Life in the 1950s Part 3: Here we go... - Lung Conditions C...

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Life in the 1950s Part 3

Lynne1955 profile image
44 Replies

Here we go! Back from our weekend away in Malvern and we had a fantastic time. The theatre there is wonderful. Anyway, a few more for you:

Hot cross buns were only eaten at Easter

It was compulsory to eat pancakes on Pancake Day and at no other time

We bought milk and cream at the same time, in the same bottle

Sugar enjoyed a good press back then

Prunes were medicinal

Pineapples came in chunks in a tin. We had only ever seen photos of them

Garlic was used to ward off vampires

Water came out of a tap. If anyone had suggested bottling it and charging treble for it, they would have been a laughing stock

What about you?

Lynne xx

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Lynne1955
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Lynne, I really laughed, that took me back to a time when I didn't have a care in the world, just a kid.

Oh! Gold top was fantastic unless the birds got it in winter.

Where children respected their elders.

If you got into trouble you would get a clip around the ear from a policeman.

Jack frost on the inside of windows in the morning.

When you could leave your doors unlocked and wouldn't be burgled.

When your neighbours were a community and looked after each other.

Living in the country was wonderful.

Cass xx

We got gold fish from the rag and bone man, our mums put olive oil in our ears with a plug of cotton wool, I had a liberty bodice with rubber buttons. My Irish nan used to cut an onion in half when I had a cold, she put one half under my bed and the other in a sock tied around my neck????? I ad liqufruita and must have stunk. xx

I had a liberty bodice, ll through combinations - awful. Suspender belts.

Chilblains - castor oil awful - to keep you going) Nelsons inhaler, Vic cough medicine. Cod liver and malt. Meggezones.

Daily deliveries to your doorstep of bread and milk - by horse and cart . Bread that was fresh on day one, used for toast by day two and breadcrumbs after that! How come it can stay soft for so long these days - can't be right?

Lynne1955 profile image
Lynne1955

Chemicals Parvati!

I loved my spoonful of malt everyday. Like treacle but soooo tasty. Recently my sister and I bought every brand we could find to see if it was the same. No, we couldn't find it :(

in reply to Lynne1955

see this

telegraph.co.uk/health/chil... Potters reintroduced their original :)

libby7827 profile image
libby7827

Thanks for Part 3 Lynne, every time you put more on I'm thinking, why didn't I think of that one, as they are all so true. Malt and cod liver oil! Yum! Licking every last tiny bit off the spoon! And Annie80's comment on the liberty bodice, yes I remember it well, with metal loops! Thanks to everyone who is coming up with more and more, it all seemed so easy back then, but we were children, our parents probably thought differently!

jandan profile image
jandan

spangles and five boys chocolate, and the ovaltinies on the radio

Lynne1955 profile image
Lynne1955

For some reason, I can't do replies. Jandan - I adored spangles!

Johnwr - that was lovely to hear.

Was anyone else a member of the Tinga and Tucker club with Auntie Jean Morton?

Lynne xx

ivyleaf profile image
ivyleaf

Funny I was just trying to remember the words, I was a little ovaltinie.

remember rushing home from school for the Archers

flat irons......camphorated oil.....skirts with cross over straps.

wincy petticoats ..to wear over the dreaded bodice,!

Mary

johnwr profile image
johnwr

Short pants and skinned knees

Picking potatoes at the local farm

Always got a shilling off grandad when we visited. Mum would take it off me and it went into the Post Office Bank.

The smell of tar when the council men repaired the road

Cigarette smoke you could not see through on top deck of a bus

Tin tray sledges

Fishing for tiddlers with nets and jam jars

Taking back jam jars, pop and beer bottles and stone ginger beer bottles for 1d deposit

Butter being weighed

Being asked how thick did you want your bacon cut

Potatoes on the market, 1d a pound or ten pounds for a shilling!

Oh I loved Malt & Cod Liver oil too! How about Minadex, Levers Little Liver pills; Indian Brandy; small tins of solid toothpaste; liquorice sticks (or were they REALLY sticks :-p ); Wagon Wheels that nearly were the size of wheels......... oh what lovely memories. Brilliant post Lnne.

johnwr profile image
johnwr

Saturday treat - being left in the decorating department at the co-op store while mum did the shopping. When someone bought wallpaper, I got to treadle the machine that trimmed the edges off the rolls of paper. Glass of orange juice for each order done! (cheap labour?)

