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Memories : Essence Of The 50s And 60s

Elmdon Boy said:
I remember in the winter my mum sitting right by the open fire and the one side of her legs would turn red in a kind of mottled pattern from the heat, which would take ages for it to disappear.
You sat by the fire and one side of you roasted while the other side froze.
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Our mom would stand with her back to the fire with her skirt pulled up (only at the back) and her legs started to get that mottled red purple look too, she said it was chilblains...
Dave A
 
i used to get told off for doing that dave but when when it was the only form of direct heat in the house (none in the bedrooms or attic) it was hard to resist:D mom used to dip the dummies in delrosa rose hip syrup to soothe my crying sisters and brothers

lyn
 
My mom would light the gas oven and have the door open for a little warmth. I remember my friends mom sitting on a chair in front of the oven with the door open to keep warm too.
 
oldMohawk said:
On Friday 17th February 1956, ITV started broadcasting programs in the Midlands and we had two TV channels we could watch. It was broadcast from a separate transmitter mast and viewers needed an itv aerial.
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We had a 12 inch set with a converter box on top to get ITV. Parents were out of the room and my friend decided to play with one of the tuning wheels in the middle of watching Ivanhoe and lost reception. My Mom had no idea how to ret-une it. Dad was furious and I got the blame - guess that must have been around 1958?
 
Morturn said:
My mom would light the gas oven and have the door open for a little warmth. I remember my friends mom sitting on a chair in front of the oven with the door open to keep warm too.
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I remember Mom doing the same with the electric oven - no gas in our house as Dad was an electrical engineer!
 
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One morning my mother dried a pair of my ankle socks under the grill. They were just a bit damp, but of course no tumble dryer!
 
I remember we had a wind up gramaphone with loads of 78`s records, mostly classical, & even now when i hear Rachmaninoff`s rhapsody on a theme by Paganini ( what a title ) i can hear Mother humming & la-la ing along with the music till she got to the high notes when she sounded like a chicken with a sore throat, but it was all good fun. When i got married in `66 & after i came out of the army, we moved to Durham to live with my wife`s folks, & they had a piano & we would stand round the piano & have a good old sing-a-long. Happy days when i can remember them!!
 
Morturn said:
My mom would light the gas oven and have the door open for a little warmth. I remember my friends mom sitting on a chair in front of the oven with the door open to keep warm too.
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The only time I ever encountered that particular event was when I used to travel around South Devon calling on people. I found an elderly lady sitting on a chair in front of her gas oven to keep warm. I was surprised so I asked here if she had any coal - I would have lit a fire for her if she wanted me to.
No was the reply and she took me to her coal store, which was indoors and part of the outhouse, pointing to a large cider barrel on a trestle. "There's my coal, she said". Apparently it was more important to her husband to have his cider to keep him warm - or numbed - rather than coal. I have always remembered that poor old soul.
 
Radiorails said:
The only time I ever encountered that particular event was when I used to travel around South Devon calling on people. I found an elderly lady sitting on a chair in front of her gas oven to keep warm. I was surprised so I asked here if she had any coal - I would have lit a fire for her if she wanted me to.
No was the reply and she took me to her coal store, which was indoors and part of the outhouse, pointing to a large cider barrel on a trestle. "There's my coal, she said". Apparently it was more important to her husband to have his cider to keep him warm - or numbed - rather than coal. I have always remembered that poor old soul.
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What a sad story.
 
adap2it said:
Our mom would stand with her back to the fire with her skirt pulled up (only at the back) and her legs started to get that mottled red purple look too, she said it was chilblains...
Dave A
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Funny place for chilblains Dave, I thought they were on your toes.
My sister used to suffer from chilblains and had to soak her feet in a bowl of warm water in the lounge by the fire to get some relief, and then put some sort of cream on them, just before bedtime.
 
Elmdon Boy said:
Funny place for chilblains Dave, I thought they were on your toes.
My sister used to suffer from chilblains and had to soak her feet in a bowl of warm water in the lounge by the fire to get some relief, and then put some sort of cream on them, just before bedtime.
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Chillblains, now there`s a word i haven`t heard in a long time. You can get them on any of your extremities, toes, fingers nose. A bit like a very moderate frostbite.
 
Boots used to sell chillblain tabelts. I think they contained vitamin B5, and they made you feel very hot. They stopped selling them ages ago. Perhaps they were unsafe?
 
Misty memories of the 1950s come back to me when I look at this photo of a view I must have seen. Familiar shops and buses, plenty of jobs, all my mates were in work, optimism was in the air ... I liked the 1950s ... :)
1953misty.jpg
 
ah the fifties, remember the radio? my favourite was the evening programmes, as a ten year old listening to the Goon show, Take it from Here, Journey into Space, before that Dick Barton, all while lying in front of the coal fire and yes, using toasting fork for toast. As lots of folk have said, we wuz poor but we wuz happy!!
 
I became a teenager in the 50's, what could have been better? we had Rock N Roll!!! The first generation to have their OWN music, no more having to listen to your parents stuff.
Dave A
 
Memories from the 50s and early 60s, all the starlings congregating in the city centre late afternoon in the autumn and winter, swirling around the sky making beautiful patterns and eventually roosting and making a right racket before nightfall. Particularly by Lewis's at the Minories.They were coming into the warmer city centre from the countryside to keep warm. What happened to them?
Also in your suburban garden, if you put any bread out within minutes you had flocks of sparrows descend, now your lucky to see just a couple. Where did they all go?
 
