Memories of the 40s

Ok then, added:

ABOVE VERY INTERESTING STORIES OF THE FOURTIES

Cherrytree59, yes, Clydebank was north of my home town in Ayrshire. My mum remembered the bombers going over the night before I was born and she was sheltering under my granny's kitchen table. There was a small oil refinery just down the road It was all bricked up during the war so that it wouldn't shine in the moonlight and I was astonished when, as soon as the war in Europe ended, the bricks came off and the shiny surface was revealed. The explosives factory where my dad worked was an important strategic target and was bombed by the Luftwaffe but they missed the buildings and the bombs landed in sandhills. My dad watched the bombs falling.

Bad enough after antibiotics WW !
We kept summer milk bottles in a pail of water. Sometimes we listened out for the distant clip clop sound of the horse and I had to run up and get a pint from the milkman if we'd run out.

Bread by horse too. He'd knock at the door with a selection in a basket. Nothing wrapped back then.

Any manure on the road was scooped up by my father - good for the roses, apparently.

Ear ache before anti biotics - oh! The pain.

Oh yes meat safes
Scalding milk to stop it going sour in hot weather
Washing raw meat in vinegar if it had gone slightly off in warm weather

Born 46.

Remember coupons
blue sugar bags
Paper cones for sweet
Listen with Mother
Bathing in front of the fire
Life before penicillin was in common use - badly infected knee with a huge blister of pus that kept bursting and then build up again
Copper boiling up the washing
Sunday best hat with elastic under my chin and velvet collar coat to match
Big bows in my hair
Voil best dresses with smocking
Sunday school

I must stop

They shoved an ether mask on my face, my brother had a massive asthma attack the same day , we think it was all the trauma . I had nothing after except from Granda , who managed to get the local Italians to make me ice cream , very rare in our village .l remember the glass box thing that was for the baby in case of gas ! The children's gas masks were Disney characters , mine was Donald Duck lol . School dinners were another thing , we had rabbit often , and tapioca pudding with a spoonful of jam in the middle

Wow aggie what different times. Did you have anything to stop the pain of having your tonsils out? ,

These memories are.so.good. Could we.have a proper.title.so.people.can be attracted to it rather than this thinking it is a rerun of the 50s. Can that be done?

Also born in 1937 Aggie so I remember taking gas masks and sandwiches to school although we lived in Derbyshire and it was a very safe area. We had an evacuee who stayed with us quite a long time. Her name was Maureen Abbott and we !ost touch in the 50's,so if you are on GN Maureen.....

I was born on 1946 in the heart of Birmingham.

We lived in a Semi with a small kitchen and tiny pantry with a meat safe in it with a mesh front.

At the bottom of our garden we had express steam trains travelling between Birmingham and London. I still love the sound of the chuff chuff of a steam train.

Elrel that reminded me - my brother rushing home and calling out 'They've got oranges in P******' (the local greengrocer's). Oranges cut in half, sprinkled with half a teaspoon of sugar, you squeezed each half to drink the juice, then you ate around the half then turned it inside out to get the last little bit.

The nursery class which was part of the infants' school - they used to have little canvas camp beds and we were supposed to lie down and have a sleep after lunch.
Going on the back of Mum's bike on a little bicycle seat.

Seeing bomb craters and houses like open doll's houses, bedroom wallpaper and small cast iron fireplaces revealed on the walls not destroyed. The occasional orange, no bananas or balloons until 1946, lack of fathers and uncles.

Re the fourties, thanks all, very interesting stories. I always wished my parents had kept up with my dear nanny, who both my brother and myself loved, although I was two years of age when we moved to northern Ireland from Scotland, then in 1954 to Kent.

You may not believe it, but I can actually remember why I was a breech babe and how I loved swimming before birth, which I do now. For this reason, when getting stuck upside down before the birth, I wanted to get back to try and swim again. It was very difficult turning around, but that is as far as I can remember before my birth.

bella the things the mums had to do, like your mum bartering for butter just to keep the family fed.

Its like another world now

I'm not sure about alphabetical.
Think HQ need to rename site to 40s memories.

aggi my granda helped to get the poor souls out of the rubble for your granda's coffins
I have heard about scarlet fever hospital. My dad also said about going to the TB hospital to visit his uncle, he said was the worst place had ever been in.

Not because of hygiene , it was thought that long hair sapped your strength ! Our relations in Ireland posted eggs and bacon to us , they were some mess when we got them , the Customs opened the parcel and didn't close it ! My Gran "borrowed " our sweet coupons ! but I still have atrocious teeth

What traumatic early years for you aggie. The kitchen table?? My DH had scarlet fever too and was not allowed visitors. Shame about your plaits, but it was for hygiene I suppose.
cherry how sad your great aunt didn't make it. What dreadful times those were.

I remember the Bombing of Glasgow , we stood at the top of the Park in East Kilbride and saw them fall ! My Granda went past us with a sad look , he was a joiner and was away to work to make coffins . I was born in 1937 and we were evacuated from Glasgow , we lived in Rutherglen for a while before getting to Grandas place . I had my tonsils out on the kitchen table , Mum was afraid to let me go to Hospital, but I did end up in the Fever hospital with scarletfever and she wasn't allowed to visit , first thing the Nurse did was cut off my long Plaits

annodomini my parents were on the west coast of scotland. But a different part to where you were must have lived.
They were Bombed in the Clydebank Blitz. They missed the shipyard and hit houses.
My dad's parents house and his grannies next door took a direct hit. I have a Piece of the shrapnel from the bomb that hit my dads home.
My parents often spoke about German planes flying over.
My gran's sister didn't make the shelter and was killed.
My parent were both children during the war.

My grandparents queued at Bunneys (toy store in Liverpool, it might have sold other things not of interest to me) for a doll's pram it was navy blue and my pride and joy. I also had a knitted duck, it was a mauve colour, with a green frill round its neck.

My youngest sister got a smart red bike and was I envious! She now says she never enjoyed cycling! In 1949, so soon after the war, a black Hercules was just about the only choice!

Born 46 but I remember the bomb sites in Liverpool. Also the little shops, buying sugar in blue bags and the ship assistant made the bag from a square of paper, that fascinated me. Broken biscuits. Sawdust on the butcher's floor, rabbits and chickens hanging unplucked and unskinned, huge sides of pig, sheep and cow. We go over to see my sister in law in Yorkshire we stopped in a little village pub for lunch and there was a traditional butcher there and he was fighting a petition to stop him displaying meat in this way.

Yes I had a red Hercules at 11 so that I could cycle to my new school. It did have three gears, which I was very proud of!