Collecting foil milk bottle tops for school for charity

Gordon57 profile image
Gordon57 in reply to johnwr

Giving the girl behind the counter your 'divi number' at the Co-Op so she could dial it into the till and it printed on the reciept :)

Bigger department stores with 'whoosh' tubes, where the counter didn't have a till - they put their hand-written bill and your money in a tube, it went 'whoosh' through pipes to the office, then came back stamped 'paid', with your change !

canalchris profile image
canalchris in reply to Gordon57

our divi was 105323

johnwr profile image
johnwr

Suggestion for a poll

Malt Extract with Cod Liver Oil --- Original or Butterscotch Flavour?

Butterscotch for me.

in reply to johnwr

Has to be Original for me!

canalchris profile image
canalchris

I spent a lot of time living at my Grans house, A big detached stone built house. No central heating, huge Yorkshire range in the living room. Home baked bread. Butter that was cut from a block and was kept in the butter dish and had to be thawed out in front of the fire in winter.A quilt that was so heavy it felt like it was going to crush you. and the bed so cold that you had to ruffle your feet around really quickly to create a bit of friction. And a posh front room that was for special occasions only. I could go on and on, and I DO MISS IT.

KingoftheCocktails profile image
KingoftheCocktails

Sitting out side the front gate by the roadside taking number plate no's.1 maybe two 2 cars an hour!

canalchris profile image
canalchris

Dad making ne keep my paper round money in a box under the stairs, It wasnt till I was 14 that I found out it was the gas meter.

Lynne1955 profile image
Lynne1955 in reply to canalchris

That is so funny Chris xx

libby7827 profile image
libby7827 in reply to Lynne1955

Hahahahahhahahahahahahahha! Thanks Chris.

medow profile image
medow

The health visitor came round with malt and cod liver oil for me and national health orange juice because I had been poorly.

The yearly best kept garden competition on our council housing estate.

Does anyone remember sun light soap, I had to wash my hair with it, rinse through with vinegar, my hair looked great. I had an aunt who I thought was posh, she had pears soap

Ah ! Cola cubes.

in reply to medow

Sarsparilla tablets!

canalchris profile image
canalchris in reply to medow

Do you remember the dilute orange juice that the milky had on his float, never tasted anything as good since.

in reply to canalchris

Oh I certainly do remember that. I have searched & searched but still can't find any to beat it.

Nitap profile image
Nitap in reply to canalchris

Oh yes you can. I get my Orange Juice in a glass bottle from my Milkman and yes it does taste the same as years ago. Maybe it's the glass bottle, not plastic or those waxy cartons, is the same taste. A neighbour popped in last summer and I gave her a glass, she so impressed by it that she has the orange juice delivered by the milkman but no milk, she buys that from supermarkets ?? xx

Outside toilet at the bottom of the yard and small pieces of newspaper on a string behind the door. Stone hot water bottles and steam coming off the bed as it warmed! Crumpets on a toasting fork toasting over the open range - I can still smell them!

libby7827 profile image
libby7827 in reply to

I've still got our stone hot water bottle, it's a family heirloom! Ha ha1!

Toasting bread over the coal fire and burning fingers trying to retrieve it when it fell in.

Mum heating up her irons in the fire for ironing, which was done on a folded sheet on the kitchen table.

Having cloth strips plaited into my hair what night to make it curly the next day.

The nit nurse coming around school and the cruel jibes we threw towards anyone sent home. Skipping ropes and hopscotch.

canalchris profile image
canalchris in reply to

My mam always said you had to have clean hair to get nits cos they didn't like a dirty scalp.

Wash tubs with crystals on wash day and flat irons on the range can smell that still.

canalchris profile image
canalchris

What about lighting the fire with rolled and folded paper sticks and coal on top, then holding a sheet of newspaper across the front of the fire to make it draw. Getting a bath in the old tin bath which hung at the top of the .cellar steps and having to go down the cellar to get coal by the light of one measly bulb, all those dark spaces you couldn't see into. The outside loo and walking down to it at night with a candle in a jar, and the squares of torn up newspaper with a piece of string through the corner. EEH BY ECK, THEM WOT DAYS. ha ha

pamsshed profile image
pamsshed

Hi, I was a child of the 60s too. Loved the orange juice and codliver oil I was given every day when small. The lovely smell of Johnsons baby powder when it came out of a metal container. Doesn't smell the same now. Ice cream cones from a man on a tricycle with an insulated box on the front. The icicles in the winter of 1962 which I would pick from the window frames and low roofs and would lick like a lolly. In the mornings I would get dressed under the bed clothes, sheet, (old army blankets and eiderdown) as it was so cold. Listening to radio Luxemburg in bed which constantly faded in and out. Long ice slides which we made in the playground and slid on until the caretaker put salt and grit on them. Ah! the memories.

