We used to say:

I used to go up the canal with a wheelbarrow!

When I was very little, the old lady next door used to give me a paper bag and take me for a walk alongside the main road that we lived on, collecting coal that had fallen off the then-numerous passing coal delivery lorries, for her to use on her little stove.

My DDH used to take his grannies bread dough to the local bakers to put in his oven.

Are yu lacking art toneet

My aunt used to let us walk on the railway line behind her house picking up coal!!! It was also the haunt of the occasional adder.

I remember the one about not washing your hair when you had a period, Flowerofthewest. We used to say GordonBennett but your version makes more sense.
Can anyone remember what the slang was in the sixties. I need it for a story and I can't remember now.
There was swinging but ...

slang as in?

Anything anyone can remember. My head is full of more modern words like cool and mint and wicked. I realised I have no idea how we used to talk.

We used the word fab a lot and I remember asking a friend why she was wearing sandals in the snow and she said 'cos I want to be a mod'. Also far out man, keep on truckin, be there or be square, buzz off, dolly bird, it's a drag, flower power, it freaks me out, hip, psychedelic, let it all hang out, she 'had to' get married, I'm gonna split now. Obviously some of these are 'Americanisms' or were only used in songs but I can remember my friends and myself using them in a jokey way or to try to be cool.

I seem to remember 'groovy'!

Oh yes, I remember some of those and 'sends me' for that matter. It seems like words from the distant mists of time. I suppose it was

Half a century, Broomstick! Doesn't that sound depressing?

My grandmother used to say 'Well I'll go to the top of our street'

Yes, annodomini, not groovy at all

In my head I am still a groovy 20-something!

When, as a child, I used to ask my grandmother to do something for me which involved her getting up out of her chair, she would say 'I can't I've got a bone in my leg'.

Didn't we used to say something was 'with it' meaning fashionable?

Nightowl - yes we used to say 'with it' - sounds funny now. My mom used to say 'are you going out like that' and I'd say 'yes it's with it'. She would say 'I think I'd rather be without it'.

My Dad used to say 'I can't, I've got a bone in my leg' . I can remember, like a light going on, when I realised we'd ALL got bones in our legs.

He's nobbut a chip 'oiler.

I suppose it's really Yorkshire dialect, but it refers to a cyclist who is 'Nothing but a person who is only capable of riding his bike to the fish and chip shop', ie not a proper cyclist.

Chip 'oil had nothing to do with what the chips were fried in - that was usually animal fat, but in dialect, any place where work was done, was a 'hole' or 'oil' in dialect. My Dad, a foreman spinner for instance, ran the 'spinning 'oil'.

Have we had 'living ovver't (over the) brush' for living in sin yet?

You've all brought back memories of how our Mums tried to keep us little virgins till marriage. All most parents achieved, was to successfully teach us how to be devious!!

One lass of my acquaintance managed the virginity thing - and ended up celibate for 11 years until she finally broke down and sought help - her husband was impotent. The anti-sex brainwashing had been so intense, that she probably felt she would look bad for complaining she wasn't getting any.

Which brings us to another saying - 'never buy a pig in a poke' ie check the goods before you commit. That poor lass should have!

More Yorkshire ones (Holmfirth), that my grandma used regularly:

Ee, you're a rum 'un!

Ee, you're a tonic!

Ee, you're a cough drop!

Ee, I'll to our house!

Ee, I'll go t' bottom of our stairs!

(Yes, she did a lot of 'ee-ing' )

My dad has a bone in his leg too . Also my granny used to call sprouts dolly cabbages. It was only quite recently the meaning dawned on me. As a child I thought they were just called that.

and 'Well I'll go to the foot of our stairs'

My head's in a shed (muddled mind)

Thinks his body every self cos his mother's got a mangle

Sunday go to meeting clothes

The last two were favourites of my late MIL

Joan my mum worked in a chip oil when I was a child. She always referred to it that way.