Things you never see nowadays

Paraffin heaters remind me of the time my dad left one on in the hall overnight. I got up - always first up - next morning, opened my bedroom door and found the hall, stairs and dining room covered in black sticky soot - it showed up every single cobweb!!!!! Needless to say it only happened the once!

We used to have a man come round on a bicycle selling garlic! He must have pedalled over on the ferry because we lived on an island. Whether he was French or not I don't know. I do know that my mother bought the stuff but I don't remember her ever using it. Her cooking as she was proud to tell me was 'good, plain cooking'- and salads galore.

Mamie

Ahh, the outside loo. Lovely. Fight your way through the cobwebs, Izal paper if you were lucky or newspaper. Pitch black, freezing cold and scared to death what was crawling around the floor. Happy days, not!!.

Maniac, I was terrified by a goblin who I believed lived in the paraffin lamp in the outside loo!

I think my mum's 'me time' was in her nightly bath. She used to read in it and if she couldn't find her glasses we always knew where to find them.

My Mother had the me time when she was under the hair dryer, head bristling with rollers, and the hood, she always looked over heated at that point, it never looked very comfortable.

Hunt

Putting my mum in my mind now. She too would give herself 'me time', just see her doing her knitting or reading a book.

Mamie The light patters on the ceiling from paraffin heater were part of my childhood.I found them very comforting.
We also had outside loo -very cold and spidery.No Andrex toilet rolls.Cut up newspaper instead.!

POGS, I have a hair dryer with a plastic hood-sit under it every week to dry my hair and ,incidentally, to have a bit of 'me' time.

Friday night was Amami night!!
Some kind of setting lotion I think it was...

Oh, yes. Home perms!

Beer shampoo came in a little barrel shaped container. Sometimes we rinsed our hair with real beer - until we got a taste for it, that is. Home perms - 'Which twin has the Toni?' My mum had trained as a hairdresser and used to perm her friends' and relatives' hair. We'd come in from school and find the house stinking of perming lotion!

Lilygran

The smell of TWINK home perms and the rollers with the tissue paper with them. Mum sitting under the hairdryer with the plastic hood. Not that there may be some on G.N who might still have one of those

My father went through a phase of plastering his hair with some stuff called Bay Rum. It was disgusting so we were all glad when he stopped.

You could buy beer shampoo, too!

It was always Friday night wasn't it, Lilygran? I had a friend who used to add vinegar to the water to rinse her hair. Her hair was lovely and shiny and silky but she smelt like a fish and chip shop for the rest of the week.

What I don't miss is the performance of washing hair. It took forever to dry and you either made shampoo by melting soap or bought some powdered stuff and mixed it with water. And if you went to the hairdresser, you went face forward in the basin and then got cooked under the dryer. And sleeping in curlers! I was watching 'My week with Marilyn' the other day and the character played by Emma Watson said she couldn't go out because she was washing her hair. It brought it all back.

Never, ever a black bag with brown gloves or shoes.

Lovely decorative hat pins. Vicious weapons if necessary. You easily kill with one!

With hatpins!

Silver three
Emmy bits and farthings . Expensive clothes marked in guineas and ladies ALWAYS wore hats and gloves when out.

No, I didn't really think they were, absent. It was a joke.

Thank you feetlebaum. That was all that I remembered of it!

Oil stoves with a frightening pattern on the ceiling. The outside loo in winter. Syrup of figs and cod liver oil. Gibbs toothpaste in round tins (I used to lick it). Liberty bodices (anything but). Dreary Good Fridays. Butter pats and the smell of the dairy. Trunks to pack with everything for the holiday which were sent in advance.

Come to think of it my mum had one for my sister (1949) and she was having a sleep in the garden - another thing not seen now? - and she woke and managed to tip the pram up and came crawling up the garden....

I had a second-hand one in the 60s in London - great with no car and two small ones who both fitted in! I walked everywhere with it and even brought a gasfire back on it once!