Old Finances (back in the day)

3v3

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

Something else I just remembered was that we didn't have long-life milk in the cupboard as a back up (like I do now) we'd have powdered milk. I'm sure my poor dad used to make some up and have it on his Weetabix each morning!

Sterilised milk (in bottles) back in the day *yuk*. I think "long-life" is the modern term? And yes, a tin of "Marvel" in the cupboard as stand-by along with dried egg (and you can still get dried egg!)

Justamum - my uniform could only be bought from a specialist shop 70 miles away. So, my mother would buy the fabric from them for the summer dresses and make mine up herself. The only "obvious" part about it was she would add her own "flourishes" so they had an up-to-the-minute touch ... some of the girls at my school were quite envious and didn't understand that, to me, they were simply an added embarassment!

Justamum

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

I couldn't find a wedding dress I liked, so my lovely mum made one for me. So her sewing skills are still being made use of!

My mum made my wedding dress too. Trouble is I was living in Swaziland at the time and hadn't seen her for 4 years! I sent her a pattern of a dress I liked - not officially a wedding dress style (a free one from a magazine) and she asked for various measurements. This was a few weeks before they came over, and I realised about a month before that I had started to put on weight eating too much, so I frantically dieted and exercised! They arrived the evening before our wedding and I tried the dress on. Luckily it fitted perfectly, otherwise it would have been jeans and a t-shirt!

3v3 - my school uniform could only be bought from an official supplier. I think my mum got material as close to the proper stuff as she could.

maganan

Lily_The_Legend wrote: »

Something else I just remembered was that we didn't have long-life milk in the cupboard as a back up (like I do now) we'd have powdered milk. I'm sure my poor dad used to make some up and have it on his Weetabix each morning!

Wasn't it called 5pints or something - tasted vile, I chose to go hungry rather than have cereal with it on

maganan

Justamum wrote: »

My mum made most of the clothes for herself, my sister and myself - not my dad or brothers. I remember when I went to secondary school the uniform was a brown pinafore with crossover bodice which she made as they were too expensive to buy. She made the crossover go the wrong way though, so I refused to wear it until she'd changed it. :rotfl:Her sewing was always really good though, and I remember there was another girl who also had a homemade school uniform. You could really tell hers was homemade which you couldn't with mine.

I remember our school uniform suppliers also sold the material to make the blouses and summer dresses so all mine were home made as were the skirts, mum even managed to put stiffeners in the collars, she also made the dresses for a couple of my friends their mum just used to give her the material. The only stuff she ever did for my dad was to turn the collars on his shirts, can't imagine many do that now:)

Butterfly_Brain

Justamum wrote: »

I know it wasn't the norm in the 60s and 70s to have central heating, but my dad was very good at diy and put in central heating in every house we lived in for as long as I can remember. My parents bought a hotel in the mid 70s and he rewired the whole place too!

Wouldn't be allowed to do that now because of new laws - you can't even put your own double glazing in anymore without building permission thus screwing the homeowner out of every penny they can

valentina

Ida_Notion wrote: »

Thinking about it, I did have another doll at one point. I called her Angelina, because that was the name on the box. I don't know how popular she was at the time, but you pressed a button on her wrist and she'd say any one of ten phrases in a mildly irritating baby voice. The one I remember was "Do you want to come to my party?" She managed to make this sound menacing as well as irritating, but her days were already numbered. During the winter my mum would put a single bar electric fire on in our room for a brief spell before we went in to bed if it got really cold, and one night she didn't notice that Angelina was resting her weary head against the front of it until she went in to turn it off again and found the room full of stinky grey smoke. I never did get to go to Angelina's party, which is probably as well since she gave me the impression it wasn't one that anybody was ever allowed to leave

I think I made a mistake opening this thread this morning. It's so addictive that there's only marginally less chance of escaping it than there is of escaping Angelina's party. So... much... to... do. Must... log... off. Will catch up later

I had a talking doll - you put a small plastic "record" in her back and she said stuff like "do you want to play"
Also I had a doll that closed her eyes when you laid her down, but one of her eyes got stuck and she looked quite spooky, so my dad did an operation on her and fixed her eye!
Talking of spooky, there was that dismembered doll's head thing which (I think) you were supposed to practice styling hair on ...

shelley_crow

valentina wrote: »

I had a talking doll - you put a small plastic "record" in her back and she said stuff like "do you want to play"
Also I had a doll that closed her eyes when you laid her down, but one of her eyes got stuck and she looked quite spooky, so my dad did an operation on her and fixed her eye!
Talking of spooky, there was that dismembered doll's head thing which (I think) you were supposed to practice styling hair on ...[/QUOTE]

I had one in the early 90s, it was called a Girls World head, it creeped me right out :eek:

dawn_rose

they still make the girls world head my lil girl has one she still looks a fright lol.

taplady

3v3 wrote: »

back. Mine didn't have a jumpsuit, but she did sport a gaudy, garish sparkly purple flared trousers and long sleeved top. YUK!
!

thats what mine had on I think - I knew it was purple and sparkly:D

THIS brings back memories!

another thing I remember is childrens parties. They were at home, jelly, icecream,sandwiches and games - pass the parcel and musical chairs. No party bags just a slice of cake to take home. Not the hugely expensive do's that they are today! but we enjoyed them just as much!

Butterfly_Brain

I have a marineville in the loft with a stingray toy and terror fish also a virgil from thunderbirds and a captain black, captain scarlet and marina. A set of star trek bubble gum cards an atari with games, a commodore 64 (terminator edition) and an acorn electron computer - the first computer that I learned to programme on (I am a bit of a geek ........who knew :rotfl::rotfl: