General Chat

Lovely thread!

On the subject of shoe mending - Dad always kept our shoes soled and heeled and we still have the shoe last in the garage, together with a box of 'segs' for heels. I have just googled them and they are available on-line! We even had a relative who had a shoe sewing machine, who would replace leather soles from time to time. (I think those shoes were a bit like the everlasting broom - five new heads and three new handles, but it is still the same broom!)

Elisabeth

Brenda,

I'm still like that, One pair of best and One old pair,
One pair of Walking Boots, Plimsoles for the beach and NO wellies

I am fortunate that I have good feet and no foot odour whatsoever

Mac

Rita,
My dad helped to build aircraft.He was a carpenter by trade,but can't remember if it was with wood that he worked on aircraft during the war.He was also in the Home guard.I think every home had a shoe last and mended shoes and then put metal tips on the heels so they wouldn't wear down so quick...sometimes on the soles as well...or rubber stick-on soles to make them last even longer.No one had a cupboard full of shoes,just a pair for best and school shoes and plimsoles and wellies.

Don't know if anyone is interested, but there is a film starting on Channel 4 at 21.10 called Charlotte Gray a WW2 drama it looks interesting.

I remember pot menders. Its awonder we didnt get food poisoning, but we were tougher, dont you think? Jean

Rita
Just for interest. A lot of those railings and gates were never used for war purposes. They were dumped at sea after the war. Same with the aluminium pots and pans that the housewives donated to "make a Spitfire". Absolutely useless for aircraft manufacture and finished up with the scrap metal dealers. The pots and pans couldn't be replaced and in my Mums case she was reduced to repairing her pans with a pot mender. Something like two large washers with a screw through the middle and some form of gasket between them. (Thats why I am a bit cynical about todays recycling)

Snowie

I have a huge clump of horse raddish in my garden .any one wants any lo!!! my mum always talks of taking her full pay packet home and she was given what was left . my son would have a fit if i did that maz

It doesnt seem to happen nowadays

My brother in law was earning £140 a week and was giving his parents £10 ........Disgusting

I know of several Young Men (& women) that do that

It is very satisfying to see them leave home and find out what everything costs

Mac

Jean,

I'm glad to see you did your Mum proud

When I left School I started work (last day of 1951), 9 hours a day at 15 years old, (45hrs a week) and my wages were 10 old pence an hour (4p)

I always had a system that I gave a third of my wages to Mum, a third I put into savings and a third was spending money for the week

I stuck to that right up until I got Married, 50 years ago this October 4th

By the time I got married I was earning £18 per week as an engineer at BOAC so she got £6 a week for my keep, average wages at that time were about £10 per week

Mac

Brenda, I did the same. 28 shillings aweek pay, £1 for Mum, 8bob for me.When I started nursing and lived in, pay was£16 a month, and by time all stoppages were taken had the sum of £1 aweek left for anything I wanted. We still managed to have a good time. Jean

Thanks everyone for still adding to this thread, not been on here for a while, good to see the thread is still going strong:)

Jean,
I have had 2 grown up grandsons here this week-end,and I was telling them that I had to give my mother my wages when I came home from work,and she gave me half a crown back for spends.She only bought me clothes when I needed them.They couldn't believe it,as they just go out and buy expensive stuff without a second thought.
Football matches ,go kart racing,all cost a fortune,and the latest mobile phones which they can't live without..........Oh dear,I.m sounding like my mother!!!

I have had quite a few friends, but now I have HUNDREDS more

Thats YOU LOT out there

Love you

Mac

Has anyone noticed how much the subject of this thread has changed since the original post? Doesnt it show how a good conversation is never ending.If anything does, this shows what a friendly community exists here. The young think they have everything but little do they know. I hope we have helped to show people what it is possible to do without and still be happy. Jean

Education could be a problem for evacuees. In my own case I went from a newly built modern school to a two room village school. Despite that the standard of teaching must have been pretty good. In the pre eleven plus days the exam at eleven was called the scholarship. There seem to have been a few free places but the majority of passes were as “fee paying” pupils. I passed the scholarship on the latter criteria. The problem was that with my father in the Army Mum couldn’t afford the fees and secondly the place that I was offered was back in the city from which we had been evacuated. It was only at the end of the war that Mum found out that as my father was a soldier the army would have paid my fees and there were arrangements in hand for evacuees to attend the nearest Grammar school to where they were living.

Snowie

Yep Angel,

You can still get Trotters if you look hard enough for them

But, Not Jellied ones

Mac

n keep it going plz.

My Neighbour still buys trotters from the butchers for his son.

Chell xx

Why was it that almost every garden of a bombsite had a big clump of Horseradish in it

We used it in all sorts of dishes

I've just remembered a treat my Mum used to get me from MAC Fisheries every saturday, Jellied Pigs Trotters

I could eat a mountain of them !

Jellied Braun was another favourite

And so was HARD Herring Roes

Cant get any of them today

Mac

Mac

Todays dried potato is far better than Pom. That was horrible. My mother used to make cheese pudding, which is similar to bread pudding, only with cheese. I make it sometimes when I am fed up with the same old thing. Jean

Think that POM was a war time dried spud. If my memory serves me right it was re-invented as "smash" in the early days of TV

Snowie