General Chat

Caz We must be a similar age. I remember all those. I had forgotten about the gondola basket, although I did have one. Elizabeth My dad used to do the same with the baby chicks. He also used to put a soft blanket into a bowl, then put the eggs into it that the hen had been sitting on, and bring them in by the fire. We would watch as the chicks pecked at the shells to hatch. We used to make pop corn with the Indian Maize that was used to feed the chickens! Remember the coal fire with the oven at the side? How they used to roast and bake in those with nothing to control the temperature amazes me. My mum used to spend ages 'blackleading it'. Instead of a stone hot water bottle, my mum used to wrap the shelf out of the oven in a sheet and that would warm the bed for us. We also had gas mantles in the bedroom as well as electricity. We used to use the 'clothes maid' with blankets over to make a tent. What about the old flat irons? Always two. One heating on the fire while you used the other one. Even boiled the kettle on the fire sometimes. The old wash tub and dolly peg, the scrubbing board and the little washing blue for rinsing. Can't see today's generation doing it. LOL Joan

I try to live in the present, we can't change the past. I wish the newscasters, though, would go back to giving us a feel-good story at the end of their prog. it is all so depressing these days, isn't it? Lily

I can recall mum warming our clothes over a paraffin heater before we put them on in the cold mornings, and if you were cold in bed, parents used to throw an overcoat over the mountain of blankets, eiderdown etc for extra warmth. I can remember dad getting baby chicks from the market and putting paper down on the lino in the living room, a wooden frame on top, (just four planks joined to make a square), a stone hot water bottle wrapped in an old cardigan in one corner and all the little chicks peep-peeping round the warmth as if it was the mother hen. We used to boil up eggs and chop into little pieces to feed them till they were big enough to go outside in the chicken run. I can smell and hear them now. I can remember my mum putting all the spare eggs into Eisingglass? in a big jar - it preserved the eggs till the time when the hens stopped laying. My mum used to make home made chips for all the local kids we were out playing with and put them in paper for us. Dad made a tent/shelter in our garden for us kids to play house. It was made out of hopsacking that he got from work at a brewery and the front was a piece of sacking that had a pole on the bottom to hold it down, or we rolled the whole front up to get in. Overnight earwigs would hide in the sacking and when you went in to play next day they'd be dropping down everyone's necks. I still hate earwigs. An older lad in the street made us some tables and chairs from old wood and we all got splinters in our legs. Poor lad was killed in a carcrash at the age of 18. I used to make rose perfume from fallen rose petals - shoved them in a jar and added water, and next day they turned into ... vile smelling water! Playing drs and nurses with the older girls in the street, in their shed, and being caught by my mum with my vest off (I must have been all of 6) and everyone getting told off. Lordy I could write a book and maybe I should, for my son and future generations. Happy Days.

Not my most fave memory........ but can anyone remember singe marks on wooly jumpers???? jumpers that were dried on the fireguard and singed. Lol We werent posh so we had to wear them ,only if they couldnt be seem whilst wearing a duffle coat!! Karen

i remember those liquorice sticks... they looked like a real twig and when you chewed it it went all stringy. and those long plastic tubes you bought from woolies, waving it around over your head and it made a wurling sound. oh, jubblies...mmmm just gutted if they wern't quite frozen.

Did anyone belong to the Tufty Club? I remember ice skating on Frensham Ponds with my Uncle Jim in 1963. It was frozen solid. Snow drifts as high as the hedges. Blackjacks, flying saucers and sherbert dabs. Memories...... Very nice ones. Pam. Forgot, and Semolina!!

Do you remember hopscotch and chalking the squares and numbers on the pavements - you wouldn't be allowed to get away with that nowadays! Jan

Our Gang! Tying two neighbour's door knobs together and knocking on the doors and hiding to watch the confusion as they both tried to open the doors at once. Walls' Ice Cream -ice cream between to wafers and the triangular Ice Lollies. Gem Biscuits - tiny and round with a squirl of icing on top. Telephones made from two tin cans and a piece of string. Having to show my hands to my Grandpa after Sunday School before we could have tea - grimy nails and too long a quick were a No No. Watching him make Fatty Bread (thick slices of bread and dripping hung in front of the open grate to toast on a hooked gizmo. Going outside in the rain to the new flush loo! Grandma had a mangle in the yard on washday that was bigger than her and she used to be lifted off her feet every time she turned the handle on the HUGE wheel. Playing spin the bottle at the Youth Club and HOPING it didn't stop in front of a boy you didnlt want to kiss!