Elmdon Boy said:
Memories from the 50s and early 60s, all the starlings congregating in the city centre late afternoon in the autumn and winter, swirling around the sky making beautiful patterns and eventually roosting and making a right racket before nightfall. Particularly by Lewis's at the Minories.They were coming into the warmer city centre from the countryside to keep warm. What happened to them?
Also in your suburban garden, if you put any bread out within minutes you had flocks of sparrows descend, now your lucky to see just a couple. Where did they all go?
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I think somewhere on the Forum there is a picture of one of the ways they tried to stop the Starlings. Yes, it was good to watch them circling and gathering to make their way to the City. Sadly several parts of many cities have lost their sparrows.

I had a pet sparrow in the 1950s and on a visit to the Algarve made friends with a few others!

https://www.ipernity.com/doc/2254674/46142956

https://www.ipernity.com/doc/2254674/46142940
 
Pedrocut said:
I think somewhere on the Forum there is a picture of one of the ways they tried to stop the Starlings. Yes, it was good to watch them circling and gathering to make their way to the City.
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They tried really loud fog horns to try to persuade them to leave. There were hundreds of them around the town hall. Unfortunately, I had to cross the town hall area to catch my second bus to school, running as fast as I could with my satchel on my head, hoping to avoid the white plague.
Dave A
 
i think all the starlings have fled to the one stop shopping centre perry barr...loads of them there but yes i can remember all the birds that used to be up town...one thing that sticks in my mind is the tremendous noise they made...that was the city i knew and loved....have plenty of sparrows in my garden and a flock of about 30 starlings decend from time to time:) does not take long before i have to get back out and top up the feeders...

lyn
 
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If you were a teenager in the early 1950s, on Sundays you would have heard some of the sounds in the film below ... no wonder we tried to stay in bed until 'dinner time', then get ready and rush off out to the evening cinema ...

 
Haven't seen Yorkshire pudding like that for years. Moms was baked in a round tin and cut into slices like ultra thin pieces of cake.
 
National_Savings .JPGRemember these? Mom used to give me her odd change each week to buy stamps at school. (couldn't afford the 2/6 ones). When school summer term came she'd cash them in at Sheldon Post Office. Then straight over the road to Foster Brothers to buy new clothes for the next school year. These also doubled up as something decent to wear on our forthcoming summer holiday. Shirts were always much too big on the basis I would 'grow into them'. Thought I was the only kid in class that had sleeves like one of the three cavaliers! As it was also near my birthday my new outfit would be supplemented by a hand knitted cardigan from my nan and aunt who knitted throughout the year for all the family.
 
Were not all you female members of the BHF lucky, not one of you lucky enough to have a knitted swimming costume like my sister........

Bob
 
mbenne said:
Haven't seen Yorkshire pudding like that for years. Moms was baked in a round tin and cut into slices like ultra thin pieces of cake.
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We always ate our Yorkshire puds separate from the main meal. 3 medium size puds to us kids, & 4-5 to the grown ups, with a good dollop of onion gravy. Why do we remove the skin from most of our veggies? I remember being told that the skin had the most nutriments, just need to wash them prior to cooking. Mom always left the skin on tates & carrots after washing them.
 
Can't fully relate to the film about Sunday lunch. I find most of my memories of Sundays enjoyable.
I used to help my Dad in the garden or the garage in the morning. Dad hardly ever drank so didn't go down the pub. Mum called us in for lunch, and very enjoyable it was too, she was a lovely cook.
After helping with the washing up, the afternoon was free to do as I please, usually over the park, or later on aircraft spotting down Elmdon.. Dad would have a snooze whilst Mum would probably do some baking or ironing.
I remember Sing something simple, it followed Pick of the Pops which I loved, time to vanish to my bedroom. I agree with the film here, so sombre, reminded me it was now Sunday evening, weekend over, school tomorrow, oh woe.
 
The 1950's were a great time for anyone young and maybe older folk as well. Austerity and rationing were on a rapid decline and more freedoms meant getting around more. All in all better, in my view, than the excesses of the 1960's.
 
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More of my memories. Birds Instant Whip. Easy to make and loved it when me and my two sisters were left home alone during the school hols. Mixing it in a big bowl generally turned into a messy affair with some of it sprayed onto the kitchen tiles.
Mum and Dad had to go to work to make ends meet.
Guess it would be illegal now to be left alone, but times were different then.
Perhaps in some respects, we were more responsible in those days compared to today.
I used to collect the tea cards in the packs of tea.
Remember the toys in the packets of cereals. The one I distinctly remember was a little plastic submarine. You put a bit of baking powder in a recess and dropped it in the water. it would sink to the bottom and then gradually rise to the top. Great fun, such simple pleasures.
Green shield stamps, in fact I remember collecting them into the 70s with petrol for my motorbike and then the car.
 
I thought I was unique in having to fend for myself. In the school holidays my Mom and Dad were both out at work and I used to go over to my Nan's and wait for her to come home from her part time job for lunch - never an issue getting in the house as the back door was never locked. Managed to blow the electric fuse one day. No one was around when I tried to plug one of my battery operated toys into a two pin socket! I'd seen how my Grandad had connected the electric clock by pushing two splayed wires into the socket and holding them in place with matchsticks. When I tried there was just a loud bang and a flash!
 
It was magical how Instant Whip became semi-solid as you whisked it. Angel Delight was fluffier. I bet the main ingredient was sugar!
 
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