Genealogy Chat

Did any of you go hop -picking - I did - lived in a shed for weeks, layed on straw mattress, cooked over open fire(or Mum did). The toilet was awful just a little shed with a pan over a hole in the ground, my brothers always tried to move it when I was inside. That was our annual holiday. I played out all day when I was a kid. All we needed was a ball, tin can or a skipping rope, piece of chalk to draw hopscotch, marbles, 5 cobs. I did have to go to church every Sunday and produce my stamp to show I had attended. Were they the good old days???? I think it toughed me up to cope with life and what it throws at me. Regards and thanks for the memories.Irene

What about being sent home early from school when there was a London smog and told to wrap our scarves round our mouths. I can remember having to feel along the hedges to get to my house in a pea souper. And catching your fingers in the mangle when mum asked you to put the washing through it? And the green grocer who used to come round with a horse and cart and dad would send you out with a bucket to shovel up the poo for the veg garden?

We also sat on cold front steps which we were told would give us "kincough" whatever that was. All it ever gave me was a cold bum.

Wonderful stuff! But I can't understand how we survived without a Nanny State to guide and protect us!! Lol.... Kathy

Ah yes. Playing tracking each other with chalk marks all around the district. Searching through the rubble on bomb sites (in the 1950's) this was. Doing handstands up the wall of the end house in the row with your dress tucked into your knickers!! Swinging from lamp posts. I could go on and on.

LOL... Oh, Peter that's a good one!!! :o) Should'nt laugh really.... Kim x

I did not do this (I was a good boy???) Tie cotton from one door to the other across the street, and the first car to go down made all the doors knock. I saw a whole street come out to answer there doors once.

And the kids now think they are the first to skate board! How often did you put a christmas annual book on one skate and either risk your life down a steep hill (not a lot of traffic in those days) or sit on the book until it fell off and you went home crying with a bum that was black and blue for weeks?

similar thing was given to me 10(ish) years ago WE ARE SURVIVORS!! (For those of us born before 1940----) We were born before television, penecillin, polio shots, frozen foods, Xerox, plastic, contact lenses, videos, frisbees and the pill..We were before radar, credit cards, split atoms, laser beams and ballpoint pens: before dishwashers, tumble driers, electric blankets,air conditioners,drip-dry clothes - - AND before man walked on the moon. We got married first and then lived together (how quaint can you be?). We thought "fast food" was what you ate in lent, a "Big Mac" was an oversized raincoat and crumpet was something you ate for tea.We existed before house husbands, computer dating, dual careers, when a "meaningful relationship" meant getting along with cousins and "sheltered accomodation" was where you waited for the bus. We were born before Day care centres, group homes,and disposable nappies. We never heard of FM radio, tape decks, electric typewriters, artificial hearts, word processorsyogurt and young men wearing earrings. For us "time sharing" meant being together, a chip was a piece of wood or a fried potato, "hardware" was nuts and bolts and "software" wasn't even a word. Before 1940 "Made in Japan" meant junk, the term "making out" reffered to your exam results, "stud" was something that fastned a collar to a shirt and "going all the way" meant staying on a double-decker bus to the depot. Pizzas, McDonald and instant coffee were unheard of.In our day cigarette smoking was "fashionable", "grass" was mown, "coke" was kept in the coal house, a "joint" was a piece of meat you had on Sundays and "pot" was what you cooked it in. "Rock music" was a grandmothers lullabye, "Eldorado" was an ice cream, a "gay person" was the life and soul of the party and nothing more, while "aids" just meant beauty treatments or help for someone in trouble. We who were born before 1940 must be a hardy bunch when you think of theways in which the world has changed and the adjusstments we have had to make. No wonder we are so confused and there is a generation gap today--- BY THE GRACE OF GOD--- WE HAVE SURVIVED ALLALUIA!! HOPE YOU LIKE IT. JOAN

Can you rember christmas as a kid going down to the local butchers and they would give you the turkey feet tendons still in tack so you could make your mum cringe when you pulled them and made the feet move . I would also spend hours playing french elastic just one meter tied in a knot one end and two people would stand either end and you would then jump in and out of it. I showed my neice and she really enjoys playing it and has shown all her friends and they love it too but i have not seen girls play it in a long time . I also used to do chalk drawings in the street hopscotch, pictures etc if i did that today would i get into trouble and be accused of vanalising pavements . And my hula hoop that was fun too and all this fun for a few pounds . Diana P.S Burning arrows should'nt laugh really but i have this picture in my head .

The kids in my street used to sit on the kerb rolling melting tar up on to a stick and then use it as a home made burning arrow!

That is me down to a tee. Apart from the worms (I hope) I even remember the clip round the ear I got for throughing eye balls at cars (its a long story) by our locale bobby.

I remember my brother playing with the tar that used to come up through the cobbles in the road. He'd then procede to try and eat it!!! He was only 4 and thought it was a new flavour bubble gum and that's where it grew! :o) Kim x

Fantastic, I've seen something similar before. Makes you wonder how we made it past primary school the RISKS we took!

BRILLIANT - makes up for the senior moments! Very true though, isnt it.

People over 35 should be dead. Here's why: According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids anywhere from the 1950's to early 1970's probably shouldn't have survived. Our prams were covered with bright coloured lead-based paint. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets, ... and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking home from a late night disco in our teens.) As children, we would ride in cars with no seatbelts or air bags. We drank water from the garden hose pipe and not from a bottle. Horrors! We ate home-made buns and cakes, bread and butter, and drank fizzy lemonade with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. But after running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. NO MOBILE PHONES!!!!! U n t h i n k a b l e ! We did not have Computers, Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, if fact no video games at all. No hundreds of Satellite channels, video rentals, DVD's, surround sound, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside, found and played with them. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents? We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law and gave us a good smack. Imagine that today! This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. Congratulations...so far...so good! Please pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good !!!!!

Hi everyone.....Husband found this on a website and I thought you'd all like it. Hope no one takes offence because without computers we all would'nt be able to get as far as we have so quickly with our tree's! :o) Hope it brings back some memories...Kim x