Childhood. .Can you remember? A U.K. orientated topic

[siampolee]

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 Dad got home from work, we sat down 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).

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 10.
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 6 am. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people...

Pizzas were not delivered to our home... But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --My brother delivered a newspaper, seven days a week. He had to get up at 6 every morning.

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 don'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 in December) 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

[CharlieH]

MOVED to Expat forum

[nzexpat]

"Fast food" in your day came in the form of fish&chips taken away from the local "Chippie"

Many "Chippies" also sold alternatives to fish such as Sausage ( battered) , Faggots*, Pies and Mushy Peas!

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_%28food%29

Edited March 18, 2015 by nzexpat

[siampolee]

Sorry Charlie didn't realise it should have been posted there or here.

Many thanks to you and your lads for the removal job,

Edited March 18, 2015 by siampolee

[siampolee]

nzexpat post #2

Many "Chippies" also sold alternatives to fish such as Sausage ( battered) , Faggots, Pies and Mushy Peas!

Not in the 1950's those innovations came in around the early to mid 1960's

In my young days we still had ration books.

[Whale]

The freedom as a child to leave the house at 8 am after breakfast and come back at 10 at night after a days exploring with your freinds - and nobody called the police or assumed you had been abducted.

Edited March 18, 2015 by Whale

[Songhua]

I know you say your topic is UK related, SiamP, but you just perfectly described my years growing up in Australia (except that I didn't have a paper round - I delivered prescription medicines on my bike after school for $2.20 a week (with bicycle clips)).

[smokie36]

Ahhh co-op stamps....the memories of collecting them in books and buying bucketloads of chocolate only to make myself ill eating too much.

The joys of youth!

[Costas2008]

Same same no different in Greece.

Don't know if I prefer those good old days or todays way of living.

At least we had trust to each other and respect for the elders.

Anyway.....it's called progress.......we have to go along.

[marko kok prong]

Aye,i remember waking up in morning to scrape ice off inside of windows,then mum would yell"get yourselves down ere,this coal won't wash itself',raw onion for breakfast,then ten mile hike over moors to school,watery soup,or fatty beef for lunch,hike back,to find front step 1 inch lower ,as grandma had been scrubbing it all day,rabbit stew fer tea[small rabbits with long tails],then clean more coal before off to bed,under the old horsehair blankets,oh they were the days.

[transam]

Back in the 1960's we had Wimpy burger joints, where us rascals would hang out. Fish & Chips were the family favourite though.

[marko kok prong]

Back in the 1960's we had Wimpy burger joints, where us rascals would hang out. Fish & Chips were the family favourite though.

I used to love Wimpy,then they changed to Jenny burger,the staff were almost all Turkish,great though.

[sipi]

I was thinking about this yesterday on another thread about "facebook".

Travelling was a nightmare:

35mm Kodachrome64 film in a lead-lined bag. Kept in the cool during the Summer and in your sleeping bag on frosty nights. Developed at the "1 hour express shop" that took on average 4 hours and half a weeks wages to develop. Then you threw half them out because they were out of focus or the lighting was wrong.

Waiting for hours on end at the post office to collect your mail and post a few postcards back home.

Waiting at the phone-booth with a fist full of 10 baht coins to phone home, once a month.

Carrying a "walkman" and your favorite cassettes with giant headphones to listen to music occasionally (until the tape got chewed up)

Forever buying batteries. For the flash, for the camera, for the tape player, for whatever else.

Carrying a small library in travel guides and maps.

Keeping a written diary the size of an encyclopedia with a calendar and pages for contacts. And running out of ink.

Carrying a wallet full of cash notes, and some travelers checks in your money-belt. (no credit cards)

If you were real savvy: Had a video camera the size of a toddler, a calculator, a watch with an alarm, etc etc....

Give me a smart-phone and facebook any day.

Edited March 18, 2015 by sipi

[siampolee]

Well here's one of my playthings on the right in the image circa 1957 is.Wish I still had it. It was linked to my Meccano and Trix kit models, worked well as I recall.

Edited March 18, 2015 by siampolee

[nikmar]

the games we played. British bulldogs in the school yard and then going in to class minus a few layers of skin.

[sipi]

Well here's one of my playthings on the right in the image circa 1957 is.Wish I still had it. It was linked to my Meccano and Trix kit models, worked well as I recall.

I have mine on a shelf. Still works.

