General Chat

Although I was born at the end of the war and my earliest memories were as a small tot just after the war years, there are some things about everyday life that I recall which I know went on during the war. Simple little things like scrubbing the front doorstep whiter than white every day. My grandmother religiously used to do this like most other housewives. At the time, having a brilliant and clean white doorstep was considered a sign to the outside world that everything was as equally clean inside the house. How things have changed.

Where there was carpet, it was never wall to wall. It was more of a large square rug that covered most of the floor but about six inches of floorboard or linoleum was left showing around the edges. I do now know why but it was certainly considered the fashion at the time. Red Cardinal polish was frequently applied to the floor and the smell used to permeate the entire house. My Grannie was still using it in 1970 and when I used to visit her, I could smell the polish as I entered the front door from the fresh air. The smell always used to trigger a sort of aromatic memory of my childhood.

There was no toothpaste then. It was either a sort of powder or it came in a hard round block in a shallow tin. The tin was domed at the top and the hard block of tooth cleanser also had a small moulded hollow on top. This was to allow one to rub a wet toothbrush around in circles on the block gathering a little tooth cleanser on the brush as one did so. The edges of the tin quickly became rusty but that did not stop us using it.

Washing up liquid did not exist at the time and it was normally soapflakes dissolved in very hot water that was used for all cleaning purposes, both crockery and clothes. A little bag of "blue" was added to the whites. My grandparents said that if you ate fish, the smell of the fish remained on the cutlery and would not wash off. After every fish meal, they used to take the knives and forks into the garden and sink them into the earth for a day. They said that this neutralised the smell.

My grandparents had a television although I do not think this was used until the early 1950's The televison was contained in a long wooden radiogram type piece of furniture, the lid of which used to prop up at a 45 degree angle. On the underside of the lid was a mirror and the televsion used to point upwards at the lid and the mirror from within the cabinet and viewers used to sit at watch the tiny TV screen reflected in the mirror. Half the street came into the house to watch the coronation on this one incredibally tiny screen. My favourite programme as a young child was a puppet called Hank the cowboy who had an arch enemy named Mexican Pete. Not many people seem to remember Hank but he has always stuck in my mind. A few years ago, I went to an Antiques Roadshow program in Somerset. While I was waiting in a queue for my "precious" antiques to be appraised, I noticed Michael Aspel a short distance away interviewing someone who had a model of Hank on a table. I instantly know who it was when I saw him, Hank that is not Michael Aspel. It was a cut away model with Hank sitting on a horse but with the bottom of Hank and the horse missing. If I recall correctly, I could see wires coming from underneath that were probably pulled to operate the model. Unrfortunately I was away on holiday when that particular edition of the Antiques Roadshow was screened so I never got to hear the story behind this particular model.

Michael

Turf and Passing Clouds were the names of two other brands, and Capstan Extra Strong and Goldflake.

Remembered a few more Cigarettes

How could I forget Kensitas, they were the last to stop putting cards in the packet

Star, made by Wills I think

Guards

and then of couse there were American Cigarettes, most of which you can still get

Camel, Pall Mall, Rothmans, I don't think Marlborough were around then, but I may be proved wrong

Mac

Hi Mac, sorry you're feeling poorly, hope you feel better soon. This thread together with the childhood memory threads could be combined - all the material is there for a blockbuster!!

I recall when I was still in schoool that I had to get up very early with my Mum one morning, something like 5:00 am to go into Cardiff because a supply of nylon stockings was due in a store at the bottom end of town and it was one pair per person so I had to go and queue with her in the early hours so she could have two pair of nylons!!

Jean,

Haven't been too well of late, but I will start it soon

Mac

Thinking of the mentioned turning of sheets.When they became too thin for this the good parts would make pillow cases and the rest made hankies, tea towels and dusters. I still have a couple of oven cloths ,an apron and two pillow slips made this way. I havent sides to middle a sheet for a couple of years but I bet I havent forgotten how to do it.
Did someone mention that Mac was collating these letters? It would make a very good source book for anyone writing fiction set in the war years, wouldnt it. Jean

Apart from making home made bombs, I used to keep Pidgeons

I could not afford to buy them, so I used to climb up into the arches of the local Thames bridges and stuff a few babies into my shirt.

