Childhood & Sentimental memories

Georgiabay

I remember Lamb Chop but not Shirley Abacaire.

Someone saying about their Mum pointing at the brake on the pram and saying "Don't touch THAT" reminded me of my Mum's wardrobe. It was locked with a key which she hid under the edge of the bedroom carpet. One day I was there when she locked the door so I said I'd put the key away. She said OK but don't drop it down the hole in the floorboard. Well I looked at the key and looked at the hole and thought no way would it get through there. So I was holding it over the hole to see, when it slipped out of my fingers and dropped in! She had to take the floorboard up to get it back and was really mad with me. But the thing was if she hadn't said anything in the first place it wouldn't have happened.

gb57

Muffin the Mule, Shirley Abicair, etc. No TV at all for about an hour early on Sunday evenings (presumably for religious reasons.)
Little divers in cereal packets - put baking soda in them and put them on the bottom of the bath, after a while they would gradually rise to the top.
Sherbert dips
Pocket money sweets that cost a farthing (4 for an old penny)
3d a week pocket money
Hot water bottles
Crisps with blue packets of salt, but only as a treat when we had a picnic
Blackberrying every autumn, berries in Kilner jars to see us through the winter
All the sand taken out of the sand pit in the local childrens playground (Church Yard) because of the polio epidemic (and "Don't dare drink from the water fountain, you'll catch polio")
Witches Hat roundabouts - would never be allowed now!
Free milk at school for everyone - always stored by the radiator
School dinners - lumpy mash, gristly meat, horrible lumpy pale custard - YUCK
Liqufruta when you had a cough - had garlic in it I think, disgusting black stuff
Playing on bomb sites (great fun - craters, barbed wire, tumbling down walls, police chasing us off) We were very upset when they built new houses on our bomb sites
Being told by dad "if you were any sharper you would cut yourself" if he thought you were trying to be too clever
The old station wagon with holes in the floor that took us all to South Wales every summer to stay with Dad's family and all coming home with Welsh accents
6 kids, 2 adults, 2 weeks luggage in an Austin A35 all the way from London to Cornwall
Home from school and out to play as late as we could get away with

Could go on and on

Child of the 50s, obviously!

rosieben

gb57 wrote: »

Muffin the Mule, Shirley Abicair, etc. No TV at all for about an hour early on Sunday evenings (presumably for religious reasons.)
Little divers in cereal packets - put baking soda in them and put them on the bottom of the bath, after a while they would gradually rise to the top.
Sherbert dips
...
The old station wagon with holes in the floor that took us all to South Wales every summer to stay with Dad's family and all coming home with Welsh accents
...
Child of the 50s, obviously!

Another child of the 50's here! I loved Muffin the Mule - sadly some people turned that phrase into a dirty joke now!! :rotfl:

Liqufruta! :eek:

We used to have a car with a hole in the floor - if you forgot and moved your foot you'd get splashed from the puddles!! it was a Ford Prefect with running board on the side. The doors opened from the front and I remember having to bang the side if the left hand indicator got stuck! :rolleyes: My dad used to let me get out at the garage and ask for a gallon and a dash (think that was anti-freeze??). The car was called Montague!

Ah, those were the days!

Olliebeak

I'm another child of the 50's, gb57 (there's a few others around as well) - and you are right about those playground things (including the witches hat) they would not pass Health and Safety guidelines these days. And they were always full of rust. Underneath where you got on the swings, there were always puddles of water when it rained and the park-keepers used to put cinders down to try to give some drainage. All they did was get into your knees when you fell over!

