go into ringlets My brother had the curls oh and then to make us sleep(thank god panall that in the smallest glass ever shot glasses I suppose in todays terms) a slug of whiskey and Stones Ginger Cordial oh yes and if anyone did have something wrong out came this mysterious gloop in a tin called Kaline Poultice that was boiled in a pan of water and when the tin was opened was smeared onto a bandage made of an old sheet rag and slapped onto wherever needed I am sure even today my grandmother who came from up Saltburn way was a witch but I do miss her and wish she was here to help with my aches and pains today

Mackem

You may also like...

Sailing, part 2 - Adriatic and. NUDITY

than us, in our social group, had a small sailing boat like ours and were preparing for his...

Sailing- part 3 Florida

Our friends had their boat built to their specification in west coast of Florida. We flew out there

post nasal drip part 3

said nothing up the nose to point to anything as I had an Endoscope up my nose and down the throat....

Food stuck in pharynx-Albuterol tx

finally I could cough it out. The second event had similar symptoms but was a piece of food....

OUR PETS are an important part of our life

his owner had died in sheltered housing near by. A kind person had taken him to a vet, who had...