Getting dressed inside your bed clothes as it was so cold, no such luxury as heating! Having to drop off younger sisters and brother to primary school, always made me late. Playing out all day and only returning when it got dark. Sunday tea was always from the fish barrow outside the local pub. COCKLES LOVELY.

Boyfriend bubblegum with a card with a pop star in it Billy Fury,Eden Kane,Cliff Richard,Dennis Lotus!) TV Comic with the Red Ray club. Those adverts in comics for shoes with animal prints on the soles. Trying to find somebody with a television so I could watch Princess Margaret's wedding.And the television had a mauve screen. The winter of 1963 when the snow went on for ever. Janet and John books.(Come and see.) Wide Range Readers. Hiram Holliday,Tales of Rubovia(Wetherspoon) Suet pudding we called stodge in one form or other for school dinner every day.

Marianne I think the next thing will be for me to have my name on a badge around my neck, just in case I forget that as well!! lol It is said that old age doesn't come alone. Joan

My childhood in Wimbledon. When all the days were sunny and it only rained at night. When we had white Christmases. When Nan would give me a bag of sandwiches and a bottle of Orange squash and tell me to be back by teatime. When I had the whole of South London to wander at will. When the Museums were free and Cartoon Cinemas cost a shilling. When on the District Line you could stand at the open door of the Train and watch the world flash by. When you got a clip around the ear from 'Authority' if caught misbehaving. Those were the days.

Lots of happy memories on this thread. And Oh Joan I am glad it just is`nt me having a Senior Moment when I can remember 30/40 years ago but forget what I went into the kitchen for. Love and Peace Marianne.

Some lovely memories on here. Weren't we young and innocent then? lol. Was anyone else an Ovaltiney? Remember the song: We are the Ovaltinies, happy girls and boys etc and the password, Chuckle. Comics: Tiny Tots, Knockout, Robin, Film Fun. The teenage magazines: Romeo, Valentine and Mirabelle and of course School Friend and Girl's Crystal. Corona pop. Orange Maid lolly ices (the drink on a stick). The small bottles of milk put around the fire in school to defrost them. The frozen milk was usually pushed above the top of the bottle dislodging the foil top. Going to the river with a jam jar trying to catch tiddlers. First pair of nylon stockings and very low heeled shoes, AGE 14. What a nightmare trying to keep the seams straight. We thought we were really 'IT'. Isn't it amazing how much we can remember from all those years ago and yet have difficulty remembering what happened last week. (Well some of us anyway!! lol) A great trip down memory lane and a really interesting thread. Joan

ANOTHER JUST CAME TO MIND: FRYS CHOCOLATE BARS;ONE WITH FRUIT CENTERS AND ONE WITH FONDANT CREAM AND DARK CHOCOLATE; 2 PENNY PACKET OF KP SALTED PEANUTS;; RICH .GOD NO.!! BOUGHT WITH MONEY BACK BOTTLES; AND DADS CHAIR;;>>>>>>>. kay.

OH YES!! Raiding the cupboards to give rag man for a goldfish!!!even included dads best trousers!!!!!!!!! Sherbert Lemon,Powder which turned your fingers yellow, First taste of Walls Choc Ice,wonderful,mmmmm, Penny Packet of Smiths Broken Crisps,and sharing them for crisp sandwiches,, Barley Twist Stick that went on for ever,slurppppp, 3d worth of mixed from the bottom of sweet jars,bit of everything,, Going off for hours NO FEARS then and devouring the waiting dinner all the way home;; Elastic round top of socks to stop them keep falling down; Money back on bleach bottle so to go swimming, And yes the all to familiar 'BUBBLE SWIMMING COSTUME' great if all the elastic was in good order if not you got out of the pool with it down on your waist!!!!;GOD,>>>> K,

Is the phantom nudger still about?? Why are there lots of old threads coming up again. Another one from last year about 'telling the sex of baby'. What twat needs to get a life!

All meeting in the local cafe being welomed, and not being thought of a YOB! Deanna

Saturday morning pictures - 6d and 9d. Sweets (when you get them on ration) 4p per quarter. School dinners 1/8 per week ( and they were good, meat and two vegs) Ice on the inside of the windows. 9' TV screens, uncle Mac and Larry the Lamb, and 'Good Night children everywhere' and then off to bed at 6pm. (and you didnt argue) There was firm disciplin in those days, but it was fair. Indoors by 9pm, even as a teenager). Playing football in the road between the cracks in the road surface. Street parties and a bonfire of Tojo the japenese admiral, men coming home from POW camps. What memories we do have and how times have changed - for the better ????? brenda

You also forgot Jack and Jill my fav comic