Old Style Shopping list

duchy

Born in 1960

Shopping-meat was bought at the butchers, groceries from "The Butchers" (the butcher also owned the grocery shop next door) and there were at least three green grocers,milk and coal were delivered and soft drinks by the Corona man (all bottles came with a refundable deposit too). The rag and bone man with his call/chant as you'd see his cart come along the street (this was London suburbs)

I remember the day we had central heating fitted and the old coal stove removed (be worth a fortune nowdays) coming home from school opening the front door and the heat in the usually icy hall hitting me in the face. Suddenly I had the luxury of reading in the quiet of my bedroom without needing to get into bed to read.

Comics were Mandy and Bunty and were made of rough paper. I can remember Jackie at the age of 12 was glossy and height of sophistication until I saw the American teen magazines in my aunt's newsagent-16 and Tigerbeat -very racey for the day. Mum didn't approve. Oh and Mum arriving off the Irish Mail train in the early fifties to live in London. The first thing she did was go to WH Smiths on Euston station to buy a copy of the NotW as it was banned in Ireland and she was curious. The salesgirl laughed at her because it was a Tuesday so the wrong day to buy a Sunday paper.

You never bought a TV-you rented and when it broke down they fixed it or replaced it.If you were really posh you upgraded your telly before it broke down to a newer model. I remember wishing ours would breakdown so we could get a colour one like my friend-it never did but fortunately they did a special offer for the Olympics (1970 I think) so we got one eventually.

I still use the stone "jack" that warmed my bed as a child-stayed warm all night and my mum told me as the water inside was still hot I could use it to wash in come the morning.

mytimetoshine2012

I was born in the 70's and I remember that my Mum didn't have a washing machine for years, but I thought we were posh because we had a soda stream and a milkshake machine when they first came out.

My grandparents (despite being quite well off) were very thrifty. They couldn't abide waste, particularly food waste and shopped according to what they would use. No lights were ever left on and everything was unplugged if it wasn't being used. My Nan never subscribed to 'modern' cleaning products it was Vim all the way and I had to polish the 'silver' as a child. She thought that fabric conditioner was a complete con and you should have seen her face when I explained about 'ironing water':rotfl::rotfl:. Meals were almost always traditional shepherds pie, pork chops, potatos and veg all pruchased from the local butcher and greengrocers (long gone now of course!) and they were wonderful and followed by a HM rice pudding, sponge pudding or creme caramel. Any left over food went to our dog who was overweight and thoroughly spolit and ate everything.

Nan also had the tin bath from her childhood and that was used for washing the dog...if you could catch him once he saw it he was off!

I remember square vanilla blocks in cones that the icecream man gave you, the penny sweets particluarly the 'cigarettes' and 'beaded' necklace, the horrible sterilised milk my aunt had from the milkman:eek: . I remeber the excitement when we got a video recorder and my Nan's delight at getting a microwave in the 80's, it lasted her over 25 years as well and was still going strong when she died.

Being taken out was a treat although it happened quite regularly for me during the holidays but as Jackio says it was more than my life was worth to misbehave. Also we had to eat what we asked for, so if you asked for a pudding then you had to eat all of it and there was no getting up to charge around the place once ytou had finished either. I am always amazed by the amount of food that families in order and then waste when they are out. In ikea once there were three kids and a mum queing for food the kids were hyper running about and bumping into people carrying trays and food. The mother got the food order and stacked the trays on a push along trolly and went to the checkout where there was a bit of queue (three people). The kids (aged 4-9 ish) started grabbing handfulls of food off trhis trolley and cramming it into their mouths,:eek: threw some at eachother and jumped on it on the floor:eek:. The mother did not say a word about it. They went to sit down or at least she did they were still running about and most of the food ended up over the table and the floor. then when thay asked for cake she bought them one!

Overall I think there is so much pressure for people to be consumers these days...everything is disposable to a large extent and there is very little attempt to look after things becasue you can easily get another. I noticed that Nan like may others in her generation looked after everything and that many things were used but returned to their original boxes afterwards.

I like the idea of returning to the old eating habits though, I wonder if we would all be healthier for it?

ikati5

http://twintub.co.uk They are still there, virtually made to order and at £395 each they want to come with someone to use it thrown in!!

My new automatic machine was £145.00!!

[Deleted User]

Those little plastic figure that were bought from Woolworths etc my late sis-in-law used to paint when she was pregnant with my niece in 1958.I used to help her and I remember helping her paint a whole regiment of Scottish soldier (blooming tartan was hard to get right) She got 1d each for the finished product, but of you went over the line with the paint on the figures she didn't get paid at all.We would spend hours painting these tiny little things She also had a home-based job fixing spokes into bicycle wheels for ten shillings a pair .There are loads to each wheel, and it was really hard graft, but I helped her with those as well and she would make me fudge on the stove and pour it into a tray and we'd wait until it set to eat it, sometimes it ended up as toffee because it set too hard.Bless her she had been a PA for one of the directors of Cunard Line shipping before she married and the only work she could get was homebased being as she was pregnant, and pregnant ladies were heard but rarely seen in the late 1950s.
Home workers got paid dreadful money even then, but it helped to buy the cot and a few things for the baby, as my late brother didn't earn much money then either.
Of course it was 'Zebo' the blacking stuff for the range. I am sure it was in a striped tin as well(probably why I thought it was Zebra:):))
Sometimes the gas ran out at my sis-in-laws place and she would be waiting for my brother to get in from work to bring in some spare shillings for the meter.They also had a parrafin stove that smelt awful and would smoke from the top at times Esso Blue would come round the doors and the man would fill up a can for about 3/6d a gallon which would help eke out the heating a bit,but it made their flat very damp as it caused quite a bit of condensation.
I only have to smell parrafin to take me back over 50 years to when I used to help out with the figure painting and the smell of toffee cooking in an old saucepan.

bearcub

duchy wrote: »

Born in 1960
The rag and bone man with his call/chant as you'd see his cart come along the street (this was London suburbs)

Very often, when the rag and bone man, or the coalman - both had horsedrawn carts - had passed by, people would be out, picking up the horse droppings for their gardens. When I was at primary school, Mum used to take me, wheeling her bike with its basket on the front. Sometimes, the coalman had dropped a few bits of coal, and mum would pick them up and put them in her basket.