Edited March 18, 2015 by sipi

[White Christmas13]

Well the French still don't have fast food that's why they eat snails

[DeaconJohn]

Well the French still don't have fast food that's why they eat snails

Nonsense!

There was a McDonalds' on the Boulevard St.Michel in 1974.

They were up to speed even in those days.

[White Christmas13]

Well the French still don't have fast food that's why they eat snails

Nonsense!

There was a McDonalds' on the Boulevard St.Michel in 1974.

They were up to speed even in those days.

Hit the wrong nerve ?

this suppose to be a joke "understand"

[marko kok prong]

Well the French still don't have fast food that's why they eat snails

Nonsense!

There was a McDonalds' on the Boulevard St.Michel in 1974.

They were up to speed even in those days.

Hit the wrong nerve ?

this suppose to be a joke "understand"

Your act is really coming along,how long until standup?

[CharlieH]

I remember the Milkman delivered Eggs and Orange juice too.

The Butcher's where I worked as a boy after school wrapped everything in white paper.

The Butchers Bike with the basket on the front for my deliveries.

The really heavy (usually 2) paperboy sack on Sunday's

When the street lights came on, it was time to go home.

Steak&Kidney pie & chips, can of coke was 1-/6d

Green shield stamps !

And the Coalman ! delivering bags of coal and string tied firewood.

[KarenBravo]

No cyber-bullies........we had the real flesh and blood type.

At five, learnt to cross streets on my own.

At six, making a Guy with friends, trundling it round the streets in a cart yelling "penny for the Guy" buying fire-works with the proceeds and letting them off in fun places.

Bob-a-job with the Cubs.

On the TV, when a goal was scored in football, the players shook hands.

Cop killers in prison had to be protected from the other prisoners.

Edited March 18, 2015 by KarenBravo

[Ricardo]

Fast-food where I was a boy, meant biscuits which were weighed-out in the shop from the tin they came in, into a paper-bag !

But in our household we could only afford broken-biscuits, which were a real lucky-dip !

[pigeonjake]

our first TV was on rent from granada and you had to put tanners in it for it to come on.

and we had youth clubs,

milk at school,

i was the ink moniterin our class, yes we had ink pens when i first went to school,

i was born in 1960 and remember having the toilet at the end of the yard primrose street, gainsborough,

tin bath on sundays and a stip wash on the draining board, yes it was wooden,

we had parks with swings, the witches hat and the tee pot lid, all gone now to dangerouse for kids to play,,lol

swings in cassies wood and mersies wood, barge rope from a high bloody limb of a tree over a vally, wouldnt get my ass doing that now,,lol

and the go karts we would make our selfs with silvercross pram wheels at the back and smaller ones at the front with a 6inch nail knocked throught the steering at the front, god knows how we never killed ourselfs going down some of the hills in the woods, no brakes sod all,,

but god did we enjoy our time off school, tent from army and navy stores, off to the woods to camp for a week, snaring rabbits and getting duck eggs, plus a few tins of beens, into the farmers fields for spuds or the alopments, for apples and rubarb goosgogs,, then up all night with a bad guts,,lol

great to remember

[CharlieH]

Jake, You reminded me of taping wooden blocks on the pedals of the bike that was too big for me.

and making our own Kites from bamboo cane and brown paper, and balls of string.

[KarenBravo]

Things to see on the street in the 60's.

Lemonade vans.

Ice-cream vans (Toni-Bell).

Rag and bone men with a horse and cart.

Frenchmen on push-bikes covered with onions for sale.

Women scrubbing their front-door steps.

Policemen walking their beat armed with only a trunchion.

[Songhua]

Who used to use a card in their spokes?

[White Christmas13]

I don't remember anything I got Alzheimer's

[roo860]

Aye,i remember waking up in morning to scrape ice off inside of windows,then mum would yell"get yourselves down ere,this coal won't wash itself',raw onion for breakfast,then ten mile hike over moors to school,watery soup,or fatty beef for lunch,hike back,to find front step 1 inch lower ,as grandma had been scrubbing it all day,rabbit stew fer tea[small rabbits with long tails],then clean more coal before off to bed,under the old horsehair blankets,oh they were the days.

Luxury!!! We ad it rough, we used to dream of raw onion!!!!!!!

[transam]

Who used to use a card in their spokes?

Yep, don't tell the rest, my street cred could be blown.......