I had a small loft built from bits of wood I used to find along the shores of the river, usually fallen from barges and brought up with the tide

Officially you were not supposed to take it away as driftwood etc belonged to the Port of London Authority but they wouldn't miss it, I thought I was doing them a favour clearing it up

The pidgeons I raised became very friendly and attached to me and I would often walk about with one on my shoulder and teach others little tricks

I loved them birds, they were like my little children, then one day some B****** came into the garden and "nicked" them (probably to eat)

Never kept them again for a long time, I was heartbroken, although my brother built me a "posh" loft when he came home from India after the war, but I didn't have the same enthusiasm as before

Mac

I lived in an area of West London where at that time there were still a few apple orchards

They were a magnet for boys, including me, in between the trees there were Gooseberry bushes Pumpkins and Rhubarb plants

One day I got caught with a few Apples in my shirt by the local "Bobby"

He said to me "Now then Son, You can come down to the Police Station and we will call your father or you can take your punishment now, Whats it to be?"

I said "I'll take it now sir", knowing that my Dad would give me a good hiding

The Bobby whacked me round the ear and said, "right, now get orf ome and don't let me catch you in the Orchard again"

"I won't Sir" I said, (he never CAUGHT me again)

I went home with the Apples still in my shirt, but I had Earache for a week

Mac

nudgeing this thread too keep it going Maz

Deanna,
You asked how I made my feather pillows!
Easy,but very messy,that is why I did this in the bathroom,and had a big enough container for the feathers.
Of course the bath was dry!!!
Emptied out all the feathers from the various sections of the eiderdowns,having already sewn my ticking on the machine.
filled up each pillowcase till I thought they were full enough,and then took them to the machine to stitch up.Then I made an under pillowcase out of old sheets for each one.Lovely soft pillows.
I also (with the help of a neighbour ,Mrs Jones the dressmaker,as she was known in town) re-covered a three piece suite,as follows....Down to the springs,then a layer of horsehair,a layer of linen,a layer of foam and another layer of linen,a layer of wadding,and yet another layer of linen.Then the final layer of tapestry and piping.The cushions were duck down,and so they wouldn't bunch up and flatten out,we did it in sections.

What a job,but must say it was the comfiest suite I have ever had.

Brenda x x

n

thanks for that Jean - I had been racking my brains trying to think of Girls Crystal and Red Letter!!

I lived way out in the country during the war - half way up Caerphilly mountain - it's got houses built all the way up to our old cottage now but in those days we were quite isolated. German planes used to fly over and use our road as a guide down to the ROF factory at the bottom of the road - they bombed it one night and killed the night shift. Sometimes they would miss and drop bombs around our house but fortunately never close enough to bother us. We used to go out the morning after a raid and look for shrapnel - highly prized. You were not supposed to keep it but hand it in to the police. We found an unexploded incendiary bomb one morning when out with my Mum. She shoved it under her coat and we took it home to wait for my Dad to come home from work!!! I do wonder sometimes how I survived the war!! Dad came home, dismantled the bomb to see how it worked - he was an engineer - and then took the detonator to work in the factory next day and they all mused about the kind of bang it would make if it exploded. They did this whilst sitting round a brazier eating their sandwiches at lunchtime. Then some bright spark said = only one way to find out and threw it in the brazier!! People leapt over lathes, split tea and trod in sandwiches but it only went "pop". I should have been an orphan!!!

Jean I do remember the leaflets with the songs.... my mum used to get them, she played the piano, and we used to sing together...
Deanna X

Brenda, I can't even remember how my mum emptied the pillows, but I remember that she did it.
How did you do it?

