Doorstep memories

A Sikh gentleman used to walk down our road in the 1950s. He carried a small suitcase containing brushes for sale. Everyone used to hide as none of us had seen a Sikh before!

My mother used to offer my brothers and I some money to collect the horse manure from one of the delivery carts - we had beautiful roses!

I remember the milkman ( who left orange juice and cream sometimes as well) the corona man( dandelion and burdock, cream soda, and limeade) the prudential man who was dads friend and always came on a Friday evening. The baker who lets us choose the cakes on the weekend. The rag and bone man, the man who sold the paraffin for the kitchen heater ( no central heating and this was a newly built council house) . I could go on and on, so interesting to us children

I remember Mum scrubbing the front doorstep and pitch every week, in her hands and knees then putting the red polish on the tiles. Net curtains on our council estate were also pristine, properly hung and whiter than white. Everyone seemed very houseproud.

Yes, the coal man, with a horse and cart would call regularly. He was black from the coal dust. He'd empty the sacks in the coal house, which was attached to the kitchen and my Mum would sweep up the dust in the kitchen, wipe down all the surfaces and mop the floor. No wonder there was no need for gyms back then. Exercise was a part of life, for everyone. The rent man called, as did the fish man, and yes, "beer at home means Davenports" so Dad would get a few bottles every now and then. My Mum, who used to work in service would have the cotton bed sheets washed, starched and ironed and they be brought back to the house in a brown paper parcel tied up with string.
It's strange when you think of all the changes that have taken place over the last sixty years. Society and ways of doing things are so different. Anyone would think we suffered real hardship. I suspect we did, but we didn't know it at the time. Looking back I realised just how hard my parents worked and how severe their budget was. The laundered bed linen seems so incongruous given my mother boiled items in the kitchen copper and washed so much by hand.

Not a doorstep memory, but my mum always cleaned the windows with scrumpled up newspaper. Damp to get the dirt off, dry to polish them.

I still do, having tried other methods. It's just as effective and much cheaper.

My mother used a strongish vinegar solution so the house smelt of a chip shop!

putting the red polish on the tiles.
Cardinal Red polish on the floor and blacking on the grate.

Mum used to 'sides to middle' the sheets when they got a bit worn - cut them down the middle and join with a French seam. I didn't like sleeping in them because I could always feel the ridge!

Jalima1108 i still have a sheet with a seam down the middle which came from DM linen chest.
It also has laundry marks.
Lots of memories flooding back on this thread. Rag and Bone man with the big horse.
Every summer the circus came to Clapham common and we kids got to lead the ponies through the streets.
There were still stables behind big houses and horses were ridden on all the local commons.

The fish and chip shops sold about 10 different kinds of fish.
DG chopped wood for her range and lit it each day.
We had a coal fire with a back boiler and a gas lighter. Very modern.

In the late 1950s there was one car parked in our street. Imagine that?

Yes I remember the Cardinal polish Jalima1108 and donkey stone for the front steps. My Aunt had brass front door furniture and I had to polish that when I visited.

Whitewashing the outside lavatory, and cutting up the News of the World for toilet paper. My Gran was a miner's widow so she had a coal allowance. This was dumped outside her house and we all had to help put it in buckets and carry it through to the coal shed. She often gave a bucket of coal to a neighbour, but always in the dark. Sharing with neighbours was frowned upon by the Coal Board.

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Amongst others, Mum had a bloke called Geoff who delivered fruit and veg from a small van. He liked to bet on the horses so would ask if we would put the telly on to see the result of the 2.15 at Doncaster or whatever. He would stand by the doorway, refusing the offer of a seat.
Also, very rarely a rag and bone man would pass by.

Beside our house was the last gaslight in the town . When I was really young the lamplighter used to come round with a big pole and light it .

I remember the knocker-up man, who used to tap on your bedroom window with a long pole if you didn't have an alarm clock.

The paper boy put the paper through the letterbox. The milkman left the milk on the window sill beside the front door. The coal man delivered monthly, we bought coal for the sitting room fire and coke for the Rayburn. The ice cream man came in the evenings, and in the afternoon on a Saturday.
On a Saturday morning a gentleman came round the streets with a tractor and trailer selling fruit and vegetables, crisps and sweets. His family had a market garden.
The Betterware man called too, I used to like looking in his case.
Others included the rent man, insurance man, window cleaner.
Gosh, what a lot of callers.

Such history here and not (to us) so very long ago. We lived in a very small village in Cumberland ( now Cumbria) and the store van (Co-op) came every week to deliver the order in the little red book. The coal man heaved bags of coal up several steps along a path across the yard and into the coal house. My parents also used to go out and pick up extra lumps of coal where they fell onto the railway line. The milk man came up the same steps and path to deliver to the back door (our only door) as well.

Oh how we loved the pop man. We used to get dandelion and burdock, cream soda and cherryade. Sometimes when the ice cream man came we made a drink with ice cream and dandelion and burdock ... bliss on a hot summer day.

Then there was the rent man, the insurance man and Jinnie the post lady who, I think, looking back must have had Parkinsons, as she was always shaking. My mother refused to have the window cleaner who she named Sinbad because he clearly only cleaned port holes and missed out the corners of normal windows!

I had the job of cardinal polishing the floors as the eldest girl and as a result became the grammar school shot put champion to everyone's amazement because I was tiny! I've always had a strong right arm!

Jalima I am a princess too. Not the pea under the mattress but the seam on the sides to middle sheets!

I also remember as children holding a string across the road to stop a wedding car. They always used to throw out pennies to us so that they could get past. I don't know where that custom came from.

It was my job to yellowstone the top step every Saturday after a vigorous scrubbing with hot soapy water. The yellow had to be smoothed on completely evenly, no streak or woe betide me

The Betterware men were often ex-soldiers and Mum would buy something very small from them. They lugged great, heavy cases of stuff from door to door, poor things.

I can remember all the callers OP spoke about and the Pot Man whose cart had plates, cups, jugs etc. The sides of the van were rounded and slid up (like an old fashioned roller desk) and one side held pots, the other household linens: dusters, tablecloths, tea towels etc.

The Pop Man had those earthenware flagons of ginger beer and dandelion & burdock, but the Sarsaparilla and American cream soda came in glass bottles.

The man who delivered our milk had a horse and cart and dipped a very long-handled ladle into churns to decant into the jug I held. I was allowed to give an apple to his horse.

Eddie Egg, as his name suggests brought fresh eggs from his farm and vegetables in season and occasionally bunches of flowers.

The Spanish onion man was, as others have said, a Breton but Mum sent me out to buy because he always smelled so strongly of garlic. He told me eating raw garlic had kept him healthy.

A Romany lady once told my mother I'd go far - I did, to New Zealand.

I still had a milkman who delivered milk in returnable glass bottles until I moved from my house to this flat six months ago. I still feel guilty in case he now has too few customers and his job is at risk.

We used to have a Provident lady. Our mum would get Provident cheques from her to buy our uniforms and the lady would come to the door each week to collect the money.

We had a bobbin man too. He bought bobbins that had split in the making and could not be used by either Coates or the English Sewing Co who had their cotton mills in Paisley and Neilston respectively. We bought them for kindling.

He drove a cart and his horse was called Jimmy.

The rag-and-bone man drove a horse-drawn cart as well.

I can remember seeing a Sikh gentleman in flowing robes walking up our garden path and calling out to my Mum 'Jesus is coming up the path'. this was in the 50's and I must have been about 8 years old. I cannot remember my Mum's reaction but I would think she moved pretty quickly to see what was going on.