Childhood Revisited

My artistic granny used to frame her own drawings using passe partout. I wish I still had some of those, but the ones that survived have all been reframed.

Not sure what you mean Nelliemoser - I've only just read it so it was posted after I had signed off yesterday which is why I've commented on it today - unless I'm misunderstanding your last post?

Hollydaze That information about passe partout is further down this thread?? It was aired yesterday.

I've never heard of that game susiemac (with the bouncy ball and a stocking) let alone played it - if I can find the scissors and an old pair of tights, the dog's could be in danger of losing one of their bouncy balls

Mum's wooden clothes horse and an old sheet

I'd forgotten that too susiemac - my friends and I would make 'tent' in the house using the wooden clotheshorse and tablecloth/sheet/blanket - whatever we could get our hands on - and sit with a torch if it was too dark to see each other Ah, simple pleasures but so much fun.

I have looked up the definition and it is "A picture or photograph mounted between a piece of glass and a sheet of card (or two pieces of glass) stuck together at the edges with adhesive tape."

That sounds really nice Elegran. My youngest GD is a keen photographer (and takes some very unusual shots that are very, very good and lovely to look at). I shall tell her about this (as she has entered some of them into competitions) - she's very creative and would enjoy making her own frames too. Many thanks for mentioning it

Around the World in 80 days?

I knew that passe partout sounded familiar rosequartz - now I know why (just have to figure out the papier mache link that I made )

One of my delights between the age of four and seven was our road in Northamptonshire. It was a building site, empty plots all the way down the road from our house. Climbing on the scaffolding, making dens out of the stacks of bricks. Pushing over newly built walls !!!!

The man who drove the "digger" Donald used to take my sister and I to the tip in his lorry.
Dear God! when I think about it now. He was just a lovely man we never had any problems

Yes! Rose petal perfume I made that as well. Do all kids try.

Oooh yes Susiemac, "perfume " made from rose petals in a jam jar of water, never could understand why it smelt so bad, kept on making it in the hope that it would get better.
My step-father was a coal miner, so we got cheap coal, dropped off at the gate, so we kids had the job of shovelling it into buckets and putting into the coalplace, we had to remove the pieces of shale, they went under the hedge near the gat, to be used as chalk for Hopscotch, then for sliding along the pitch in the game. Anybody remember the coal miners coming home from work with their black faces?

Yes, Jules Verne, Round the World in Eighty Days. With your manservant to do all the work, naturally.

Yes I remember Cremola foam-can still hear the lovely satisfying 'thick' sound of it being stirred up vigorously in the glass. To me it conjures up endless summer days of the late 50s/early 60s and playing tents in the garden with Mum's wooden clothes horse and an old sheet.
Other memories are:-

Playing horse riding with a 'horse' made one of Dad's socks, stuffed and attached with string to a broom stick

Finding endless uses outside for the old tin bath, long after we'd moved to a house with a bathroom. I remember keeping newts as 'pets' in it one summer. Other times it made a lovely big beds for dolls

Trying to make perfume with rose petals-so disappointing as it smelt vile!

Playing Fivestones-we called them 'snobs- those lovely pastel coloured chalky cubes that you used like jacks-catching them on the back of your hand

Chalking out London, York and Paris on the pavement-a game similar to hopscotch. For this I adored our smooth paving stones to write on and big lumps of soft chalk-luxury!!!!

Best game of all-putting a tennis ball in one of mum's old stockings-wrapping it several times round your hand and flicking your wrist, making the ball bounce on the ground from side to side or standing legs apart against the wall and making it hit the wall above your head and then between your legs-as fast as you could. Who remembers that game?? Such satisfying cheap fun. Ooh I want to do it again NOW!!!

Elegran was it it in Jules Verne?

Yes to Cremola Foam - my Auntie in Scotland always gave it to us in the holidays.
Yes to Passe partout - for framing photos.
Yes to elastic tied round the top of socks.
What a great thread!

whip'n'tops was seasonal, I think it was about Easter time, they would suddenly appear in the shops.I was a grand master of the art!
Kali [yes, rainbow crystals] was great stuff, so sour.I don't think I ever saw flipflops until the 70's but they were obviously there somewhere,but not in the frozen North where you needed your wellies until April.
In 1956 one of the neighbours in our street bought a car [ a black Humber]probably years old, but boy was that man proud of it, washing it in all weathers.Every year a long triangular narrow sticker appeared on the side and back windows.... Scarborough, Blackpool, Skegness and so on ,and even the exotic Ilfracombe [we didn't know where that was.]So not only was he able to make a statement about owning a car, now he could make a statement about all the holidays they could afford.Us children were warned off by him if we ventured too near, no sticky fingers must be laid on this marvellous vehicle.My 9 year old DGS can hardly believe me when I tell him that we had no tv, computer, tablets mobile phones [any phone at all] no car, no foreign holidays [or any holidays much] never had spaghetti or any pasta, pizza, yohurt etc.How did we live?

Ah Bohemian jacks how could I have forgotten jacks I was a champion jacks player every day at school at break/lunch times great fun

Around the World in 80 days?

I have looked up the definition and it is "A picture or photograph mounted between a piece of glass and a sheet of card (or two pieces of glass) stuck together at the edges with adhesive tape."

or "Adhesive tape or paper used in making a passepartout frame: "a looking glass of passepartout and blackened mercury" "

A predecessor of gaffer tape, I think.

That sounds like gaffer tape to me.

I am trying to remember which famous book has a French servant in it called Passe Partout!

We always had the black - goes with everything.

Typos - for not to, and French has an E!

And blue

And red

You could get it in green and black as well