Someone (youngish) asked the other day, 'What was your favourite 'fast food' when you were growing up?' 'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him. 'All the food was slow.' 'C'mon, seriously.. Where did you eat?' 'It was a place called 'home,'' I explained. 'Mum cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.' I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I'd figured his system could have handled it: Most parents NEVER owned their own house, wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). We didn't have a television in our house until I was 23! It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 10 pm, after playing the national anthem and epilogue; it came back on the air at about 6 p.m and that was the National News. I never had a telephone until I was 27 years old & That was on a party line!. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line. Pizzas were not delivered to our home... But milk was. All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --My brother delivered a newspaper, seven days a week. He had to get up at 6AM every morning. Film stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the films. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or almost anything offensive. If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing. Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it? MEMORIES from a friend: My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it... I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old. How many do you remember? Headlight dip-switches on the floor of the car. Ignition switches on the dashboard. Trouser leg clips for bicycles without chain guards. Flat irons you heated on a gas burner. Using hand signals for cars without turn indicators. > Older Than Dirt Quiz: Count all the ones that you remember, not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom. 1. Sweet cigarettes 2. Coffee shops with juke boxes 3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles 4. Party lines on the telephone 5. Newsreels before the movie 6. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning.. (There were only 2 channels [if you were fortunate]) 7. Peashooters 8. 33 rpm records 9. 45 RPM records 10. Hi-fi's 11. Metal ice trays with levers 12. Blue flashbulb 13. Cork popguns 14. Wash tub wringers If you remembered 0-3 = You are still young If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older If you remembered 7-10 = Don't tell your age If you remembered 11-14 = You're positively ancient! I must be 'positively ancient' but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.
Why did you leave 78rpm records out? Had many a happy hour listening to George Formby then getting a clip around the back of the head for letting the deck slow down. My everlasting memory was the home hair cut by a Granda using those cold hand clippers.
'OUTSIDE BOGS!!!' You were lucky! When I were a lad we were only allowed one wee a week and one **** a month. But you try tellin' the young 'uns of today that and they just wont believe you!
Good post mate, I too remember all of them, just one query, when you mention pea-shooters, we used to call them "pluffers" in Hendon, and every year before Easter all us kids would get them and fire carlings from them, which were hardened peas and used for pigeon food. The day was even called " Carling Sunday" surely I'm not the only person in Sunderland that can remember this. Another one for the oldies on here --- Pearson's fresh air Fund --- when you asked for anything at home, your mam would say " what do you think this is, Pearsons fresh air fund ?"
....and 'toilet paper' was yesterday's Sunderland Echo torn into pieces held together with a piece of string hung on a nail !!
The Sun only came out in 1964 ! Used to be the Daily Herald but never appeared in our loo! Echo and News of the world in ours.
One of my 'tasks' as a kid was watching for the bus to come in bad weather to avoid parents or brothers standing at the bus stop in the wet or cold. From our upstairs bedroom we could see the bus terminus through the gap in the houses across the road and since our house was outside the first stop, I was often delegated the job of shouting downstairs when it started to move off, so other family members could go across the road and meet the bus in good time. Occasionally through boredom, my mind would wander and I would suddenly realise the bus had disappeared and was obviously on its way and I would shout like fury. Woe betide if either my parents or my elder brothers missed the bus. A clip around the lugs was the usual reward and further punishment could be a week of cleaning shoes for the whole house... that was six pairs per night!! Suffice to say, that I learnt very quickly and it didn't happen often. The good old days eh?
I recall my mother singing a rhyme at Easter that went something along the lines of "Tid, mid, miseray, Carlin, Palm, Paste Egg Day" which I learned later, was in fact the list of Sundays prior to Easter.
Bloody hell I remember 12 and I'm only 52. Cannot remember Metal ice trays with levers. We used to call them pluffers. They used to hurt as well if they hit the back of your neck and they used to absolutely knack if they hit you in the town halls. Outside bog when I lived at St. Vincent St. Was only youngand the spiders crawling about scared the sh*t out of me in there.
We also had to walk to the bus stop to catch the school bus, no Range Rovers taking kids half a mile down the road to school. My dad used to make me my Xmas presents, my favourite being a train set on a massive sheet of wood, he made buildings, trees,cars,pedestrians the lot. We used to play outside in the street or in the wood, playing cowboys and Indians. Kids these days don't know theyre born.....
Never mind candy cigarettes, what about Spanish Gold? Clockwork cars with a wire coming out of the roof with a small wheel attached to steer the wheels? Kippers in boxes sent from relations who holidayed in Northumberland or the IOM. Cars without seatbelts, motorcyclists without helmets. Coalhouses with wooden slats that you removed as the level of coal when down. My Mam lived in Seaham and had to go to Book keeping classes on a Saturday morning, in the winter she had to walk from the Albion in Ryhope to Dawdon, the miners would clear the roads for extra coal - the winters were bad in them days. Cracking thread lads.
[video=youtube;I2AcJSkUw6M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2AcJSkUw6M[/video] I'll never forget that first day at t'pit. Me an' mi father worked a seventy two hour shift, an' then we walked home forty three mile through snow in us bare feet, huddled inside us clothes med out o' old sacks. Eventually we trudged over t'hill until wi could see t'street light twinklin' in our village. Mi father smiled down at mi through t'icicles hangin' off his nose. "Nearly home now lad", he said. We stumbled into t'house and stood there freezin' cold and tired out, shiverin' and miserable, in front o' t' meagre fire. Any road, mi mam says "Cheer up, lads. I've got you some nice brown bread and butter for yer tea." Ee, mi father went crackers. He reached out and gently pulled mi mam towards 'im by t'throat. "You big fat, idle ugly wart", he said. "You gret useless spawny-eyed parrot-faced wazzock." ('E had a way wi words, mi father. He'd bin to college, y'know). "You've been out playin' bingo all afternoon instead o' gettin' some proper snap ready for me an' this lad", he explained to mi poor, little, purple-faced mam. Then turnin' to me he said "Arthur", (He could never remember mi name), "here's half a crown. Nip down to t'chip 'oyl an' get us a nice piece o' 'addock for us tea. Man cannot live by bread alone." He were a reyt tater, mi father. He said as 'ow workin' folk should have some dignity an' pride an' self respect, an' as 'ow they should come home to summat warm an' cheerful. An' then he threw mi mam on t'fire. We didn't 'ave no tellies or shoes or bedclothes. We med us own fun in them days. Do you know, when I were a lad you could get a tram down into t'town, buy three new suits an' an ovvercoat, four pair o' good boots, go an' see George Formby at t'Palace Theatre, get blind drunk, 'ave some steak an' chips, bunch o' bananas an' three stone o' monkey nuts an' still 'ave change out of a farthing. We'd lots o' things in them days they 'aven't got today - rickets, diptheria, Hitler and my, we did look well goin' to school wi' no backside in us trousers an' all us little 'eads painted purple because we 'ad ringworm. They don't know they're born today!!!
Welder reminded me of a couple of long forgotten treats. Cawthornes heartburn pastys, so bleedin hot, from the oven, heartburn was never far away, but bloody lush. Maws pies and peas. say no more. And the pork shop, next to Cawthornes, where the leisure center now is, great pork dips, loadsa savoury stuffing, pease pudding, dipped in thick gravy, could eat one now.
The fishman, coming round the pubs, a packet of mussles, a packet of cockles, a tray of crab, a packet of bull willicks and a packet of salted crisps. a bleedin feast.
