I don't think they would believe it nowadays?

[PetePontoValentino]

When the family visited my granny, four kids slept in one bed, two at the top and two at the bottom, so you had two pairs of smelly feet at your head. My Granny never had electricity, so at night when it got dark, the Tilly lamp was lit. There was something very nice about the sound of it being pumped, then lit. The sound of when it was running, the colour of the light and the adults chatting as I drifted off to sleep. I remember being very cosy in bed.

We lived at a Glenlivet for a while, every night when we were went to bed, my mum would give all the kids a big spoonful of sweet sticky malt out of a big jar. No toothbrushes in those days. As I write this, I can almost smell it. It was so nice. No wonder my teeth are rotten!

I guess the Sticky Malt was "Virol*. The memory came back to me a few weeks ago and I tried to find some online. It seems it was discontinued some years ago.

 

[PetePontoValentino]

What about buying a 1/4 bottle of whisky? Haven’t see one of them in a while.
And when everyone had zippo lighters, we sold small gel capsules that had lighter fluid in it.
One more, who remembers Woodbine?

What's the point of a 1/4 bottle? it won't come close to filling a pint pot!

My grandfather smoked "woodies", he would light them using strips of old news paper lit from the gas cooker (I guess more appropriate for his chosen vice than a zippo

 

[Craywater]

Well I never! I'm in South Wales and was born in Neath, where I spent my childhood with my grandparents.

Their cure for a chest cold was goose grease on a piece of Welsh flannel, placed on the chest.

And now, in all my 74 years, this is the first time that I've encountered anyone else mention this folk remedy.

Takes me back.

Martin.

I remember my Grandmother (Ystradgynlais) rubbing goose grease on
chest, mid 50s, and drinking elderflower tea.

 

[Ollie78]

Corona lemonade, we used to collect the empty bottles take them to the shop for the deposit and buy sweets.

Ollie

 

[pidgeonpost]

Ye God's, there are so many of these things that I remember that I must be at least 108, but ask me what I had for lunch 2 days ago and it's a different story.

 

[kinverkid]

Sitting in the doctors waiting room with all the adults smoking. Then when you went in to see the doctor, he (it would always be a he) would have a fag on the go too. I remember bath days when I got too big for the sink we would have the tin bath. It would be hit or miss if we had it or the family across the street had it. If it was a sunny day we could have a bath in the garden.

 

[Glitch]

Walking a mile to school with my sister. I was 5 and she was 6/7

School swimming lessons in a local, freezing outdoor pool

Having a chemistry set and my younger sister eating the Potassium Permanganate

Green Rover tickets - As an under 11 spending the day on the buses with mates randomly travelling through Hertfordshire

Playing with fireworks every Oct/Nov - usually bangers and crackerjacks.

Climbing on garage roofs - asbestos ones

Adventure playground where they supplied wood, hammers, saws and nails for kids to build tree houses pretty much unsupervised. Nothing stayed intact for long as other kids recycled (nicked) the materials.

Walking several miles to a pub and back that served us as 16 year olds. Playing darts for hours in said pub.

 

[Wildman]

Experimenting with Nitrate fertiliser in my bedroom. I didn't think it would ignite, so I took all the heads from a full box of matches and mixed them in, then added some sugar because it should help it burn and I love the smell. I put the mixture in a Sun Valley tobacco tin. Set it on my bed and lit it with a match. It started burning a bit better than I thought, so I knocked it on the the floor where it burnt a beautiful square hole in the carpet. By this time I was thinking about the belting I would get, so I picked up the tin and chucked it out the window. Both hands were severely burnt and had to be bandaged. next day at school the teacher asked what happened. I told her something had caught fire in the house, I picked it up and threw it out the window. She thought I was a hero!! lol

Taking 12 bore cartridges to bits, getting the gunpowder and setting it on fire. My mate wondered what would happen if he put a full cartridge in a vice and hit it with a hammer. lol it took the end of the shed off.

Now I remember the local bad boy mixing sugar and weedlkiller putting it in a metal tube with a jetex fuse and wedging it in a tree, darn near set fire to the forest when it went off , it split the tree in two. Shotgun licence ten bob from the post office and no age limit.

 

[Sandyn]

I guess the Sticky Malt was "Virol*. The memory came back to me a few weeks ago and I tried to find some online. It seems it was discontinued some years ago.

Never heard the name Virol before, but I'm sure that's what it would have been. I remember my mum saying it would be good for us. I wonder if we tasted it today it would be as nice as we remember?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Sitting in the doctors waiting room with all the adults smoking.

Monday mornings were best avoided - the waiting room was full of the usual skivers waiting for their sick notes, and you couldn't see across the room for smoke.

 

[Sandyn]

It's amazing which memories stick in your mind, often something horrible. When I was about 5, I woke in the middle of the night with a really sore throat. I went through to my parents bedroom crying in pain. My mum got a teaspoon, using the handle end got a big lump of Vicks rub on the spoon and poked it down the back of my throat. That must have been a miracle cure, because I never complained about a sore throat again!!!

 

[Oraclebhoy]

Back in Coatbridge, Scotland, remember going to the doctors, you walked in the door, spoke to the receptionist who handed you your medical notes and then you went and sat on plastic row of (bright orange) seats. As the next patient when in to see the doctor, you all stood up and shuffled down one chair.
No appointment needed and we had the best doctor, Dr Marcuccilli, he passed away years ago but his son has taken over from him in that surgery.

