How Old Are You?

[moonloops]

I remember, when young, waking up in a bed, with blankets, and a bedspread. Condensation would form from my breath. There would be ice on the inside of the windows. I would then have to go outside, to use the toilet, pulling the chain suspended from near the ceiling, to flush. (the orange lagging round the pipes out there always scared me as a kid).
I would then walk back past the coalshed and back indoors to a normally roaring open fire.
I would love an open fire now.

Neil

Right when I was a lad, I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, , eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

 

[Ted]

And you tell kids that today. They don't believe you!!

 

[Peter103]

Right when I was a lad, I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, , eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

No I'm not having that, your Dad could never sing.

 

[zipdip]

I remember all 14.living in the East end of London,we had pie and mash as a fast food,also jellied eels,never did like them,we had a big old house,it was ancient,built I suspect when there were servants because there was no bathroom,and on each landing was a big cupboard where in the old days people would use a piss pot,we had a loo outside and baths were in a tin bath,in the winter you could scrape the ice of the inside of the windows,for years I never trusted air I could not see,smogs were common place,green/grey stuff,well remember waiting for bus to go to school watching them crawl out of the gloom,it always makes me smile when drivers today put their fog lights on in a light mist,we had a radio before the tv ,it was a great childhood we did not have much but we managed,unlike today where people cry at the drop of a hat.

 

[Jonesy161]

Can't believe no ones mentioned spud guns?

 

[Adrian5405]

Fast food was pinching a penny chew from the corner shop and the owner chasing me down the road lol

 

[Mike Walker]

"Can't believe no ones mentioned spud guns?" or roller skates, plastic rockets with a removable head, which was weighted, that you put caps into. We used to take them to the top floor of an 11 storey block of flats and throw them over the balcony. If they had hit anyone..........yo yo's, five stones and cigarette cards.

 

[Darrell]

I remember, when young, waking up in a bed, with blankets, and a bedspread. Condensation would form from my breath. There would be ice on the inside of the windows. I would then have to go outside, to use the toilet, pulling the chain suspended from near the ceiling, to flush. (the orange lagging round the pipes out there always scared me as a kid).
I would then walk back past the coalshed and back indoors to a normally roaring open fire.
I would love an open fire now.

Neil

Did you live in my nan's house?

 

[Kamisuma]

Fast food was pinching a penny chew from the corner shop and the owner chasing me down the road lol

Black jacks - 8 for 1d (an OLD penny)
Licquorice @ 4 for 1d
Farthings
Silver Threepeny bits
Bag of Chips - 2d, Large 3d
Penny loosies (Woodbines)
Magneto ignition
Hand-crank starters
Petrol in cans or from Hand-Cranked Pumps
Walking to senior school (6 miles e/w) until I made a bike from dumped parts collected over a long time
School Cert - predecessor to "O" levels
The "Cane"
Scrumpin'
Potato Picking on a weekend (for pocket money)

Opening doors / giving up your seat for women, the elderly or infirm
Shopping for your elderly neighbours
Having a kind word for people
Saying "Please" and "Thank You"

How the world has changed

 

[artyman]

Lots of memories there, yes the bread and dripping, and Dan Dare on Radio Luxembourg, "Journey Into Space" on the Radio with David Kossoff (Paul Kossoff of Free's father)

 

[Jonesy161]

Infinite supplies of beech nut chewing gum due to a manufacturing fault on the dispensing machines, turn the knob just enough to drop the chewy then turn back quickly and hey presto more free gum.....all for an old penny.

Clay lobbers.
Throwing arrows.
I remember feeling very posh when my dad converted the Morris minor to flashing indicators from semaphore arms.
1953 split screen 803cc ...wish I had it now, even with the trunnions.

 

[Orwic]

Oh dear, I remember all that. Salt in little screws of blue paper in crisp bags too. At school, kids in the playground asking 'can I have your salt?' I sat my test and had to give hand signals...

I remember my grandma and my aunt boiling the kettle by putting it directly on the fire - the oven was heated by the fire and needed 10 years' practice to bake a cake successfully. Now I have a proper electric cooker (real luxury). But I still have an open coal fire. You can't beat it for heating the hot water! And the cat loves sitting right in front of it.

Just for a laugh, google 'we didn't own an ipad' in youtube... Unfortunately I predate what you'll see there by a couple of decades - eek!

 

[Orwic]

If you are older than your mid 60's you should also remember 78rpm records and wind up gramaphones with wooden doors you opened for the sound to come out. Redifusion wired radios, we lived in a terraced house no front garden and about 20ft of rear garden the Redifusion cables straddled the streets and gardens.

I remember my cousins having a wind up gramophone. We used it to play potters wheel with plasticine. Boy, were we in trouble!

 

[crockers]

Public Telephones with button A or B....Always popping into one pressing button B to see if any money came out.

 

[Mr slow]

No mention of Fat an Bread with a sprinkling of salt. Had this at my grandparents most weekends. Raw sausage...yummy, tripe swimming in vinegar.... Ooh the youth of today haven't lived....!

Yeah! Bread and dripping, brilliant.

 

[Williamwoo]

Rag & Bone men!

