Do you remember...

I’m addicted to Euthymol toothpaste in a tube even now ! No other toothpaste gives me that clean feeling !

Your mother sounds like mine Happy, she never managed to tell me about periods, I started them at school, and at only 11, thought I was bleeding to death. I couldn’t bring myself to mention the subject for ages, and somehow managed by getting sanitary towels from the school office!

Remember spangles, used to get one if we did well in a test at school. Can taste it now. Also the Corona man.
When babies didn't settle my mother would put a raisin in a clean handkerchief for the little one to suck on.
And yes I have a mouthful of fillings.

I remember the corona man loopyloo, my mother would never have allowed such extravagance, but we could usually get around my granny, cherryade was my favourite

FC61 - my last dentist asked me why I used Euthymol. I told her it's an attractive tube (nice artwork).

So many memories that made me smile.?. I remember Twinkle and the ladybird ring. I also remember weekly magazines which gave you a poster over two weeks,always seemed to get a popstars legs first?. Imperial Leather always takes me back to my lovely Nan,love the smell to this day. In the 1970s I remember what may have been one of the first mass produced fake tans called Quick Tan, we were all very orange! Ayds and Limits to lose weight. PLJ juice! TAB the first diet coke I remember and seemed revolutionary. Spangles and Toffos. Happy memories! I think we all enjoy reminiscing, the other week my 24 year old daughter was delighted by You Tube videos of children's TV from here childhood!

We got Spangles at school if we had done well.My great grandma ,96 and nearly blind,heard me coughing,I was about five and she got her Musterole out.She used to rub it on her arthritc hands, it warmed them ,there was mustard in it. She rubbed it all over my chest.I was covered in blisters,she was so sorry,she had only tried to help. I was puny then,my mother used to put Ribena in milk ,in a little glass and put one on the floor and say in a suprised voice,'Oh look its fairy nectar,just for you.'

The old fashioned parents really resonated with me.The lack of advice about very basic things was shocking. When I was 17 I saw the word Penis in a magazine . I asked my freeing what is a “pen is” she told me the correct pronunciation and then said it’s another name for a man’s Willie Whatsit.

My children were 9 and 7 when I was pregnant with the third. I gave them a BBC book about sex and childbirth. My MiL picked it up, opened it and then threw is on the sofa saying, “I don’t think that’s necessary “. She complained to my BiL who laughed at her.

I too have enjoyed reading all these memories of childhood. It made me smile hearing about malt extract. I absolutely hated the stuff,not just the taste but the horrible sticky slimy feel of it going down. When I was about 8 years old Mum started work and a became a latch key kid which wasn’t much fun but the one perk was that I was trusted with taking the spoonful of malt before leaving for school, I poured it down the sink every day for the next few years. I didn’t get many colds and the sink was never blocked either.

Yes, I remember all of those. I also remember a shampoo called Loxene which used sting your eyes like mad. My mam had plastic roses with the washing powder. Also we had some stuff called Snowfire for dry and sore hands in the winter. Then there was Beechams Powders and the pills which were given to cure all and everything. A dose of Syrups of Figs on a friday night as well. How the hell I survived I will never know.

I hated that malt extract. One morning, when I was about 9,my stepsister, who hated me, so I should have been suspicious, asked me if I`d like breakfast in bed. I said I`d like some bread and treacle(our word for Lyle`s golden syrup), she brought it up to me, and when IN tasted it she`d spread the bread with malt extract! I never trusted her again, but she got married not long after.

Remember those bath crystals you used to shake into the bath water? they took a bit to disolve, it was like sitting on bits of rock. I was so happy when I was bought a bottle of Matey bubble bath and it didn't sting your eyes when you washed your hair with it

Flossieturner

I remember my granny being horrified when my little son and daughter were bathed together. She said she never let my uncle see my mother without a nappy on!

She was raised with seven siblings in a relatively small house, where did such modesty come from?

I remember the little bottles of milk left by the heater in the classroom to take the chill off it; tepid milk!! Yuk.

Also the teacher smoking in class. The pc brigade would have a field day.

Yep, I had those thin, rectangular bottles of orange juice concentrate after the war as well.
Mum got them from the clinic with - yuk, yuk, yuk- similar bottles of cod liver oil.

The nearest I ever came to that taste was years later when I was able to buy tubes of frozen California Orange Juice in the Co-op.

We had Kaolin poultices, Wintergreen and Thermogene for our chests; Bengers Food or pobs (sugared bread in warm milk), if we were sick.

