Genealogy Chat

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.........!!!!!!!

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!!

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

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

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.

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

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

"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

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.

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

Oh John, What have you started? I remember the liberty bodices and vests, and horror of horror lisle stockings as secondary school uniform. Little children often had three piece suits of Leggins, coat and hat. Its taken me fifty years to want to wear trousers! It was such a performance putting the leggings on. Snack time at nursery school saw us all provided with our daily piece of bread and dripping and a cup of cocoa. Sweets were rationed so my father collected our weekly ration on Saturday afternoon and these were shared out just before Sports Report on the wireless. Absolute silence was insisted on at this time! Later I can remember buying packets of Spangles, Palm toffee and cough candy. Anyone else have junket for Sunday tea? Sometimes we had a jelly which had been a war time favourite with my brothers made with Vimto and Gelatin. It was deliciously sparkly. Biscuits were bought from square tins by the half or quarter pound, and sugar came in blue sugar paper bags. Dried fruit came in similar wrapping. 2/- (two shillings) was taken to school on Monday morning , carefully placed under a clean handkerchief, in a shoulder purse, to pay for a weeks cooked school dinner and National Savings stamps. The milk was delivered by the milkman with a horse and cart, until the mid nineteen fifties. How did our mothers cope shopping daily - no refrigerators, no washing machines, just a dolly tub, poncher, and a mangle. Our new house in 1947 was equipped with one electric 15 amp plug in each room except the kitchen where there was one 5 amp plug. Rosemary(Essex)

Yes I remember that well Barbara, We had to go into town to see what days our area would have the power cuts. Then get the candles ready lol I set fire to my orange fury curtains (the fashion at the time) because I thought it a good idea to put my candle next to the window. People went mad buying the sugar..the same with bread and also there was a time coffee was like gold dust too. Going further back though I remember my nan every Monday morning doing her washing and using the old magle before it went out on the washing line come rain or shine.

Stamping on the sparks that came flying out of the coal fire. Fish and chips wrapped in newspaper - no such thing as a chinese takeaway. Having butter as grandad had "had enough of margarine during the war." Being pleased when I got a lucky Rabbit's foot from my uncle. Told mum had been "there and back to see how far it is". Getting the "cream of the milk" on your cereal on your birthday. Corona fizzy pop at Christmas. No microwaves, dishwashers, tumble dryers, dvds, cds. Listened to LPs and singles on a record player. Gran's radiogram. Black and white TV. Typewriters. Posting letters.

Playing Bulldog in the park wearing my Bay City Rollers T-shirt. Making toast over an open fire. The Nit nurse at school. And chilblains - all winter long!!! Doctors who made housecalls - without being asked. Being ill and getting to drink lucozade. (Came in a glass bottle with all that orange cellophane not the Sports stuff). All the people that came to the house: the coal man. the rent man, the insurance man, the rag and bone man. You got two films when you went to the cinema - plastic cartons of Kia-Ora with a straw in the middle. Black plimsolls - no fancy trainers. Beehive hairdo (my mum had one). Twin tubs. Baths once a week. Terry nappies soaking in the nappy bin and hanging on the line. Eating peas picked straight from the pod. Getting soap shaped like Winnie The Pooh for your birthday. (Thought it was really cool)

There are a few books to be written here! Get writing! Save those thougths and memories for future generations. JP

Who remembers the sugar shortages? Must have been early seventies. I remember going to the local Mace store - I was only seven and lived in a village crossed the main road all by myself!! - to be handed only a pound of sugar in a brown paper bag! Also remember the electric strikes when we bathed to the light of the parafin fire. And maybe it was because we lived in a village, but the bread man came round in his van, and there was a travelling fish and chip van. Babs

Hi Barbara, My first room rented room in Bristol was literally freezing ! The ice was on the inside of the windows so I share your "selective" memory. Found a way to keep warm though - name of Vicky !!!!! Rick.

Dear John, HAPPY EASTER! Please keep them coming, they are fantastic, and we say HUMBUG to the ones with no sense of humour, that are so concerned about board space..... Born 1951, remember going to the outside loo, parafin lamp hung in there during winter to stop the LEAD pipes freezing, no such thing as a fridge let alone freezer, meat etc was kept in a "safe". Heres one for the mums, remember Zorbit terry towelling nappies, Napisan, having to boil them in the Baby Burco Boiler,Ewbank floor sweeper, Twin Tub Washers if you were posh. Many more to follow Shirleyxx

I remember being snowed in and it seemed to last for weeks. In the 60's having to push cars up and down the hills in the next road. Swinging from a rope from a tree until the police cut it down!! spoilsports. Playing cricket and if it went up the bank it was a 4, or hit a car was a 6!!!! Putting paper over the fire to try and get it roaring again. Fishing for tiddlers from the river and putting them in jam jars. Collecting pop bottles for 3d deposit. Frozen jubblies!!! Finding unspent bullets left over from the war (in the 60's) when the planes had straffed the houses. Oh the joys!!!

Jannice, did your Easter bunny have a touch of Miximatosis or was the paint on your cot not lead-free? I believe one of the side effects of lead poisoning can cause a profound lack of sense of humour, culminating in severe cases with a total inability to chill out. Get well soon, Pam