 

[Benzowner]

I do remember buying half a loaf of bread from the bakers for thrupence three farthings, oh dear

 

[RonFleet]

Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favourite 'fast food' when you were growing up?'
'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him.
'All the food was slow.'
‘C'mon, seriously … Where did you eat?'
'It was a place called 'home,'' I explained.
'Mum cooked every day and when she got home from work, we sat do wn together at the dining room table,
And if I didn't like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'

By this time, the lad was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.

But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I'd figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.

My parents never drove me to school … I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed (slow). Before I had a bike I walked.

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 7.
It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 10 PM, after playing the national anthem and epilogue; it came back on the air at about 12 noon.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home … but milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers — I delivered a newspaper, seven days a week. I had to get up at 5.30 every morning except Sunday when I had a lie-in until 6.30.

Film stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the films. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or almost anything offensive.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just do n't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES from a friend:
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died recently) and he brought me an old lemonade bottle.
In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea.
She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?
Headlight dip-switches on the floor of the car.
Ignition switches on the dashboard.
Trouser leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
Soldering irons you heated on a gas burner.
Using hand signals for cars without turn indicators.

Older Than Dirt Quiz:
Count all the ones that you remember, not the ones you were told about. Ratings at the bottom.

1. Sweet cigarettes
2... Coffee shops with juke boxes
3... Home milk delivery in glass bottles
4... Party lines on the telephone
5.. Newsreels before the movie
6. TV test cards that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning.
(There were only 2 channels [if you were fortunate])
7.. Peashooters
8. 33 rpm records
9. 45 rpm records
10. Hi-fis
11. Metal ice trays with levers
12. Blue flashbulb
13. Cork popguns
14. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-3 = You're still young
If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older
If you remembered 7-10 = Don't tell your age
If you remembered 11-14 = You're positively ancient!

I must be 'positively ancient' but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

Don't forget to pass this along!
Especially to all your really OLD friends …. I just did!

(PS. I used a large type face so you could read it easily).

I remember all 14. But I'm happy to have lived my childhood, rather than watch it on a computer or phone screen.

 

[NOMONEYBUTAMERC]

I remember my dads first car very well. It was a Jowett Javelin. I remember it well because the engine was in our front room for six months , until he finally decided that the chassis was too rotten to have it welded. (the car was only about 8 years old , but no mig welders in those days).
One day we visited my aunt , who was about to emigrate to Canada. I remember thinking she must be rich because she had a (secondhand) radiogram.
When I was seven i got a (secondhand of course) bicycle. A couple of days later I fell off and grazed my knees.An old spinster across the road came out, helped me up ,took me into her house (shock, horror !) , bathed my knees, put ointment on them , and gave me a bar of chocolate. If she did that today she would probably get arrested.
During the school holidays we would go trainspotting at the local railway bridge , and go home stinking of smoke. If we had enough money , my sister, brother and myself would walk to the local shops and buy a cold milkshake from the vending machine outside ( 6D OR 2.1/2p todays money).
Comics were usually 3d each and blackjack chews 4 for a penny.
I also remember an aunt ,uncle and three of my cousins coming to lunch on a sunday. we had a roast dinner , and it was only when she went to get dessert that mother realised she had not dished up any meat with our dinner. My aunt and uncle had assumed she couldn`t afford a joint , so politely kept quiet. Kids were not allowed to talk at the table.
Soon after , my Dad got a job for Lansing Bagnall as a fork lift truck engineer. As he was on 24 hr call out we had a "company phone" , on a party line of course. This resulted in half the street calling in at all hours to use the phone. About the only other phone in our street was the emergency (blue) phone at the end of the road.
As well as milk and bread vans there was the hot chestnut man , rag and bone man , pickups lemonade , and a knife grinder would visit once or twice a year .
My father never , ever wore jeans , tee shirt or shorts.
The first time my parents went abroad was when I was 19 ( I had already been on a lads trip to Majorca ) . Unfortunately my maternal grandmother took ill and died whilst they were away , so I had to phone their hotel in Yugoslavia and break the news to them .
Looking back to those days we were actually well off compared to my parents generation . My dads father , a miner , died in his 40`s ,his mother at the age of 50. They had really tough times and were often grateful for getting a food parcel from the Salvation Army , especially during the war.
As kids we never realised we were "working class" , most people we knew were in a similar position , with only a few friends at primary school living in private houses ,
Then came my teens and the 60s..................

 

[parkman1]

Apparently, when myself and my brother were just born, my father had a Ford V8 Pilot. I don't remember it, but my mother told me about it.

The first car I remember my father having was a Wolsey 6/99, and it had a lit up sign in the middle of the radiator, which was easily spotted at night.

As we also had milk delivered in bottles, it was a cardinal sin if any of us opened a bottle before my father. He always had the cream from the top of the milk on his Weetabix !!!

We would go to our grandmothers' house, probably every other weekend for tea, she had a Bush television which had two doors on the front to close and keep it out of view. Looking back I would think that the screen was about ten inches square. I think BBC had just starting broadcasting television, but I'm not sure. It was around 1960.

My grandmothers' house was only small, but it was an old Georgian house and it had pull handles in every room for bells in the kitchen. The bells tickled when the handle was pulled, and each of the bells was numbered so that you knew which room had called.

I can remember my father having to start his cars using the dear old starting handle, but it was really sophisticated when he finally bought a car with an electric starter, and the starting handle was hidden in the boot on the assumption that NOW you no longer needed it.

parkman