Reminiscences

[HOWARDTParticipant @howardt]

Oh memories. Like most I walked to school and back from about the age of six, traveled on the bus alone from the age of nine to get dinner at my grandmothers when my mother got a job in a department store. No family car so holiday travel by train, on arrival at Scarborough boys with trollies would carry your cases to you hotel. Mornings on the beach then back to hotel for dinner, back to the beach then back for tea and even supper provided.

Used to travel to Nottingham in the fifties and early sixties by train or bus, remember the trolley buses about then.

Father in the RAF for most of the war as an air frame repair fitter. He seems to have visited most large aircraft aerodromes during his time.

[Brian Baker 2Participant @brianbaker2]

Greetings, like you all I have so many memories of my childhood, not all good. I remember traveling on a tram from Camberwell where we lived, over Westminster Bridge, turn right onto the embankment, then into the tram tunnel under Aldwych and Kingsway, coming up into Southampton Row, turn right into theobalds road, getting off next to the Micromodels shop, then on to Grandmas, with perhaps a visit to look in Bassett Lowke's window on the way home. Walking to school, Oliver Goldsmiths Junior mixed, past the Samuel Jones Factory, the horse trough and the cornchandlers, sailing model boats, all home made on Peckham Rye pond, wacked for playing close the the Surrey Canal, the SunPat factory in Parkhurst street, visits to Bricklayers Arms shed, I could go on for ever.

Not sure I want to see those times again, but still vivid memories.

Brian

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I can remember my first day at school, it was about a 3/4 of a mile walk, no bus route and no family car, it fact neither of my parents ever drove a car let along own one, I probably went with my elder sister and brother. However, the 1st year class were still using wooden framed slates and chalk to write on. By about 11.00 o'clock I'd had enough of school and put my slate back on the shelf went to the cloakroom and got my coat and went home, bearing in mind that one road to cross was a fairly busy main road (for it's day and a five year old) into town, but did have a Zebra crossing, which I had been taught how to use. Mum was a bit surprised and she was busy mixing stuff for cakes. can't remember the conversation, but it ended in tears as I was told I'd have to go back after dinner with my sister and brother. Never did like school, but never played truant and only had about one week off with illness in my last year. Junior school was a 1/2 mile walk and a short bus ride away unless we missed the bus and it became a 1-1/2 mile walk and very often arriving late, senior school was about the same until I had a bike when I was about 12 and by the time I was 13, we moved closer to the schools myself and siblings went too. Although my elder sister had to go further to her high school but I think she got the bus into town from the end of our road. My two younger sisters only had about 200 yards to walk to their senior school, as that was at the end of our road also.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 20/09/2020 08:31:01

[Philip BurleyParticipant @philipburley44197]

regarding the chemist sales , back when I was about 13 or 14 . mis 1950s we used to be able to buy sulphur and saltpetre to try and make out own gunpowder . Never got it quite right though ( luckily) flashes and spectacular flames and very few bangs .

. My Mom walked me to school for first few days then on my own from age 5 just like everyone else and we thought it was normal ( well it was ) I did get a lift some mornings with the milk man on his horse and cart ! Happy days !

Phil

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Granny nearly bumped tiny-tot me off with a Shilling in the Slot gas-meter. Mum and dad out on the town with me sleeping in a bedroom while granny babysat (she had Redifusion TV, remember that?).

Both rooms had ancient gas fires fed with town gas, full of deadly Carbon Monoxide. When the shilling ran out, she popped another one in the meter and relit her fire forgetting mine was on too. Fortunately mum and dad came back soon after, and immediately smelt gas in the house. Granny, of course, couldn't smell it!

Big kerfuffle at the time apparently : I don't remember any of it.