Despite being in an area that is now Greater London, we had a dairy that faced a central green area. We could actually see the cows towards the back of the building - a real bit of the countryside in suburbia.

Our local parade of shops had (in order, amazing how clear I remember it) an ironmonger, butcher, greengrocer, drapers (where Mum bought her knitting wool), chemist, sweetshop/newsagent. Across the road, a grocer, baker, betting shop. Some houses, then an off-licence, Post Office/sweetshop, fish and chip shop. The chemist had a high counter with a glazed wooden display cabinet underneath, always locked unless you wanted to buy an item, with things like film for cameras, perfume, and gift items.

Most of them have gone now. The ironmongers is a car parts shop, the first sweet shop is a florist, the grocers is a tiny supermarket, and the fish and chip shop sells kebabs. Can't remember the rest, as since I've not lived in the area for 38 years, and have only passed by a couple of times.

shandyclover

I was born very late 60's but since I spent from '81-'99 almost continiously in Asia alot of the memories are very similiar.
Buying popcorn, peanuts and roasted chckpeas sold in little newspaper cones.
Everything was recycled and nothing wasted. A rag-and-bone man would come once a week and buy all your recycling off you. Since my children were doing a correspondence course at the time and had masses of workbooks, they would sell them at the end of the school year and save up the money.
If you bought something small from a shop for e.g buttons, you would get them in a little paper bag, which had once been a page from someones copy book - so would usually have agebra problems all over it!

Everything was fixable - you could get new handles on pots, new wheels on your stroller, new bearings on your roller blades. New zips on your suitcase. A man came to the house to sharpen your knives and scissors, refluff your pillows and quilts, sell you honey with the comb still in it etc.etc. I got mold on my stroller and a local tailor made a new one from scratch, with a matching bag and parasol. He also made bumper pads and matching curtains for baby's room. The dress I wore to my brother-in-laws very posh wedding was made by him. Basically all you had to do was show them a picture and they could make it.
Milk you could buy in supermarkets in tetrapaks like here but the best stuff was a government subsidised supply, brought in by freezing cold tankers to milk stations. You went and bought tokens and brought your own container - put tokens in the dispensing machine and it filled up your container, carefully put the top on and safely carry it home ignoring brothers jibes to run or you could trip and spill!

Fresh nan and chappatis could be bought round the corner. Mum would send us 15 mins before dinner was ready - you just had to make sure to take your own tea towel to wrap them up in - was considered very common if you forgot and the chapatti-walla had to resort to wrapping them up in newspaper!
Highlight of the year was visiting wealthy friends farm during mango harvest, climbing the trees and eating mangos all day! What you find in a supermarket is not a mango in my oppinion, South American mangos - pah! (No offense to any South Americans). You haven't lived until you've tasted an Indian subcontinent mango - if you have an asian shop nearby try one.

A lady came to do our washing - it sound luxurious but in effect it wasn't - my parents saw it as giving someone employment and in that heat you can change clothes twice a day. We did get a twin tub machine which the laundry lady promptly sabotaged as she was afraid she would lose her job, once it became clear she wouldn't the machine stopped braking down! There was also a man round the corner who would iron clothes for pennies. Mum thought that far too much of a luxury but we were allowed to get our school uniform done there as my school skirt was millions of pleats and if they weren't razor sharp you'd get sent home!

I could go on but I think I've rambled enough and probably bored a few people!

WeegieWumman

You'll never hear me complaining about having been a late 'wee mistake' with two siblings. Bad manners weren't tolerated, but otherwise, I was the one who was a little bit spoiled. There was Sunday shopping on our street which was partly due to the Jewish proprieters.
My thanks to the local dentist for thowing out the moulds for dentures. These were made of chalk and came in very handy for marking out the ground to play rounders or peever etc. The penny received from an unuspecting family member to get chalk from the shop came in very handy for buying sweets. The awful smell of fumes from buses reminds me childhood holidays and waiting for the early morning bus in Derry, Belfast or Dublin bus station after having travelled overnight on the boat from Glasgow.

bearcub

Reading this thread, really brings it home just what a throwaway society we have now. Which is partly what OS fights against. :A

WeegieWumman

mardatha wrote: »

My OH is asking if anybody remembers having a cigarette machine in the house? He says his mum had a box thing full of Senior Service that you had to put money in - it sat in the sideboard - this would be mid 1950s . He can also mind putting a penny in the gas meter !! then it was changed to a shilling.
I loved the toy shops and Post Office - and I once had a telephone switchboard

Mardy, Ask your OH if he's quite sure that this mother didn't 'illegally acquire' the cigarette machine from the wall outside a pub. :rotfl:I can remember some households having a penny gas meter. I remember having the toy shop and the post office and the till with it's 'toyland' money. The childhood Christmas present I loved the most was a lovely looking desk and chair. I used it for homework and writing (we regularly wrote letters in those days) until I left home after which my mother passed it on to a neighbour's children. It was still in perfect condition.

mardatha

He says it was a club man who came round the doors and emptied the machine and refilled it. I never saw anything lile that, and my mum & dad smoked like lums.