Memories............

[John Small]

A Truly Light Hearted walk down Memory Lane............"ENJOY"

Someone asked the other day, What was your favourite fast food when you were growing up?'

'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him. 'All the food was slow.'

'Come on, seriously. Where did you eat?'
'It was a place called 'home,'' I explained. 'Mum cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'

By this time, the lad was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.

But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I'd figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.

My parents never drove me to school... I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed (slow)..

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 10. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 10 PM, after playing the national anthem and epilogue; it came back on the air at about 6 p.m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people....

Pizzas were not delivered to our home... But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --My brother delivered a newspaper, seven days a week.
He had to get up at 6 every morning.

Film stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the films. There were no film ratings because all films were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or almost anything offensive.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.








Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES from a friend:
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old lemonade bottle.
In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea..
She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?
Headlight dip-switches on the floor of the car.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Trouser leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heated on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn indicators.








Older Than Dirt Quiz:
Count all the ones that you remember, not the ones you were told about.. Ratings at the bottom

1. Sweet cigarettes
2. Coffee shops with juke boxes
3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles
4. Party lines on the telephone
5. Newsreels before the movie
6. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning.
(There were only 2 channels [if you were fortunate])
7. Peashooters
8. 33 rpm records
9. 45 RPM records
10. Hi-fi's
11. Metal ice trays with levers
12. Blue flashbulb
13. Cork popguns
14. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-3 = You're still young
If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older
If you remembered 7-10 = Don't tell your age
If you remembered 11-14 = You're positively ancient!

I must be 'positively ancient' but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

Don't forget to pass this along!
Especially to all your really OLD friends.....I just did!

(PS. I used a large type face so you could read it easily)

[Rocky]

I don't remember the party line on a phone but then we never had a phone but there was a big red call box withing 2 or 3 minutes of every house so was not really needed when we wanted to talk to people we went round to the house and knocked on the door

other memories

at the bottom of the slide was a muddy pool where all the grass had been trampled away same under the swings until years later they were replaced with flagstones now these are to dangerous and been replaced with foam rubber (yes even the grass is to dangerous for today's youngsters )

You never found anything dumped with the wheels still attached and a plank within 10 miles of each other all kids had a scab on the knee or elbow as a direct result of having fun with planks and wheels

police walking the streets and slapping you round the ear if you were slow enough to be caught (cops run was the cry even when you had not done anything just for the fun of the chase refer back to slow kids )

Sledging with real sledges (might expand on this part if the thread keeps going )

will stop there and let others come up with happy (even if painful ) memories of youthful adventure

[alf corbyn]

I built my own bike out of spare parts. it was a mans bike and i had to put my leg through the frame to reach the other pedal. (i was only nine).
as it was wartime we couldn't get tires or inner tubes, so we used to stuff worn tyres with grass. i had a cart made from a plank, a large box and four wheels. the front axle turned on an old lorry wheel race, the brake was part of a bike handlebar and the light came from an old carriage lamp that used carbide for power. we also used carbide to fire corks out of bottles and put in the inkwell of someone you didn't like. inkwells were what you used at school to dip your pen into. you were not allowed to use pen and ink at school until you were ten. we also used to split the blunt end of the pen by cracking it in the hinge of the desk lid then making a flight for it and throwing it across the classroom while teacher wasn't looking. we sometimes smoked and hid the ciggy in the desk but often got caught. the dog end we used to put in the bottom of the thermometer and watch the teachers face when the mercury shot out of the top.

[Louis the Amigo]

Hi Shipmates.11 14 i am " very very old pea shooters' we used pigeon peas as ammo much cheaper "leos peas were for sunday dinner dryed with green bag colour, The rag and bone man balloons for old clothes, or rags The Saltman big block of salt cut with a rusty saw old pop bottles or jam jars in exchange if you had no money, we made the best of what we had . My mate laurie R 280948 87yrs has a much better recall about the old days, he use to give out boots to poor boys in his school

[Robert T. Bush]

I was a country boy and learned to milk a cow, we ate better than the towns people. One neighbour kept pigs and other ducks so we had plenty of duck's eggs. There was free milk at school, the baker came round with good smelling bread, the coal was delivered for the kitchen stove. We did not have a fridge just a safe to keep the flies out. We grew our own potatoes, I remember King Edwards and other vegetables. We picked mushrooms and blackberries. In the war there was National Milk Coco, very good.

My parents worked hard there was a copper for Monday wash day lit by fire wood. I remember the mangle and Reckets Blue in a bag. We had electricity and gas. For a weekly bath we put a shilling in the gas meter for the geyser. Our village police were a Sargent who lived in the Police station and a Constable. Both had bikes and no cars. They were greatly respected and the only crimes during the war were by some wild Irishmen working for Wimpey on the roads or building aerodromes. The Newbury News would report "Patrick Murphy of no fixed abode drunk and disorderly." They were hard workers. Some of the service men also caused trouble but they were taken care of by their own police.

My first bike had solid tires. Nearly everyone rode bikes and worked Saturday mornings. There was a cigarette vending machine near the bus stop that sold Wills Woodbines in paper packets or Parkdrive. The villlage school had about two dozen kids and one teacher, everyone walked to school.

The big event was the annual British Legion Fete with big steam traction engines providing the electricity for the side shows. There was a Wall of Death for motor bikes and prewar we even had a Cossack troup with their ponies. The Beer Tent was popular. We had Simonds, a local brewery and of course Guiness.

The brands I remember were OXO, Boveril, Colemans Mustard, Heinzs Beans, Ovaltine and Horlicks. We had a fish and chips shop that was very popular with vinegar, & salt wrapped in newspaper. There was a CWS shop that sold meat and groceries with coupons and dividends. The butcher lead the village band.

War changed everything.

[Rocky]

Looks like its taking off so here is the sledging story it dates back a few years to when i was about 6 or 7 before all these PC do gooders and the elf and safety fairies started to ruin all our fun

As some of you might remember we had snow that lasted for weeks not these almost snow storms we have now we also had that kid that always said i dare you
combine the 2 add some sledges and we have the start so a bit of background this was in the years before i went to Manchester and Salford we lived in a quiet mill town nothing ever happened there and if it did us kids were usually the cause

our house had a small back garden that backed onto a field OK it was a slight hill as well but still a field so off i go with sledge in tow up the field having a great time till i here this shout of i dare you to go all the way to the top well the top half of the field was steep a lot steeper than the rest so off i went to the top looks down at the friends shouts out Geronimo and set off i went past the top of the old sledge run like i had rocket power my scarf flapping in the wind behind me about half way down the "normal run " i decided to try slowing down to little or no effect i was on the ride of a lifetime and that life was getting shorter by the second

I saw the back fence getting closer at a rather alarming speed then it was gone i went through like it was painted on paper the next thing was the garden shed nope i never went through that it did manage to stop me but thats where the problems started when i hit the shed it was with enough force to move the the thing this brings up a ;list of other problems 1 my dad was in the shed at the time 2 he stored all the old half tins of paint and other tools in there 3 the bang was as i have been told many times over the years was like a bomb going off mix all 3 of them and you get dad in tool shed getting blown up

Yep scabs on the knees elbows head and bruised from head to foot lying there in the snow thinking what a stupid place to put a shed then this strange creature came roaring and lumbering out covered in paint and other shed stored goodies looking like something from the hammer house of horror waving a huge axe which came into contact with what was left of my sledge a few times turning it into a pile of fire wood on a cold winters night you can still here the echo of "you will never ride a sledge again" rumble through the valleys

Many years later my sister told her kids they told the kids from school kids from school went home told mum and dad and some of them confirmed the story of the black and blue kid that rode the rocket from hell

No longer can you sledge into the garden as they have planted a mini Forrest at the bottom of the hill

The story has not ended though as i am now much older but definitely not wiser i went sledging again taking my nephew with me on a different hill with no houses just a small river at the bottom we went hurtling down side by side skimmed across the river on these new fangled plastic sledges and ended up as 2 snotty heaps on the opposite bank with my nephew saying wow great are we doing it again i created a legacy

Just waiting now for someone from the council to say hills and valleys are dangerous and level them all out spoilsports

[happy daze john in oz]

We all have some great memories of yester year, when the milk, bread, coal were delivered and even a greengrocer did a weekly call. There was respect by the young for the not so young, we had to drink milk at school, OK in winter, but in the summer left out in the sun to get just below the 'going off' stage.
What will the young of tday recall? Very little I suspect unless they can find it on their smart phone.

[Chris Allman]

I remember the Lamplighter on his bike with his pole and hook. Buses had conductors, rag and bone men with horses and carts, sweeps on their bikes or those very strange three wheeled cars with spoked wheels. The Coop Divvy number which you forgot at your peril, cars backfiring and frightening the **** out of you, steam rollers with the road menders, following the coal lorry round picking up the coal they dropped and taking it home.

[cappy]

bloody hell chris I think ive met somebody older than me lol cappy

[Chris Allman]

Thanks cappy, great memories, sometimes wish I was back there now, it was a gentle life where you worked hard and played hard with a lot less hassle than these days.

Chris.