Genealogy Chat

Does anyone remember 'blue bag' being dabbed on nettle stings and well as making whites whiter ? Bread and warm milk (or sop as my Mum called it) - a cure all for feeling poorly Iodine for grazes on the knees - stung like mad but did the trick Rags in the hair every night in order that hideous curls appear next day Newspaper help in front of the fire to 'draw it up' occassionally catching fire in the process Funny red patterns on the front of legs by sitting too close to the fire - the only way to keep warm with grandma always having the door open ! Oh nostalgia ! Mary Brooke

DOES ANYBODY REMEMBER THE OLD BLACK RANGEMY MAM DID ALL THE BAKING/COOKING IN THERE. THAT WAS MY JOB ONCE A WEEK TO CLEAN AND BLACK LEAD THE FIRE RANGE,WE ALSO USED THE SHELVES OUT OF THE RANGE TO WARM THE BEDS IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER.THEN THE SNOW WAS THICK WE USED TO WALK 5 MILES TO SCHOOL [NO BUSES IN THEM DAYS]SNOW USED TO COME OVER YOUR WELLIE BOOT TOPS,NO SCHOOLS WERE SHUT EVEN WHEN SNOW WAS 4/5 FOOT DEEP. COUPLE OF SPECKS OF SNOW TODAY THROWS THE COUNTRY INTO CHAOS.WE HAD A 6FOOT BY 4FOOT SLEDGE THAT MY MOTHER MADE. WE WOULD RIDE UP AND DOWN THE HILLS TAKING IT TURNS FOR WHO WOULD BE ON IT COMING BACK UP THE HILL. WE USED TO GO FETCH COAL/COAL BRICKS FROM THE COALYARD WITH AN OLD PRAM RIDE DOWN THE HILL BUT WHAT A JOB IT WAS PUSHING A CWT[HUNDREDWEIGHT] OF COAL BACK UP THE HILL.LIBERTY BODICES,HAND ME DOWNS FROM SISTERS OR ANY BODY IN STREET THAT HAD GIRLS,WEARING YOUR SISTERS CIVIL DEFENCE SHOES COS YOU HAD NO SHOES THAT DIDNT HAVE HOLES IN SOLES,DOING ERRANDS FOR OLD FOLK ON STREET TO EARN A PENNY[OLD PENNY] SO YOU COULD BY A LOAD OF BLACK JACKS/FRUIT SALADS,COD LIVER OIL AND ORANGE JUICE AT SCHOOL,GOING TO SLEEP ON LITTLE CAMP BEDS IN SCHOOL,HAVING THICK PORRIDGE WITH A SLICE OF BREAD /MARG FOR BREAKFAST.CANT TOUCH PORRIDGE NOW.THOSE WERE THE DAYS WHEN YOU WERE TERRIFIED TO ANSWER ANYONE BACK IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A CLIP ROUND THE EARS IF WE HAD.ONCE GOT A CLIP ROUND THE EAR FROM A BOBBY COS I TOLD HIM TO MIND HIS OWN BUSINESS WHEN I HAD TO DRAG MY SISTER HOME FROM HER FRIENDS.COURSE WHEN HE WENT TO THE HOUSE TO FIND OUT IF IT WAS RIGHT, MY MOTHER GAVE ME ANOTHER CLIP ROUND THE EAR FOR BEING CHEEKY.

"BYGONE DAYS" Hopscotch,Jacks, Marbles, Knock and Run, Skipping with a washing line (salt,pepper, mustard) 1d Arrow Bars, Mo Jo's, Blackjacks, Gobstoppers, yellow powder called Kalie, Sherbert Dips. Sugar Butties, Brown Sauce Butties. Chips cooked in Dripping, instead of Sunflower Oil. Rip Raps on Bonfire Night. Kites made from brown wrapping paper. Watch with Mother, Andy Pandy, Rag Tag and Bobtail, Wooden Tops and Bill and Ben. What a price we pay for progress! Shirleyxx

John, just to say thanks for that - I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Deborah, you and I must have lived in the same street - our memories are so similar. I remember Opportunity Knocks (I had a Zena Zavaroni Album). Selena

Someone mentioned "listen with mother"...Are you sitting comfortably? thn we'll begin...Hot buttered toast with strawberry jam was a big thing on Listen with Mother, on the big brown radio in our house on the shelf above the encyclopaedias beside my dad's chair........ Bobby in Melbourne

Thanks for the B/day greetings............ 22 comes around soooo quickly. I am glad people enjoyed the thread. It brought back memories I had forgotten about.

Who remembers Virol, condensed milk sandwiches (I bought a tin today for old times sake!), margarine and sugar sandwiches, tripe & onions, Camp coffee with evaporated milk - disgusting! We moved from Malta to the North of Scotland in 1963. It was cold. We lived in a small caravan. I slept on the bath which was converted into a seat/bed with the addition of a board and piece of foam. The loo was a bucket in the shed outside with squares of newspaper or Izal toilet paper (newspaper was softer!) One summer there was a hornet's nest in there! When the 'big freeze' came, our caravan was buried - couldn't get to the loo (caravan doors open outwards). I was glad I was the youngest - I had a potty and very little sense of shame! (I was 5) Despite the cold, we were rarely indoors,(4 children and 2 adults in a 15ft caravan is a great incentive to get outside) I wore one of those hat and scarf in one things and fur lined zip up ankle boots. When the soles wore through, cardboard was put inside. I don't think we were particularly poor, it was just the way things were. and after all that I had to clean t' pond out!! LOL

I don't know. You lot had luxury. I was born at the end of the war and me ma had to use up all her ration stamps to buy a box of matches and when she had used them to cook the dinner on we moved into the empty box. All 14 of us. The meal was great, unwashed gravel given flavour from used bits of blue paper the rich people got in their crisp packets.... But...... There was an outside loo, newspaper squares on a nail...we all learned to read before we started infant school. In the evenings we had to recite poetry and our times tables before the radiop was turned on. The speaker was in a tin bowl so we could all sit round and listen. I've got a sudden craving for some bread and drippin'. My mum knitted the vests for us. I was talking to a colleague today about genealogy and he said it was just a load of old lists of dead people. Then I asked him if he had seen Oliver, had wondered about Jack the Ripper, if he knew when the police force was started, when the great exhibition was opened. The relief of Mafeking and Ladysmith. We are only talking a couple of generations back for some of us. History has come alive for the first time in my life since I got the bug. Keep it alive with all our "old lists" Roger from East Sussex

playing british bulldog,skipping,whip & top,war with the boys the girls were always nurses,kiss chase and if you fancied one of the boys you let him catch you! baths on a sunday night(ready for school the next day)then sitting by the coal fire watching sundaynight at the london palliadium,it was so cosy! if you were playing out and it started to get dark you thought"oh great,mum has forgot to call me in,no such luck!! soon as you thought that she called!!

Roger.....that wasn't pooer! we was pooerer, you was lucky to have the box to live in, we had to shelter under the hedges at the side of the road, and for food we had to lick the dead insects off the white lines on the road, but we was lucky, we had the white lines.........!!!!!!!