California Syrup of Figs or Petrolagar to keep us regular.
Beechams Powders; Lung Healers and Carter's Little Liver Pills - goodness knows what was in them, we weren't as canny about medication as we are now.

Horlicks prevented 'night starvation' (would we really waste away and die in the early hours without it?) and if we were 'one degree under we took Yeast Vite. Or a glass of Sanatogen Tonic Wine.

And if we didn't use Lifebuoy, someone would whisper 'BO' in our ear.

Yes LullyDully that tepid milk was disgusting - ugh.

I remember my first pair of stockings, no tights then, my mother forgot to buy me a suspender belt so made me some garters, the shame.

The other thing we'll probably never see again is the chimney sweep.
On the day he was due, the fire had to have been out for 24 hours. Mum covered the carpets with newspaper and the furniture with dust sheets.

The sweep came into the house with a big bag containing huge canvas sheet which he weighed down across the mantle-piece over the fireplace, with bricks.

Then, from a bundle of poles, he took out the big, circular brush on its stick and pushed it behind the sheet with its wooden handle through a hole in the middle, then screwed on pole after pole, pushing upwards into the chimney as he did so.

If there was a child in the home, he'd ask them (me) to go outside and when I saw the brush come out the top of the chimney, to shout and rush back in to tell him. That was so exciting.

Then the sheet would be secured all round as tightly as possible and the brush pulled down with a huge rush of soot. If he'd done his job properly, there was very little escape of the black stuff into the room.

Once it had all settled - our sweep would enjoy a cuppa, with very black hands, whilst this happened - the sheet would be removed, the soot shovelled into a sack, which he took to the allotments I was told, as it's good for plants.

I always wondered why Mum didn't insist he washed his hands before having his tea and biscuits. I wasn't allowed at the table until my hands had been inspected and mine were never that black!

When he'd gone, Mum and I would set about folding up dust sheets and papers and giving everything in the room a good clean.

At about the age my periods would start a paper bag appeared in my bottom drawer, but no explanation was given. Earlier my mother had mentioned 'the things all women have', which I thought meant babies!
When a bit older I progressed from horrible looped pads to Nikini pants with poppered section for neat pads. They were more comfortable, but oh the crinkle noise as I walked, so embarrassing!

My aunt had a small plug in electric oven which she used to take to various agricultural shows every summer. The outside was black and silver and it was was a bit smaller than a normal built in oven. The glass lift off door slotted down on to the front of the oven when it was in use. She used it for cookery demonstrations and her home made bread was superb. When the food was cooked she would slide the glass door off and lay it on top of the oven to enable her to remove what she’d cooked safely. I would love to know if anyone else remembers them.
Because of health problems I’ve just moved to a modern flat which is supposed to be suitable for the elderly. Would you believe they have fitted each flat with an under counter oven rather than a eye level one!! I’d give anything for an oven like my aunts that I could put on the worktop.

So many lovely memories (except for the Izal toilet roll)!
My mum liked SR toothpaste I found it very strong tasting and my DH still uses Coal Tar Soap in the shower, has never used any gels.

The suspenders belt with the thick tartan stockings for school are also a bad memory!

Amami was setting lotion it was green if I remember rightly

I've been reading through this lovely thread, and oh the memories it brings back.
I used to love Cod liver oil and Malt, by the spoonful, and also the welfare orange.
I did get in trouble when mum asked me to make up the last drops as a drink for my small brother. I did, and drank it! I was not popular.
The hard toilet paper, Izal, at home and at school. Lovely for tracing paper, and 'playing a comb'
Sitting on top of the mangle, having my hair wound in rags for ringlets.
A couple of you have mentioned Camp coffee. We had that in the 50's, made with hot milk, and I liked it. I still buy it for making coffee and walnut cakes and the glacé icing on sponge cakes. Sometimes I just get a yen for a cup, not often, but so comforting.
Cremolia hand cream, was mum's favourite, and I used to be able to buy it in Boots, but it is now discontinued. I used the last scraping, just before Christmas, as I had eked it out, very sparingly, and it was sad to throw away the little glass jar.
Haven't had Butterscotch Angel Delight for ages, but could eat a bowlful now. Is it still made?

Oh yes! Son and grandson share a packet every week. Has to be butterscotch for grandson though son would prefer chocolate.

If this thread was put on Mumsnet the young women on there would be open mouthed in amazement at some of the products we used and the lengths we went to in search of beauty ?

Don’t remember those things, but do remember vosene love the smell, and that awful izal toilet paper that we had in our infant school yuk, my dad always washed his hair in fairy liquid, yes remember SilverKing shampoo n beer shampoo in the little brown barrel