What tastes, sounds and smells do you miss from yesteryear?

Oh Gosh, I'm glad OP mentioned bacon rind. The best bit, and I haven't seen it for years.

Evostick, when my dad was mending our shoesoles.

When we used to go to the seaside - one week a year in a furnished flat in Filey - we would go down to the beach and "smell the ozone". Beaches smell so different now, that I suspect what we were smelling was the chemicals used to treat the sewage - but it smelled of holiday to us.

Trisha57 - what a great idea ! I’ll look for one on eBay and do the same. Thank you ?

Creamola Foam

The smell and taste of Mum’s wimberry pie. Wimberries, wortleberries, whinberries, wild blueberries or whatever they are called in your area, were fiddly to pick. We children could spend all afternoon in the forest picking enough for a couple of pies but it was so worth it!

PaperMonster

*GreyDuster*. I found some coal tar soap, hurrah!!

DH always used Wrights Coal Tar soap as it was the only one which didn’t irritate his skin.
I lost him 3 1/2=years ago but still have a bar in each bathroom and the smell reminds me of him.

The paraffin heater that warmed the bathroom and anglo bubblegum

Pink Germolene, and it`s lovely smell. It`s white now, and no smell, just not the same.
Infinity, my grandma used Coty l`Aimant, but the cream version, I bought a bottle from Amazon the other week, and it still smells lovely.
I know it`s not a sound or a smell, but I miss when my mother would cut a pomegranate in half between 2 of us, that half, plus a pin, kept us quiet for hours!

Does anyone remember ZamBuk?

The leather in my grandfathers Austin 7.

Hellogirl1 - I wonder if it was the cream version of Coty L’Aimant that used to be in a little black bottle with a weeny sort of spatula in it ? I have a feeling the contents were pink but I may be mistaken !

I think you`re right Infinity, but all I could find was the Eau de Cologne version.

Turps. I spent most of my pre-school years in my dad's studio and turps and oil paints are still my most evocative smells.

Hellogirl1 - thanks for the heads up. I’ve just ordered two of the lovely Art Deco bottles !

#Tar, like someone said about the steamrollers doing the roads.
#Black grease, my dad drove a lorry and he'd come in smelling of it. I was actually in Stowmarket about 2-3 years ago and as we were walking into 'Spoons we passed a flatbacked lorry unloading and I got a whiff of the grease and just stopped to smell it for a few moments, until I saw one of the guys looking at me quite strangely. I just said, "Gotta love that smell of grease!" And dashed in to 'Spoons.
#Freshly mowed grass.
#Palma Violets perfume. Used to come with little teddy bears.
#My mums homemade rice pudding. It is the ONLY thing I'd eat the skin off, but dad and I shared it!
#Freesias.
#Walking through the green market in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and smelling the coffee beans, even tho I hate coffee.
#The swimming pool, before they started putting in excessive chlorine.
#The old bluebell wood.

@GrandmaRosie
I'm glad you didn't say 'aqua tofana'!!
??

Pink Germolene, @Hellogirl1, definitely not the same now. Nor is Savlon quite the same smell.
#Zinc & Castor Oil that our mum used for nappy cream etc. I loved that smell!

I remember with great affection my Mum’s little black bottles of Coty L’aimant. Creamy perfume with a little pink applicator. She used to put a little drop of water in when it was finished to be sure she scraped out the last drop.

I was cast back to my childhood days just recently when I passed a very elderly man sitting on the seafront smoking a pipe. My Dad was a pipe smoker when I was a child and I used to sit on the arm of his chair watching the ritual of flaking the tobacco and filling and lighting his pipe. Then he enjoyed a good old puff with me on his knee. No concerns about passive smoking then!

I love the smell of Dettol which can still be bought, which was used for cuts and a drop in the bath to keep us clean.

When we were kids we used to stand outside a local sawmill to smell the newly cut wood. That was a fantastic smell.

felice I am wearing 4711 as I write. I always use it in the summer months. it smells so fresh.

Trisha57 I was with you all the way - until you got to the spinach water. Yuk.

The lovely tarry smell of a coal fire. And the smell of the biscuit factory - Chiltonian, in south London where my grandparents lived and I started life. Then Huntley and Palmers in Reading, where I was at secondary school.

I'm another who misses not only the smell of proper greasy pink Germolene but also its healing powers. My DM used it on everything - minor burns, scratches, bites, bruises. Just the smell soothed.

Also the Coalite which the coalmen used to lug up three flights to our flat coal shed on the landing. I knew when my DM had arrived as she opened the shed door to inhale deeply of the smell before she knocked on the door and came in.

My DF's Weaver Brand pipe tobacco.

And the smell which enveloped much of the centre of Norwich form Macintosh's chocolate factory. Now a shopping mall.

Eating raw peas from the pod, while sitting in the garden watching my grandad. Sweet and crunchy.

The cool of the trees and the smell of the earth in the deserted undergrowth around the Norfolk Broads. Such beautiful scenery and completely empty. Amazing that I was allowed out to wander around, alone there at only 10 or 11.

The tree outside my bedroom window, which occasionally would have an owl in it. With the window open at night, the sound of the branches moving in the breeze was so soothing.

Oh yes, NfkDumpling! I remember that chocolate smell too. We had a school trip around the factory once. To begin with, we were very good. By the end of the tour, we were nicking handfuls of chocolates from the ladies sorting trays!

Mollygo

The Banda machine! On work experience I often did preparation for staff. That machine gave off the most wonderful fumes and exercised your arms. Modern copiers age great, but odourless.

Oh the dreadful Banda machine. I only had to approach it to get covered in ink.

Ali08

#Tar, like someone said about the steamrollers doing the roads.
#Black grease, my dad drove a lorry and he'd come in smelling of it. I was actually in Stowmarket about 2-3 years ago and as we were walking into 'Spoons we passed a flatbacked lorry unloading and I got a whiff of the grease and just stopped to smell it for a few moments, until I saw one of the guys looking at me quite strangely. I just said, "Gotta love that smell of grease!" And dashed in to 'Spoons.
#Freshly mowed grass.
#Palma Violets perfume. Used to come with little teddy bears.
#My mums homemade rice pudding. It is the ONLY thing I'd eat the skin off, but dad and I shared it!
#Freesias.
#Walking through the green market in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and smelling the coffee beans, even tho I hate coffee.
#The swimming pool, before they started putting in excessive chlorine.
#The old bluebell wood.

@GrandmaRosie
I'm glad you didn't say 'aqua tofana'!!
??

I hated the smell of brewing though in Newcastle.

I miss the smell of a salumeria in Italy.

I miss the sound through my open bedroom window of my father mowing the grass on a summer evening

GagaJo

Oh yes, NfkDumpling! I remember that chocolate smell too. We had a school trip around the factory once. To begin with, we were very good. By the end of the tour, we were nicking handfuls of chocolates from the ladies sorting trays!

My DGF knew someone there and gave us DC big bags of mis-shapes whenever he saw us. Miss those!

You never knew what was inside the chocolate outside.