things from the past you dont see now

Oh, that's odd! Photo has suddenly appeared . . .

Marilla.. I get your excitement! I loved the smell of Vim.. Plus it reminds me of my mum although Im sure she would like to be remembered for something a bit more glam!

Telephones again - remember the (usually smelly) phone boxes with Button A and Button B. Was anyone wealthy enough to have a phone in the house in the 1950s? Subscriber Trunk Dialling (STD) started in 1958 where you could call the number direct instead of going through the operator, but the whole country wasn't completed until 1979. I worked for the GPO and seem to remember putting lots of non-STD calls through to Newbury and Barrow-in-Furness around 1973 which were probably the last places.

We got a house phone after the war. Until then, if we needed to make a call we went round to Granny's house. She'd had hers since before the war as had my uncle. In the 1950s, my school friends mostly had phones. I remember we picked each others' brains about homework on the phone, much to the disgust of parents waiting to use it.
The old phone box up the road from my house is now home to a defibrillator. A good use for it.

Talking of Granny's house, in the 1950s my friend's granny had a TV (we didn't) so we went there to watch her tiny b/w screen:
Champion the Wonder Horse.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5i_pEYGe1o
Fury.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPnnh2oFqy4
Horses seemed to be popular!

blueberryl I remember my mother having a tea caddy/ dispenser attached to the side of a free-standing kitchen cabinet. The cabinet had sliding glass doors on the top shelves and the front dropped down to form a work surface.

ABefore that I remember ration cards for sweets. I had to take the book to the shop (NAAFI as we lived in quarters on an army base).

Oh Bkueberry1. I'd forgotten about those tea dispensers. But now you've reminded me, we had one when I was a child. Had a blue lid and shute etc and the part that held the tea was clear plastic. That is a blast from the past

Auntieflo Sunlight Soap still sold in our supermarkets. Currently on 'special' for $3.49 - 4 bars.

Dolly Blue is also still available.

There's a craft website here which shows you how to make something similar to the Japanese waterflowers

babbledabbledo.com/paper-flower-for-kids-magical-water-blossoms/

Creme shampoo. I've never found anything better and DM was convinced it kept nits at bay.

blueberryl1. We used to have one of those tea caddy dispensers, in the 1960's. It was browny/orange, with a cream lid. Then we changed to tea bags at some time and I suppose I threw it away.
YorkshireLass. I was given some of the original Sunlight soap, after a visit to their factory at Port Sunlight? It was so different from the stuff I had delivered from Amazon, which was a lot softer and didn't last as long. Thanks.

I am so sorry BradfordLass72. I meant you. not YorkshireLass.
I had written my reply, but if I go back to check on something, after previewing, I lose my post.

If you see what I mean.

Frost on the inside of the bedroom windows.

My aunty used to take the accumulator from her massive wireless to the electrical shop to be charged up.

Powder shampoo in sachets.

Gibbs Dentifrice. Oh how we longer for mother to buy proper posh toothpaste in a tube.

Zambuk ointment.

My parents bought a grocers shop.
It had equipment to charge up the very large radio batteries which were made of glass and filled with acid.
Us kids were told that these were very dangerous.
Luckily, after a little while, the ironmonger along the road agreed to take over doing this.

Machines which X-rayed your feet in shoe shops

I always wanted to use one of these but was told No because I didn't need it, unlike my cousin who had a bad leg because of polio.

I won one of those wall-fixing tea caddies, at a fairground bingo stall in the summer holidays. My mum used it for many years.
My brother and I always roamed around, unsupervised, in a way that is unlikely to happen now.
Out favourite activities, on holiday, were swimming and playing the assorted games and machines in the fairground.

I remember the accumulators for the wireless too, BlueSapphire and FarNorth. We used to take ours to the post office for charging.

Remember the radio programmes in school?
Singing Together
www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30210485
Music and Movement (From 'Historic UK')
All over the country in school halls, children could be found leaping and stretching to the commands on the radio. ‘Now children we are going to sway like trees in the wind’ would be the instruction on the radio and all the children, boys and girls, would begin to sway with their arms in the air. There was no ‘gym kit’ in primary schools so the children just removed their outer clothes and did P.E. in their vests, knickers or underpants and bare feet or pumps (usually purchased from Woolworths).

I love this thread. Thank you Paddyann and all. I do remember Music and Movement..

Not only did I have tea caddy on the wall I had a tin opener too. This was in the 70s

Anyone remember covering school exercise books with wallpaper?

@EllanVannan I still make a suet pud with golden syrup or jam occasionally and serve with custard. Grandchildren like it.

My Mum used to make my sisters and I wear liberty bodices to school. through the old mangle

She wrung all of her washing through the old mangle. My sister told me she saw an old mangle in a museum last year. Her young grandchildren were most impressed when she could explain how it worked.

When my children were babies they all wore long white flannelette nighties, dd and ds's, that went right down to their feet for first three months with a hand knitted matinee coat on top now they all ware babygros or baby clothing from birth. So easy to change a nappy with the nighties.

You don't see many hard bodied coach prams anymore either. I still have the Marmet one I was put in as a baby which my Mum gave to me and now it sits in the loft. I was hoping my dd would put dgc in it but no she wanted the all in one pram, pushchair and car seat thing that goes forward and backwards and up and down.

No one uses coppers anymore. My Mum boiled her whites in the copper and used a knob of blue to get them extra white.

How times change. I can remember my Dad on his knees cleaning out the fire form the night before every morning before he went to work and setting it with paper and sticks so my Mum could light it and put our school clothing on the fireguard to warm whilst she made our scrambled eggs or porridge breakfast before we went to school in the winter. Now it is all central heating.

I used to love the traffic light lollipops. I think they cost 2 old pennies each. I also used to love lemonade powder. One summer the palm of my hand was permanently yellow because I put it in there and then licked it so much. My Mum used to scrub at it with a flannel, but it would not come off.

Newnanny, I love the way you write about all that!