Dave

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Saturday morning matinee cinema? 9d if memory serves or 3 empty Corona bottles if litter bin diving found them. Roy Rogers or Lone Ranger and an Atom Ant cartoon. Streets filled with bicycles for the morning and evening commutes? Having your hand or bottom smacked for misbehaving at school. Mobile chippy van belching smoke from the crooked stack. Milk bottle in a crock pot for evaporative cooling 'cos who had a fridge? Meat safes. Salt tablets for the tropics.Bread and dripping (with salt). Sugar was good for you too.

pgk

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by Philip Burley on 20/09/2020 08:20:34:

regarding the chemist sales , back when I was about 13 or 14 . mis 1950s we used to be able to buy sulphur and saltpetre to try and make out own gunpowder . Never got it quite right though ( luckily) flashes and spectacular flames and very few bangs .

…

Phil

You were lucky, then. Our chemist would only sell us Chile saltpetre (sodium, not potassium nitrate). It sort of worked, but it was hygroscopic, so you had to dry it out on the boiler or in front of the fire (!!!!!) first.

Don't do this at home, kids…

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

The Saturday morning visit to what my father called the local bug + flea exchange was I think 3d which was paid extra to pocket money doled out at 1d per year of age, but with the proviso I take my next younger brother with me (families were large in those days) – further up the road from the cinema was the local pie factory visited when the cinema was over to beg or buy, for pennies, the ‘burnt’ pies.
Searching for empty bottles was a common way of adding to pocket money – a large local park with numerous bushes was excellent hunting ground – we soon learnt which shops would accept them

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, Saturday morning pictures as we called them was sixpence, and if it was your birthday, you could go up in front of the screen before the start and have happy birthday sung to you from everyone, luckily my birthday never fell on a Saturday.

Regards Nick.

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Reading the above just shows how much I've forgotten.

Does anyone remember the Children's Newspaper? Arthur Mees I think.

Shopping – no car, no supermarket, just the bus to the nearest town (20min bus ride). Local, in the same village, grocer, butcher, sweet shop (I wonder how he made a profit, the markup must have been huge), even a local haberdashery store. Mother always used to complain about the local shop prices, but she would still go by bus to Halifax or Huddersfield for shopping. I wonder if she ever thought about the bus fare costs? Local mobile greengrocer with a reputation for being drunk, the village even had a chippy until it burnt down, and two farmers delivering milk, ours eventually became TT.

But just think, no internet or email, and very few telephones – once you left work at the end of the day, that was it until the following morning – if the boss needed you, he/she had to send someone to call you in. No tv until sometime in the '50's and then only one or two programmes on 425 lines – to get BBC2 one had to have a 625 line tv – as long as there was a local 625 line transmitter. Must admit, I'm not sure that we are any better off looking at the junk that purports to be programmes these days.

Going to the cinema, there were two on the way to Huddersfield, and from memory at least four actually in the town. Halifax had 3 or 4 cinemas: even Elland had two (I believe it still has one of them).

Anyone from Huddersfield remember the Regent Ballroom at Fartown? Going strong in the early 60's/late 50's.

Radio Luxembourg on 208 metres & 49.26 MHz shortwave – not too sure about that last frequency, although I did once find it on S/W. Later on Radio Caroline which was moored just outside the 3 mile limit which made it more or less untouchable. Great for us teenagers, not so great for the Beeb.

Starting work in Huddersfield at 7.45 am. Meant getting up about 6.45, then a 15 min walk to catch the 25 past 7 trolley bus into Huddersfield (18 min journey) followed by a sprint across town to get in before the signing on sheet was ruled off. Work was a 44 hour week in 1959, with the adults working Sat am and doing 48 hours a week. Gradually reduced to 42, then 40 for a long time and then down to 37 !/2 hours a week. I wonder how today's moaners would go on with those hours?

Getting told off by Dad for "scorching down Station Rd" on my bike. True, I was – 1 in 7 or possibly 1 in 6 – head down, body down horizontal, coat tails flying! During the eventual house clearance on our parents death we discovered that he had been done for speeding! I've somehow managed to keep a clean licence! So there, Dad.

Peter G. Shaw

[JAParticipant @ja]

I could write all day on this but won't.

However I remember, with great jollity, being on a trolley bus in Derby that tried to overtake the trolley bus in front. Also two of us, as kids in London, would wait for two buses travelling together, usually 19s or 38s, board one each and race each other for miles.

TV pictures, just BBC, were just a blizzard of white dots.