Jean I used to have the GIRLS CRYSTAL too.
I adored it until they changed it from a magazine with stories, to a comic.
I broke my heart. They did the same to the GIRL. It had never been as good as the Crystal, but I did like it.

Wasn't I one 'strange' child??
Cried when they changed my Magazine into a comic, and cried myself to sleep when my dad bought the television?
Well I was quite grown up for my age.... I did not become really childish until I got to be an old woman!! ;-0)

Jean I did not realise that furniture too was rationed.
I know that the furniture was UTILITY and your choice was light varnish or dark varnish.
My ex-MIL gave me the tallboy and dressing table from her bedroom suite, and I painted it for my girls bedroom.
I had it for years , and gave it away when they both left home.
They were very plain, but beautifully made, much better than some of the rubbish that is in our shops today.

Margaret, my mother used to make all our clothes too.
she was a very good dressmaker.
I remember her going to a dance at the SGTS mess one night with my dad.
She got up in the morning, flew out and bought some material and was wearing the dress. and looked lovely.. by 7.00 that night.
she had seen to us all day too.
It was brown, with a piece coming from the right shoulder to the left hip leaving a little 'floppy' thing with a pink lining.
Sounds awful now that I have told you, but it was very fashionable in those days.

Then 30 odd years later, I did the same with my daughters going away suit!
Amazing what you can do if you set your mind to it.
I had just finished the wedding dress and not left myself enough time to do much else.
It was worth it though.

Deanna X

Does anyone else remember the printed leaflets of the words of popular songs? They came out fairly regularly, and you had to hope that one of you had heard the music on the wireless enough time sto know it, as there was no music on the songsheet.
I used to have The Girls Crystal magazine and my sister had Red Letter. I read hers as well though it was a bit old for me.
Dad used to come to Wales on leave when he had enough time, complete with boots and gaiters, and unloaded rifle which we were forbidden to touch. Do you remember Blanco which was used to clean webbing belts and gaiters. That was around for a long time after the war and I used to get wide bands of khaki dust on my clothes from dancing with soldiers in full kit. Poor souls had to dance in boots! There was the Homeguard which we are familiar with from Dad's Army, but not quite so funny as it was a serious business. Factory workers all had to take their turns in firewatching duties at night, ready to put out any incendiary bomb which landed near. Most jobs were done by women as so many men were in the forces. Thats where womens lib started. I'm about run out of memories at the moment but will read on with interest. Jean

Everyone keeps reminding me of more, this time Barrage Balloons, Searchlights and Ack Ack (Anti Aircraft) Guns

When I used to go on holiday to Gateshead we used to watch the Women ATS raising and lowering a Barage Balloon at the end of Bensham Crescent, near to Bensham Station (now gone) and behind Hendees Bakery.

Down in West London (Isleworth) about 100 yards from the bottom of our garden was a Searchlight mounted in an ATS camp in Redlees Park and quite often had an Ack Ack gun on a trailer close by

Very exciting for little lads in amongst all the action,"Air Raid Shelters" Who needed them when all this was going on

I can remember once a group of Home Guard running up in company with all us kids to capture a German who was coming down on a Parachute, He landed on the edge of the local Sewage Works and was marched off down the street to the Police Station with us in tail.

Mac

By the time I was six years old, the family had moved to Leyton in East London. There were still plenty of bombsites around to play on as kids, I used to hide my homemade bow and arrow on one bombsite because my mother would not let me bring it into the house. The streets used to be full of children playing quite safely without parents being worried. For some reason the girls always used to play hopscotch or skipping. There were very few pavements that did not have hopscotch squares marked out on the flagstones in chalk. Boys used to play more physical games like football or "IT". IT was a simple game where we used to chase each other trying to touch another member of our group. They of course would be running away from you trying to avoid being touched. If you succeeded in touching another boy we used to shout "Your It" and they would then become the hunter instead of the hunted. I dare say the same game was/is played all over the country with variations on the name.

