Do you remember...

Riggie

Your comments about common children having jelly shoes made me laugh, I don’t suppose we were poor, but if it didn’t come from Woolworths or the co-op, we didn’t have it!

Did we have a thick orange juice concentrate in a small bottle ? It’s a vague memory...

Yes that's what I mentioned above. Thick juice in dumpy bottles. I loved it.

Camp coffee; washing up with OMO; new winter coat each year; Dr White's STs; bath and hair wash only once a week; liberty bodice; Izal toilet paper; making firelighters out of newspaper; Haliborange tablets (to ward off colds); free gifts with petrol; Algipan on my legs when I had growing pains; could not have a bath until two hours after a meal, could not go outside until two hours after a bath.

On Saturdays when I was about 11 my friend and I used to go to a cake shop with a jam jar each to be filled with whipped cream. It must have been some sort of synthetic cream, it was light and fluffy. We didn't have a fridge so it was not kept cold. Wonder what it was made of.

We used to get orange squash from the milkman, it was lovely! We also had a bakers van come around, and we would be sent out to buy penny buns, which we ate with jam

I've just listened to an excellent TED talk about how the huge number of choices we now have, leads to our constant stress and undermines our confidence in ourselves.

Making simple decisions is fundamental and when we have few choices, we feel good about making them.

When faced with 21 different salad dressings, 40 different types of soap or shampoos, there is no way we can feel as confident that we've made the right choice and - so the psychologist maintained - we never know if we've made the correct one.

lovebeigecardigans1955 Yes I remember Creamola Foam very well. My auntie worked in the Creamola Foam factory, so we as kids in the 60's used to get a regular supply of Orange or Raspberry flavour! Loved it.

Sara65. I remember the orange jiuce from the milkman, it was absolutely delicious. I have no idea why it tasted so nice, but despite hunting everywhere in this country and many others I've never been able to find any orange juice that tastes the same as that OJ from the milkman.

This thread is bringing back some wonderful memories.
At school the teacher would send us to the outside toilet to get some Izal paper if we needed some tracing paper.

BradfordLass72 - totally agree with your psychologist - am reminded of this concept every time I shop in our local megastore supermarket and confine my shopping to my list - and some extras obviously!!! Less choice less stress ?

We didn't have toothpaste until I was 11 years old. We dipped our toothbrush in a mixture of salt and baking soda. Yes, I have a mouth full of fillings. I had shoes for everyday and Sunday, but we went barefoot unless we were going into town. Thanks to family friends I got a handmedown coat every other year then passed it to another family when I got the "new one". My Gran had a two-holer with a Sears Roebuck catalog on a string, and we never gave it a second thought.

Haha OPgrndtr where was this, rural Alabama ?

Ailsa43 ah yes, that OJ from the milkman in glass bottles, it was wonderful.The nearest to it that I have found is the Co-op own OJ.
We had various soaps in the house depending on what Mum fancied, Lux, Camay,Imperial Leather or Pears usually.
Shampoo bought in sachet form, usually Vosene.
Daz was the favourite detergent, possibly because it had free plastic daffs with it.?
American cream soda and dandelion and burdock bought from the pop van.
Syrup of figs and malt extract dished out almost daily.
Beechams Powders and Fennings Fever Cure for colds.
Bile Beans!
Lily of the valley talc and Twink home perms for Mum.

Mum bought Camay for her face and, as dad used to say, thought herself ‘body every self’ because of it.

I too loved the spoon of Malt that we were given every day but I was not so keen on the spoonful of Cod Liver Oil that followed it.

We had the Corona Man deliver lemonade, cream soda and orange aid each fortnight. My favourite though was the proper orange juice that the milkman delivered on a Saturday.

My dad used to get us comics and he got the Revallie and Tit Bits.

Ah yes KatyK the juice was from the welfare . I wonder if it was something about getting your vitamins after the war ? Just off to google ....

One of the best days I recall was the day The Gas Fire was fitted to replace the open fire in the sitting room . We sat and stared at it in wonder . Not long afterwards we replaced the paraffin heater that warmed upstairs with an electric heater on the bathroom wall . Still had to scrape the ice off the windows inside the bedrooms !

We did exactly the same Notagran such bliss after a very hard to light coke fire.
I remember the ice inside the windows too, getting undressed in front of the fire and running upstairs for a bath - the bathroom was soooo cold.

Notagran

We had a paraffin heater in the bathroom, and I used to like the smell of it, but it was only lit if temperatures dropped to sub zero! I too remember ice on the windows and a frozen flannel, we didn’t have hot running water, and had to boil a kettle and take it upstairs to have a wash!

Reading this thread, I can smell the Vosene clearly. Izal/ Bronco lav paper didn't work imo. I think we used to use all the previously mentioned things, including the vile pink toothpaste.

I remember my mum giving me lemon shampoo once instead of lemon cough mixture. I can still taste it.

I used to love the mini Hovis loaves my mum brought back from the Ideal Home Exhibition. We had to
slice them up so carefully.

Dad worked in bakeries as an engineer he used to sometimes bring back broken biscuits. All the flavours used to mix together in the bag. Very nice.

We had new sandals every year about Easter time , last years had the toes cut out and did for playing out

Aggie

Can you imagine doing that for the children of today!

I spent half my life in Clark’s sandals with the toes cut out! My mum was very frugal out of necessity I think. She loved Izal toilet paper, hated the “soft stuff”! She had dozens of blocks of Fairy Household Soap in the airing cupboard to harden and that’s what we washed our hair in when we had a bath. My dad used to light a paraffin heater then carry it lit upstairs to the bathroom! We had enough but very plain food really although my mum had a sweet tooth and encouraged mine with sweets and chocolate. Like others, I never cleaned my teeth, nobody bothered! No wonder I have a horrendous collection of fillings now.

I was given various medications though: Cod liver oil and malt, some kind of tablet for stopping your blood getting too irritated in spring (?), Fenning’s Little Healers, Carter’s Little Liver Pills. I wouldn’t eat much so I had to be fed disgusting green herbal stuff and Benger’s which was added to milk to feed you. I do wish they’d left me, I might be slim now!

arosebyanyothername My mother was also horrified when I chose to use tampons. She said "They will ruin you. No man will ever want you!" She blamed the school for putting 'modern' ideas in our heads. I later wondered why she found it so shocking, she was after all a nurse and a midwife, but she had lots of very old fashioned ideas. As other GNers have said I was not allowed to wash my hair or bathe during my periods, and she bought me plastic pants to wear at school in case of leakage 'You don't want the boys knowing' - I never wore them.

When my eldest son was in his teens my Mum overheard us lightheartedly discussing contraception. She was shocked and said it was not 'nice' for a mother to talk about such things with her son. She had applied the same prudishness to me as well. Thankfully I have always been able to discuss anything and everything with my sons.

What lovely old memories! We also used Izal, yuk. I remember Lifebouy soap and Vosene. If we ran out of Eucryl tooth powder, we used to have to brush our teeth with salt. Horrible. Does anyone remember beer or cider lollies and old English spangles? They were my favourite, especially the black liquorice flavoured ones