CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

[Tizer]

I remember setting out in an Austin A35 for an important appointment. The heavens opened and the rain poured down - and the wipers stopped working. No time to investigate, I had to forge onwards with nose pressed to screen. Luckily traffic wasn't as dense or as fast in those days!

[Cathy]

Don't remember making cordial like that, maybe I didn't have it as a kid (wouldn't surprise me...)
Re shop opening hours, these days even on public holidays you can't always be sure which shops are open or closed.

[Marilyn]

It was called Bobo Cordial Extract, and had a clown on it.

[Marilyn]

I remember when old ladies wore "hair nets"...
And I remember my Mother wanting one of those new-fangled irons...that you put water in and the steam makes ironing easier.
Her husband thought she was quite mad. "You can't mix water and electricity. You will kill yourself woman!"

[SPR676]

The ice cream lady walked down the cinema aisle. The usherettes would appear at the interval and the knack was to time your scoot down the aisle to get in first for your tub of ice cream.
The Coalman .... and the coal was delivered right to our coal bunker upstairs in a four-in-a-block building.
Penny for the guy. All the kids in our street turned out for this event. Make a few pennies, buy sparklers and sweets.
Water shortages....baling out the bath water to put on the garden!

[Stanley]

Sent by Maz.

[Marilyn]

My first Mother-in-law was an Usherette before she married (back then, women didn't work after they were married).
It was considered a very glamorous job to be an Usherette. The job was highly prized. (I suspect there was great competition between the girls too...one had to look "just so".)

[SPR676]

Scottish dance music with Jimmy Shand and his band. http://www.tablyricfm.com/artist-Jimmy- ... b-Lyric-fm

Scroll down and make your selection from the list on the left then click on the play button. If you don't want to listen to it but maybe some other, then just click the close button, click on "Jimmy Shand" for the selection list to reappear and scroll down.

One of my favourites is the Bluebell Polka. I've posted the lyrics in the Poetry thread.

[SPR676]

Pennyworth of broken biscuits from the Co-op, and cracked eggs ... not over the counter of course.

[Stanley]

I used to sell broken biscuits when I was 'open all hours' at Sough.....

[chinatyke]

Popping our head around the shop doorway and yelling "Have you any broken biscuits?"
"No."
"Then break a few for us please!"

And the butchers shop: "Have you any mince left?"
"Yes."
"Your fault for mincing too much!"

I guess the shopkeepers had heard similar a thousand times before from cheeky young lads but it kept us amused!

[Cathy]

In grade 4 I was the Teachers Tearoom Monitor . I was responsible for putting the hot water urn on, wiping down the tables and I can still remember the smell of the malt biscuits that I had to lay out on the plates for them.

[Stanley]

I still remember the taste of Farley's rusks..... Very rough and supposed to help with teething.

[Tizer]

And I remember the taste of Ovaltine - never liked it though!

Mrs Robinson in the corner shop had a `penny tin', an Oxo tin in which were examples of the sweets us kids could have for a penny or less. There were ones for a farthing but I don't remember ever paying with farthings at the beginning of the 1950s and I think we had to take two and pay with a halfpenny, or four for a penny. Minting of farthings ceased in 1956 but perhaps they were disappearing earlier and shopkeepers didn't want them.

[Marilyn]

I remember....Wombles!

[chinatyke]

And I remember the taste of Ovaltine - never liked it though!

Mrs Robinson in the corner shop had a `penny tin', an Oxo tin in which were examples of the sweets us kids could have for a penny or less. There were ones for a farthing but I don't remember ever paying with farthings at the beginning of the 1950s and I think we had to take two and pay with a halfpenny, or four for a penny. Minting of farthings ceased in 1956 but perhaps they were disappearing earlier and shopkeepers didn't want them.

Farthings with the robin design, thanks for bringing that memory back.

[Tizer]

And don't forget the 12-sided nickel-brass threepenny bit, minted from 1937 to 1967 and ceased to be legal tender after 31 August 1971. Twelve `prototype' ones were made in 1937 in preparation for Edward VIII. Six are in collections but the other six are still out there somewhere, so check if you have any old ones!

[SPR676]

Saturday nights. Dad getting the football results on the wireless ... nobody dared speak or there was trouble.

[Stanley]

San Izal toilet paper......

[SPR676]

Kick the can.

[Cathy]

Darn it, I only have this one

WP_20180512_16_56_25_Pro.jpg

[SPR676]

Shoe protectors.jpg

[Tizer]

Darn it, I only have this one.

But at least it's from the last year of issue, Cathy, 1967. Who knows, yours might have been the last one minted!

[Tizer]

As a very young child, being allowed to sit in a Spitfire cockpit in a hangar on Battle of Britain Day at RAF Warton. It might have been the same hangar where Glenn Miller played for 10,000 servicemen in 1944.

[Cathy]

Rupert. I bought my daughter a Rupert book as well.