JA

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

the TV was 405 lines – ours came for Xmas 1952 but the 1953 Coronation apparently generated many sales, ITV came some years later and needed a special addon converter – we had the neighbours in to watch the coronation on our tiny tv 12inch screen with added magnifying glass – this was made of perspex filled with thick liquid probably the same liquid paraffin fed to us kids when we were constipated – anyway a Xmas or two later using the TV as a help to reach the top of the nearby xmas tree saw tv + me come falling to ground and the magnifier broken with the liquid luckily just on the lino.

[Philip BurleyParticipant @philipburley44197]

Hello Mick , Maybe that's why ours never worked properly Wrong sort of saltpetre

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

I remember when Fairy liquid first came out, and we kids used the empty ones with a little water in them as foam squirters. Corona drinks were all the rage and my favourite was dandelion and burdock. Hula hoops came out after polypropylene tube was first made. I also remember mum taking me to see 20000 leagues under the sea at the cinema in Horsham.

[GreensandsParticipant @greensands]

Can anyone recall doing this as a WW2 pastime? I was brought up in Woking, Surrey where there use to be an Art Deco style Co-op building long since demolished, equipped with a spiral staircase fitted with a steel banister rail capped with a red PVC? top covering. I have vivid memories as a child during WW2 of climbing the staircase to get to the upper levels and being allowed – yes allowed – to drop dud electric light bulbs down to the basement floor where an image of a swastika had been laid out where of course they smashed to smithereens. Great fufn. Fancy being allowed to do that in this day and age! It would be interesting to know if anyone else can remember doing this sort of thing.

[SamsarandaParticipant @samsaranda]

Peter your mention of radio Caroline reminded me that when I was in the RAF and posted to Sharjah, a desert airfield which was in what is now the UAE, we could listen to Caroline for about an hour before dawn because the temperature and atmospherics meant the signal would skip round the globe and we could pick it up on our trannys when were on guard duty out on the airfield, this was in 1967.

Dave W

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

We didn't realise the significance at the time but from school saw flashes of light and sparks through the trees where the railway line was. Not maintenance but he end of the line for the old Great Western rail into Tavistock South. I got to use both stations in Tavistock before they closed. I can also remember walking past the big hot loco that had taken us into Paddington, again not realising it would be the last chance.

[brickyParticipant @bricky]

The school that I attended was overcrowded and the class I was in was in an civil defence club.The teacher was the only one and suited herself.When she found out that I ran bets to the bookies runner she had me take bets to a bookies runner who was a greengrcer.The instructions were don't give him the envelope until the shop was empty upon which he would take me into the back room and take the bet .If she won I would go and collect her winnings and could take a lot longer to return.Can anyone imagine this happening today.I also trapped my hand in the door and passed out and was sent home she never asked if anyone was home.I have fond memories of my 11 plus year in 1956.I remember the men fron local factories being bussed home at lunch and them running past before I was at scool and the smell of cutting fluid of their overalls never left me.

Frank

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

Going to school on the bus in the morning on a packed upper deck and 70% of the passengers smoking like chimneys. If a pipe smoker was also on board then you could barely breathe up there, it was hilarious

and no-one bothered

and anyone who couldn't stand it anymore went downstairs

[David CauntParticipant @davidcaunt67674]

Remember standing by the fireplace when this stranger appeared at the window. "That's your Dad" my Mum said. He had just been demobbed. I was 4.

I have memories of being in a smelly air-raid shelter. The street where I lived until 9 is now Vann Walk all the old houses were flattened around that part of Belgrave, Leicester.

I well remember the queues when sweets came off ration which must have been in the early 50's.

Going to the Science Museum with a couple of mates on the train from Leicester Central to Kings Cross and on leaving the station not being able to see more than a couple of feet in the smog.

Being attested at Cardington in 1958 when I joined the RAF. and travelling by train with all the other recruits from Cardington to Wilmslow ( steam of course) which basically took all day as it was a special troop carrier and had to wait for all the normal traffic.

Even later in the early 60's driving from Kings Lynn to Leicester with my then girl friend (wife since 1963) and the fog as night descended making a familiar journey from the outskirts of Leicester a nightmare. Thank God for smokeless fuel.

