Things you never see nowadays

I've just read through all eight pages and can remember 95% of what's been mentioned so far
My contributions- 'starching' net underskirts with sugar solution in the early 60s
and, whatever became of Rum Babas from the 70s? I live in hope that one day someone will start selling them again.

trishs - If you watched the latest Great British Bake Off, they made Rum Babas as one of their first tasks.

trish they are easy to make. I love them.the only trouble is :- calories

I remember underskirts with bones in - a short crinoline! They took up a drawer each....

I remember when underskirts started to go out of fashion and I went to school without mine under my summer uniform dress. It felt like I was wearing my nightie flapping round my legs.

Frost on the windows inside.
Putting clothes on in bed to stay warm.
Dad lighting the fire before we got up.
Sitting on the kitchen table when our basement flat was flooded every winter and being piggy backed out to go to school.
Cocoa before bed with custard creams.
Collecting horse droppings for nanna's rose garden which was about three feet square on top of the midden.
Standing at the bus stop freezing on winters day after swimming lessons with hands wrapped round hot oxo drink.
Winding up the gramophone at parties.
Being bathed in the tin bath to be clean for Christmas Day.

Learning to write my first letters at primary school on a slate, then progressing a year or two later to wooden pens with scratchy nibs and desks with ink wells, and ink!

baNANA & jeni, I hate cookery programmes on tv (apart from Nigel Slater) and the only baking I participate in these days are the Christmas cakes we make every year, but I might yet be driven to try if you are telling the truth about them being easy.

The ink monitor with a tray of filled inkwells, cos we weren't allowed ink unless we were writing....

Trish, and those said inkwells were always stuffed up with soggy bits of blotting paper!

...that clogged up the nib of your pen....

.... but you could use your ruler to catapult them to the ceiling, where they left a blue-black smear ......

Yes!

Not in Miss Roots' class you couldn't Elegran or at least, not more than once.

Yes they have evolved a bit banana - we don't have a "normal" high street here in Mk, so not sure where they hang out generally. But on the internet, as well as offices.
Oh it was pretty miserable trying to learn joined up writing with those dippy pens wasnt it.

More like joined-up splatters, with gaps where the ink ran out mid-word.

I saved up my pocket money and bought my own bottle of ink. You were really somebody if you owned your own bottle of Quink, mine was Royal blue.

Especially if you were left handed! I used pencil for much longer than anyone else in my class because I smudged the ink.

Quink! Even just the name brings back the smell and the inky fingers!

Virol. I used to love it. Anyone else remember it?

Children's Hour. Uncle Mac. "David" reading Rudyard Kipling stories. The most gorgeous, reassuring voice anywhere!

Chilblains. Do they still exist? I was racked by them. Neither of my children has ever had a single one. I think perhaps central heating banished chilblains!

Scratchy wool blankets. Indeed any wool blankets.

Chilblains and scratchy wool blankets DID NOT MIX!

isthisallthereis, I read some terrible things about Uncle Mac on the internet the other day !
(http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n21/andrew-ohagan/light-entertainment)

Think y'got chilblains from toasting your toes in front of the coal fire . We all had red blotchy marks on our legs from doing that.

Wow! What a thread!
We do see people in Sunday best here. They are either Caribbean or African families. Some pretty stunning African outfits sometimes included.

Darns (i remember learning how to do them, possibly for brownies)
Corsets and rollons worn by nans and mums
Styes
Really bad acne
People with leg irons
Streets with no parked cars (can see clearly in my mind's eye, new yellow ford anglia belonging to my mum's boyfriend.)
People going out for a "run in the car" just because they can
Dads on the beach with their trousers rolled up and hankies on their heads
Women carrying their children "Welsh fashion" - with a big welsh shawl wrapped around mother and baby.

Chilblains,I suffered from then all through my childhoods he treatment was to. Bathe them in your own urine...many hour spent with my feet in the po....

Remember the corned beef coloured legs with scorch marks,most of the older ladies had them ..with their stockings rolled to their ankles and their bunions cut out if their checkered slippers...

Taking a drive along the M. 25 , !