Lynne1955 profile image
Lynne1955 in reply to pamsshed

Yes, I used to do that with icicles too xx

lavender1 profile image
lavender1

Bootpolish tin to play peever -broken crockery to use for cash when playing shops . Back court dress-up shows both children and adults -a Saturday night free extravaganza- can still laugh loudly when I'm fed up and think about some of them!

ivyleaf profile image
ivyleaf

Yes I used to sit on garden wall and collect car numbers.

Oh red mottled legs...remember them !

Elastoplast tin with bead collection, changed the odd bead with friends in school yard.

cold meat and bubble & squeak on Monday for tea when mother had been busy

all day with the copper boiling away and sink full of washing.

Mary

lavender1 profile image
lavender1

The indignation when the "jolly vendor" decided you hadn't

really won a coconut when you knew for sure your dad had

knocked lumps out of the target but it just wouldn't fall -surely

people weren't so corrupt in those days -lol

Lnne, Thanks for this blog :)) inspired me to write a (lengthy) list of memories that I just emailed to my son & daughter. all your memories certainly paint a vivid picture and prompts many a memory. Friday nights - treat night - potato man (not the toy) came in his van with cinder toffee, broken biscuits, spearmint chews - yummy. My Uncle George came with his brown paper carrier bag that rustled as he brought out oranges, peanuts, cod liver and malt jar, comics etc. I think of the warm and safe feeling of those evenings enjoyed as a family sharing the goodies and laughter. Thanks all for your memories and for making me remember mine :) xxx

sassy59 profile image
sassy59

So many memories and so much nostalgia - brilliant! I loved spangles too and the rag and bone man. I also used to wear a liberty bodice! We used to have a wonderful ice cream man and a man who sharpened knives. We had the same postman and milkman for years plus the man from the Pru. My mum and dad had coke and coal delivered and would count the bags in. I remember the coalman with a helmet on that had a flap down the back of it and he carried the bags of coke and coal resting on his head and neck. I loved playing in the street with my sister and friends and we used to skip and sing all the time. Those were the days! xxxx

Ellena profile image
Ellena

I can remember with pride most of what has been put on this blog, but my favourite memory is that of my mother toasting bread on a roasting fork over the open fire, the smell so warming and welcoming on a cold winters day, coming home from school, the smell of warm toast filling the air as I went through the front door......Mmmmmm, lovely. We made our own entertainment in those days, never got bored and always had something and someone to play with, whipping tops in the street, hide and seek in the street, a tin can rattling on the ground to say the one chosen to find us was on the way, trouble was, we giggled so much it wasn't hard to find us. marbles was another game, and fivestones, hopscotch, and a very naughty game called knock down ginger, anyone remember that one, we used to tie a piece of string to a knocker or letter box, hide close by, and pull the string, made sure we hid well when someone came to open the door to find nobody standing there. No time for boredome in those days, and we were happy kids. what a great subject, thanks Lnne. xx

Lyd12 profile image
Lyd12

I remember turning the mangle as my mum fed the washing into it. Legs got splashed with water, and anything with buttons you had to hold that part until it got to the rollers and the. Rewind, otherwise you broke the buttons!

Dmactds profile image
Dmactds

I'm from the Southern US and was a youngster in the late Forties/early Fifties; early on, I recall getting ice by the block for the "ice box" and milk delivered to the door along with newspapers and the daily mail which was carried by a skinny guy with a big leather bag on his shoulder.

Early Fifties, my Pop started sending me next door to the gas station for a pack of 28 cents cigarettes. Often some of the men hanging out there (kinda like the old country store syndrome) would warn me those were "coffin nails", meaning, of course, they would kill me. Why any of us ever believed otherwise or that we didn't know better than to smoke back then is beyond me. It's always been 'common' knowledge.

Kevinsnelling profile image
Kevinsnelling

Liqufruta the original watery stuff. The local playground with rides like the Umbrella roundabout which doubled as a climbing frame to swing on like Tarzan.

A thing which you had to stand on at the ends using your arms and legs to swing it back and forth higher and higher till the centre seat area hit the end top framework. I sure we called it the Vault ? A 15ft high metal slide whose brass slide part could be polished using candle wax to make fast enough to injure anyone who couldn't keep on their feet when they came flying off the end ! A metal horse thing which if you were brave you would lay on the ground underneath when your mates used it ! And in the hot summers frozen Jublees.

Sunday's when eve main high street roads were empty, Newsagents who weren't allowed to sell birthday cards on Sunday's

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