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1930s Hygiene

Hi brenda happy new year to you
yes you are quite correct the kids of aston always had a tin bath unless you was one of the posh kid of aston but on the whole we alll had a tin bath in front of the fire and the ketle and saucepans boiling the hot water constantly on the black coal fire grate with swinging hooks and whilst waiting doing toast on a wire fork and banking up the fire
with coal slack to keeping it nice and warm whilst one by one we all had a bath in front of the fire watching the twelve inch black and white tv whilst the posh familys had there colour tvs and the old lady giving us our cod liver oil
we all moaned about swollowing it they would hold your nose to swollow it and amidst that watching muffin the mule
and when all done march you up the apple and pairs all clean and dusted by having derbac in your hair so you would be cleaned for nitty nora from albert rd clinic came to the school of upper thomas street
after her visits on monday morning a couple of days later she would come back with a bag full of brown envelopes for half of thomas street school the teacher fairly never left any one out of the class unless he was one of the posh kids
which was very few the teacher must have had aqbout fifty letters to hand out
she always picked on large familys cor blimey those were the days brenda especialy just after the war years
have a nice day best wishes astonion
 
Stitcher. I pleased you had a 'good' life with your parents. It seems there were 3 boys and one girl in your family - same here. Sorry to hear of your sisters illness - alwas someone with more problems than oneself. It must have been so hard for you all . No one had much but most ALL people were helpful and friendly. Remember the Rabbit Stew - I loved it - my piece of it was the 'ribs' ""!!!!!!! Miriam.
 
I think that most us had a dose of nits. I always caught them after returning to school after the holidays. What about RingWorm ? I believe the way to get rid of it was by applying Gentian Violet. I am sure I must have had it at least once. If any thing was going free I was up for it.
 
Yes the rabbit stew was nice although I don't know if I would enjoy it as much today.
Both my mom and dad had previous marriages as a result of which I had several older step brothers and sisters, three of whom are still alive and kicking, The three of them two male and a female are almost ninety years old.
 
Hello Arkrite, although I remember 'ringworm from my school days I don't recall ever having it. I definately remember the words 'gentian violet'.
 
Stitcher, the last time I had a dose of ring worm was in 1986 when working as a machinist. The chap who worked the machine before me was a part-time dairy milker.I used a pair of his gloves by mistake.It was easy to get rid of using modern creams.
 
Rather you than me Arkrite, I found out the other day that Impetigo is still about.
 
i had impetigo Stitcher, it started on my lip, rather like a cold sore, i was told NOT TO TOUCH IT, but i was only three at the time(what did they expect) unforunately it spread up my face and onto my scalp causing me to have all of my beautiful curls cut off, i never saw the blue face and head i ended up with but my bigger sister used to tease me endlessly, she used to tell me i would be blue forever. When my hair grew back it was straight, not a curl in sight.
 
Stitch
You say that nits are coming back despite the improvements in sanitary conditions in recent years. I personally dont remember any problems when I was at school (1942 to 1954) but you are lucky in the UK to have reasonably cool average temperatures.
Here in South Australia in the summer (now) the nits are rampant & the kids get letters from school on a weekly basis informing which classes are infected (several heads round a moniter). This has nothing to do with personel hygene as I see it.
The 'apparatus' that amuses me is the electronic nit combs - my grandchildren get their hair combed every night with these & you can hear the zap as the eggs/nits are expurged - so much for modern technology but you still go home feeling itchy
 
Hello John, most of our parents treated us on a weekly basis to a hair wash with Derbac soap which would eliminate nits. My dad also treated us to a scraping with a nit comb while we leaned over a sheet of paper, he did this to check for nits and we got the Derbac treatment if it was needed or not. Nits were almost eliminated and Nitty Nora was made redundant. The report in the press said that parents today do not have the time to do as our parents did because they are too busy, and that is the reason for the new 'nit invasion'.
 
What a great laugh this was. I remember Aston in the thirties with all the nits, scabs, powks and snotty noses. What beautiful people they really were though with a helping hand to the less fortunate even though they didn't have much themselves. The gossip around the washhouse sinks up the 'Back entry' and the Friday bath in front of the fire. Lovely memories to tell my kids and grandkids who look at me as if I came down in the last ice age. Lovely stuff keep it up for the sake of our history for soon we'll all be gone. Regards, David.
l remember the derbac comb it really hurt when our mom used it .....every friday or saturday night we had our bath ( tin tub)shampoo then be scalped with the derbac comb,nails cut and last but not least a good dose of syrup of figs.....l thought every kid in Aston did the same.....Brenda
 
Carbolic Soap .. around 1960 ish
At the bottom of the road in Willis street somewhere near St Mathews .. I cant remember much because I was little . There was a Bomb peck . We went playing on the bombeck and loved to look through he rubble to see what we could find to play with . We came home with a parcel , me and my sisters crouched down in the yard and started to open it up .Thinking it was something valuable some one had left . to our surprise it was a half eaten tortoise with maggots running through it . Lovely .. we were fascinated and poked it with a stick and stuff. mum grabbed us give us a belting , one by one she took our clothes off and stood us up in this brown sink . she got the scrubbing brush and a bar of carbolic soap and scrubbed us till we were red raw .
I always thought she did this as a punishment to be cruel but she didn't , She did it because she was scared stiff we would catch something nasty . She'd been in Germany after the war when dad was stationed there and has seen a lot of disease .
When I was a young woman I always thought she was guilty of great cruelty and now as an older person I understand she was just worried .
Life is odd isn't it ?
Jean
 
Nice memory Catsclaws, it's surprising what stirs old memories. I think most of were stood in the sink and scrubbed at some time.
 
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