I believe all of us born during or just after the war have had a period in history which has given us great opportunities but feel it is going to be much harder from now on.

Now I'll stop swinging the lamp shades.

[Martin Dilly 2Participant @martindilly2]

Blimey! How long have we got?

During the War we lived in a cottage on the Hampshire/Berkshire border. There was only cold water and I presumably bathed in a movable bath in the scullery, though I have no recollection of this. There was an outside earth closet, the contents of which were kindly emptied periodically into a pit at the bottom of the garden by a neighbour. The exposed ceiling beams of the cottage were old ship's timbers and the wall plaster was bound with horsehair, some of which I occasionally was tempted to pull loose, resulting in pits in the wall by my bed.

The road outside saw frequent military convoys, specially just before D-Day, when DUKWs, Churchill and Sherman tanks, jeeps, 25-pounder guns and limbers and all sorts of exciting military hardware passed the cottage. About ten years ago, when I passed through Eversley, the kerb outside the cottage still bore a series of regular chips in it from a tank's tracks where the driver had taken things a bit close.

There were regular Army manoeuvres, centering on the bridge over the Blackwater, which was believed locally to be mined in case of invasion; sockets for cylindrical concrete tank stoppers crossed the road on the village side of the bridge. After the Army left each week I collected any discarded Thunderflashes and blank ammunition, as well as the black bakelite caps that covered the fuse igniting tapes from practice grenades. Opening the blanks produced a useful pile of small diamond-shaped flakes of cordite which could be lit to produce a satisfying flash. I was once found having lunch with a group of Canadian troops, who shared with me their baked beans from a mess tin.

There was only cold water and I presumably bathed in a movable bath in the scullery, though I have no recollection of this. There was an outside earth closet, the contents of which were kindly emptied periodically into a pit at the bottom of the garden by Mr Leversuch.

The exposed ceiling beams of the cottage were old ship's timbers and the wall plaster was bound with horsehair, some of which I occasionally was tempted to pull loose, resulting in pits in the wall by my bed.

The road outside saw frequent milirtary convoys, specially just before D-Day, when DUKWs, Churchill and Sherman tanks, jeeps, 25-pounder guns and limbers and all sorts of exciting military hardware passed the cottage. About ten years ago, when I passed through Eversley, the kerb outside Spindle Cottage still bore a series of regular chips in it from a tank's tracks where the driver had taken things a bit close.

Christmas decoration chains could be made from aluminium strips of 'window', about half an inch wide, dropped from aircraft; occasionally whole rolls of this could be found. Warning notices describing butterfly anti-personnel bombs made one careful about strange-looking objects, but I never found one; other notices offered rewards (I forget how much) for those finding Colorado beetles that were a threat to potatoes.

Almost opposite Spindle Cottage Miss Andrews ran the post office and delivered the telegram to my mother informing her that my father was missing, and the subsequent series of POW mail from Stalag Luft III. In the evenings one could hear the regular thump-thump, thump-thump as she banged the franking stamp on the ink pad and the letters she franked by hand.

The proximity of RAF Hartford Bridge, now Blackbushe, was what got me permanently hooked on aviation. It was probably 1942 when I saw rows of Hotspur training gliders and Whitley tugs up there; the smell of cellulose dope and 'proper' aromatic high octane aviation fuel was magic and quite unlike today's car petrol. My mother and I cycled up there very often, me on a large bike with wood blocks screwed to the pedals so I could reach them; while she collected blackberries I wandered pretty freely round the airfield and would sometimes be allowed into cockpits of Mitchells, Dakotas, Warwicks and Mosquitoes. Like most boys then, I could recognise any aircraft likely to be seen, allied or enemy, and could tell several by sound. I recall being most disappointed, when I won first prize for English at St. Neots school to find that I received a copy of Peter Pan; what I really wanted was R.A. Saville-Sneath's Penguin Aircraft Recognition, Part 1.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

My dad came from a large family partly fed from grandad's allotment. Luxury outside flush toilet available, with cut-up newspaper, but the boys peed into a large bucket. When full, this was carried on a wheelbarrow to the allotment and poured into an oil-drum where it was left to mature like fine wine. Later it was used as a fertiliser.