 

[Mick p]

I remember a pub in Invergordon in 1950. Sawdust on the floor and in big spittoons on the floor. I thought it was a bit like a wild west saloon !

Me and My wife stayed at the Mariners hotel in Invergorden two years ago I don’t think its changed very much since 1950
only joking

 

[Terrytpot]

Also, nail gun ammo...yes ammo... blanks used to drive nails into concrete. Got them by the box. Put them on nearby train track for giggles.
Making our own knives for carving stuff, functional bows and rudimentary arbalests..
Yep, my childhood... We were bored... But no one died, or on drugs, no one in prison, no fights (well, fights, but had to be a good reason to have one).

still got a scar below my left thumb where the base of a 22' round detached and launched into me when I beat the hell out of it after cramming it full of match heads...made a lovely bang
fondly remember a friend who had a table tennis table that we got bored playing with and ended up standing at either end of it hurling darts at each other whilst attempting to defend ourselves with the bats...got him in the stomach and forehead
We also used to make what we called "French Arrows" from bamboo and playing cards which were launched at each other with loops of string..quite effective.
Again, we all survived...quite how I'll never understand!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Hell, I'd forgotten all about the rudimentary arbalests.

I remember at thirteen being held upside down by the feet in a manhole because my father thought I'd be able to get my arm far enough up the pipe to unblock it. It worked, and as the sewage started to flow a sanitary towel floated past. Do you know what that is? Yes, I replied. A moment later a contraceptive floated past. I know what that I as well, I said. Good, he said. That was the sum total of my sex education from my father.

 

[D_W]

As a kid, my dad turned the water off in the shower. You'd think he was done, get ready for your turn, and then the water would turn back on for a short period of time. He's covered like a bear with hair, so the water would go off again and you'd hear "thump thump thump..." for a while. One day, I asked him what it was, and he said he was beating the hair at of the washcloth (because he didn't want to waste water allowing it to run to rinse the rag further).

He grew up in a house with 11 occupants and a hand dug well. The livestock had a clear full supply from an artesian well, but not the residents in the house - they were on a house well that delivered less and nobody felt like going far to get extra water. Strange thing is he's still on a well, but it has an unlimited 25 gallon per minute supply. He still cannot bear to see any water on a second longer than it should be.

When I was a child, my mother trained us to take baths (no clue why, but whatever). If she heard you wrapping it up, she'd ask how warm the water was and then use the used water. Same thing - daughter of farmers (but more well off). Both parents are crazy with thrift on some things (less so on others). They will not commit to spending money unless they're really sure of what they want, but have a huge house and spend plenty taking care of the property.

Both of my grandfathers died wealthy, but with no ability to spend any money on themselves - it made them upset, and they took joy in leisure that cost nothing.

Mother's father in the 1980s found a full sized 7 watt lightbulb and put one in the reading lamp in their living room and one in their powder room at the front door. It was a guessing game as to whether or not your wee was hitting inside the rim or outside. My dad would complain loudly about it, but his father in law would boast of finding the bulbs. IF you wanted to read, you had to practically sit on the arm of the sofa and lean over toward the lamp to find the amount you'd need to read.

In the winter when they weren't watching the news, the TV was off and if nobody was reading, so were the lights. The pair (of grandparents) would sit in the dark for hours, awake, just pleased to be able to rest at the end of the day without thinking about anything, but it made it very difficult to tell if they were home sometimes (car always locked in a garage). We would arrive at their house on the weekends and knock on their windows and wait several minutes before leaving, just to make sure they weren't there - they often were.

 

[artie]

He still cannot bear to see any water on a second longer than it should be.

My mother couldn't stand it when I just dropped the hose and let the water run away until I needed it again.

She used to say, "If you had to carry that water in a can on a bicycle for a half mile from a well, like I had to, you wouldn't waste so much"

 

[houtslager]

My lad of 10 was amazed yesterday when I told him that old cars could start by turning the engine over with a starting handle.
We had to visit YouTube before he would believe me.

I had one auntie rover p100 with suicide doors, did the bodywork up whilst stationed in Germany (BAOR)

 

[Jacob]

My first job was farm labourer. Started in winter with muck spreading. This meant going out into the fields to each of dozens of piles of muck which had been dumped there in the autumn and were now weathered a bit, and fork it out in a big circle. Sort of tennis action - throw a forkful up and hit it.
Each heap was from a small tipping cart probably half a ton pulled by a horse but I'd missed that part and they were now buying their first tractor towed muck spreader.
What they didn't have was any machine to load the muck spreader so that was all done by me with a fork and shovel, barrowed up a slippery plank. Probably 5 tons or so (just guessing these weights) and took half a day to load, half an hour to spread. Luckily they'd parted with the great wooden barrow and the new one was just heavy steel with solid tyres.
What the muck spreader didn't have was any sort of baffle to stop it being spread everywhere including all over the back of the driver so I had a plastic mac with a matching souwester - and scraped the sh*t off at the end of each run
A few years prior to that we used to have camping holidays on another Derbyshire farm. We helped with hay making - all done by hand with horse drawn carts and an old fashioned hay stack. A big cooperative with lots of neighbouring farmers, horse, carts. We kids did turning and winnowing with big wooden hay rakes. Sunny days - paradise!

 

[Jacob]

I had one auntie rover p100 with suicide doors, did the bodywork up whilst stationed in Germany (BAOR)

My old dad had a Rover 90. Suicide doors? You mean reverse hinged at the back so they could swing wide open without warning?