Georgiabay

I loved Liqufruta!
If we had a sore throat we were given Fennings Fever Mixture which made your teeth go numb.

rev229

I remember the birds eye fish balls we would have them on fridays with chips and fried egg, very yummy. Then came along the first oven chips which were awful. Going on picnics with bread and butter and a packet of bacon fries (frazzels) and making them into sanwiches. Angel cake for tea time on Sundays and chocolate biscuits called elevenses. Green topped milk. Strawberry sweetheart was a tinned pudding strawberry custard with lumps of tinned strawberries ate lots of this when I had Mumps in 1976. Watching the "facts of life" schools programs when off school ill (mum was at work)!!! Spirograph spend hours making strange pictures. Dads car having a starting handle, having to wind it up before driving it. Dad repaired TV's so at christmas we would borrow one he had repaired and give it back to the owners in the new year. :j Mum having her first automatic washing machine given to her by some posh friends second hand, she complained it took too long and the twin tub was much better!! However it lasted about twenty years!!. Having to wear hand knitted jumper knitted with wool that was different shade as mum only bought one ball at a time so different batch numbers. No heating at home, going to bed with 10 blankets and brown nylon sheets. The smell of parrafin in the kitchen from the heater used to dry the clothes on the "pulley". Oh and best of all milk tray chocolate bars in my xmas stocking and frys five centres. And the little notes I would take to the "ladies shop" the lady would read the note then pop off for a minute and come back with a package tied with brown paper and string . And I would take the package home for mum wondering what was inside!! (Dr whites)!!!
Kids just don't know how lucky they are now. I was also given loads of syrup of figs lovely stuff in fact I could drink loads of it if wasn't a laxative.

rosieben

I remember the cadburys five centre chocolate bar too! I cant think of the name but there was one which was layers of milk and (I think) plain chocolate, called five boys or something, maybe confusing it with five centres, but this was just chocolate layers and def had a boy on the cover!????? Remember Cadburys 1d and 2d choccie bars, those little ones, used ot suck it like a lolly to make it last longer!!?

Edited to say - I just googled fove boys, and one site says its the same as five centres, but the one Im thinking of didnt have the different centres, just a choc bar

Churchmouse

rosieben, you're definitely right about them being two different things:D

Five boys was marketed as Frys (although they'd been taken over by Cadbury years ago) but the chocolate bar was gorgeous and had layers of milk plain and white? chocolate. Really yummy:D There was a different bar that was a bit like the old Cadbury caramel bar, with barrel shaped *pieces* each with a different filling. Remember one was strawberry, think another was peppermint. Oh happy days;)

rosieben

Churchmouse wrote: »

rosieben, you're definitely right about them being two different things:D

Five boys was marketed as Frys (although they'd been taken over by Cadbury years ago) but the chocolate bar was gorgeous and had layers of milk plain and white? chocolate. Really yummy:D There was a different bar that was a bit like the old Cadbury caramel bar, with barrel shaped *pieces* each with a different filling. Remember one was strawberry, think another was peppermint. Oh happy days;)

Thanks for that CM, was beginning to think I'd dreamt it!! I loved the five boys bar, cadburys did a milk tray bar (mentioned before I think) is that the one you're thinking of?

They used to do flat twenties too, those mini choc bars in a purple box

I used to love those little bags of potato puffs, scrummy with a good shake of salt and vinegar on them

And Caramac, didnt like that at all!!

sorry if someone's already said this, but chocolate just doesnt taste the same anymore (beginning to sound like my granny!)

Churchmouse

Don't think it was the milktray bar Thought it was another five boys bar. But I loved the multi-layer five boys bar.:D The chocolate machine outside the newsagents used to have that in, and sometimes Dad would treat me when we came home late from my grandparents, oh bliss!!!!

Oh I loved the twenties! Won a whole box in the Cadbury writing competition at my junior school:rotfl: Made that box last days, nowadays I could finish that in one sitting:o

I actually liked caramac. Nowadays I hate it really, but find it strangely compelling and moreish!!! (I have a DGS who likes it!!)

Don't mention sounding like your granny, it's bad enough that I open my mouth and my mum's voice comes out!!! ( Bless her, why is it now she's gone, I really don't mind so much )