Funny thing is girls were strictly forbidden to tinkle in the bucket. Possibly it was considered unladylike, but grandad claimed lady-wee killed his plants. As the older generation have always enjoyed pulling young legs, dad suspected this was humour.

My grandparents both kept 'front parlours'. Heavily ornamental and full of uncomfortable furniture, curtains usually closed. Only opened for visitors and important occasions. Children allowed to look but not touch.

In the rear room, mother-side granny had an electric iron powered from an adaptor in the light socket. Her sewing machine was plugged in the same way. Only one power socket in the room and that had a Radio, Gramophone and electric clock plugged into it. The radio dial was marked with exotic place names: Oslo, Berlin, Warsaw, and Scottish. Good reception from the BBC Light Programme during the day, but medium wave after dark was a cacophony of overlapping foreign stations and morse code fading in and out, and generating noises more interesting than the programmes! (Nigel mentioned 'Sing Something Simple' which was condensed musical saccharine – awful!)

Pink paraffin dispensing machines, and the dangerous smelly heaters that burned it. Only slightly better than frost on the inside of windows and chilblains. (Anyone else wear wellington boots to school due to shortage of shoes?)

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 21/09/2020 10:32:09

[Cornish JackParticipant @cornishjack]

Dave W – Your mention of Sharjah brought back memories of an earlier time there – '56. We used to 'stage' through en-route to Bahrain, Habbaniyah and Cyprus, from Aden, on Valettas. Memories such as multiple weevils baked in bread, Mc Conachies Ready Meal (a tinned stew) to avoid the Mess food. Charlie's steam roller airfield repair – runways were oil soaked sand and needed re-surfacing after a couple of landings and take-offs. Got stuck there for 10 days when it was flooded! Went out in the desert, to recover a stuck Bedford, with 'Shanee' Wallis, a REME sergeant with his six wheel Scammell recovery machine. Also spent a couple of days with the local armourer restacking 1000 pounder bombs in the bomb dump, nervously eyeing 'Bomber' Wigley as he belted 6 inch nails into timber battens to move old stock for new arrivals … "No point in worrying, if this lot goes, you won't know anything about it!!"

Recently reading Macmillan's diaries, he mentions an international 'incident', which we were involved in, and hadn't realised the significance of, at the time. Buraimi Oasis had, aparently, been infiltrated by the Saudis at the behest of an International oil company and were planning a take-over. We flew down from Sharjah with a 'cash convoy' for the local Trucial Oman Scouts and instructions for their commander. We flew down again the next day and picked up the 'prisoners' who had been rounded up in a 'dawn raid'. I was 'given charge' of these, with the aid of a couple of TOS troops, pike bayonets at the ready and me, with Smith and Wesson drawn, and likely to be more hindrance than help! Never heard it mentioned until reading 'Uncle Harold's ' biography account, 65 years later!

Best thing about Sharjah, (for those of us based in Aden) – air-conditioned accommodation!!! Unheard of at Khormaksar!

Ramble switch OFF!

rgds

Bill

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 21/09/2020 10:30:14:

My dad came from a large family partly fed from grandad's allotment. Luxury outside flush toilet available, with cut-up newspaper, but the boys peed into a large bucket. When full, this was carried on a wheelbarrow to the allotment and poured into an oil-drum where it was left to mature like fine wine. Later it was used as a fertiliser.

Funny thing is girls were strictly forbidden to tinkle in the bucket. Possibly it was considered unladylike, but grandad claimed lady-wee killed his plants. As the older generation have always enjoyed pulling young legs, dad suspected this was humour.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 21/09/2020 10:32:09

A friend of my fathers had magnificent fuschias, he claimed the direct application method rather than the bucket but this was only done after dark.

Mike

[colin hawesParticipant @colinhawes85982]

Silly Old Duffer; I don't know about "Lady-Wee" but ,from experience, I can confirm that a dog bitch's can kill grass. Colin

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