Another game that probably has different name variations around the country is what we used to call "Knock down ginger". Coming home from school on our own with our schoolmates even though we were only six or seven, no parents or school runs then, we sometimes used to play this game which was totally mischievious and quite naughty. Many of the houses were terraced and used to front directly onto the pavement, someone would choose a house at random and knock on the door. Everyone would gather around the front doors with ears straining to listen for sounds of the occuupants making their way along the passage to front door. Nervousness, even fear grew greater and greater the nearer the occupant of the house got to the door. The object of the game was quite simple, the last one to run, won. I don't think anyone would probably dare do that nowdays without getting an Asbo, but it was the sort of game that children used to sometimes play and without malice to ones elders. In retrospect, I think I am glad it's a game we did not play very often.

Barrage balloons still existed on the Leyton/Hackney marshes which were used by some military people, (I don,t know who), for parachute training. When we saw the barrage balloons in the sky when we left school. The kids went over the marshes in droves to watch.

Michael

I look for this thread every night to see what has been added.
We didn't have it so tough in N.Z. as you lot did but we were terrified the Japs were going to come and make us plant rice. The funny thing is that about twenty years ago when we had a lot of Japanese tourists visiting West Aust. I was in our small country town and a tourist stopped me on the street and asked me where there was a Bank Teller machine. I was immediately ten years old again and a terrible wave of fear came over me. I was so agitated I could hardly speak and just mumbled something and pointed down the road to the Bank. He must have thought I was a gibbering idiot.
At school we had a visiting teacher who had been evacuated from the island of Malta giving us a talk about kids in the playground being machine-gunned by German planes. After that we had to practise evacuating our class rooms and running across the football field to some trees on the edge of it then someone must have thought that was a stupid thing to do and decided we had better all walk home escorted by a teacher. A group of us had to walk up the Main Road in this valley that I lived in and our teacher came with us. She told us that if a Japanese plane came over we had to lie down in the gutter. When my mother heard about this she said "Don't you dare lie down in the gutter with your clean clothes on,"
My father worked in the Army Dept and he used to pass on theories like it would only take three bombs, one on each of the three roads leading out of Wellington and we would all be trapped with no way out. Very reassuring.
We had about a mile to walk to school and we used to run two lamp posts and walk one or sometimes walk along the top of peoples concrete fences and see how far we could go without touching the ground or run with one foot in the gutter and one on the footpath. On the way we used to pass a big stone that was a memorial to the men who had fallen in a battle with the Maoris and who were buried nearby. My mother had told us that if you ran around a tombstone seven times and stuck a pin in it the ghost would get up and chase you. It was a game she had played in Warsop, Notts. when she lived there as a child, only we never ever got to seven times, we would all bolt after running around it six times.
My mother hoarded tea till the day she died in 1986, she said she never wanted to be short of it again and she always turned sheets and mended everything and wasted nothing.
We never bought cake or biscuits, jam, sauce, chutney, or tinned fruit. Every summer we had to peel peaches for bottling and we grew all our vegetables. Dad always said he'd get a cow but Mum wouldn't milk it. She had had to milk cows when she was living at home on a farm before she was married and had had enough. She also made all our school skirts and jumpers, pleated ones like the princesses used to wear, and knitted singlets and socks. and ironed every single thing in the house. We were the only kids at school who had ironed white socks.

Deanna,
I made pillows in the 60's when I had a sea-side guest house.
I emptied eiderdowns into the bath,made new tickings from feather proof material,and stuffed the pillows.
I put on an overall,headscarf,and mask,came out of the bathroom,and the dog went for me as I must have scared him!!
I made mattress covers,and new under pillowcases every year.Must have been mad,but having been brought up during the war was taught that you waste nothing,and that has never left me!

Brenda x x

You lads have some different memories from us girls don't you? ;-0)

The first trams I saw... or remember seeing , were in Germany. I was still very smal, five.... and I loved them. The bus that went on the rails like a train!!

Rosi, I remember my mother emptying the pillows .... feather, to wash the ticking they were in. We can put the whole pillow in our washing machines.

Deanna X