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Birmingham Christmas of the past

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di i was always getting told off for warming my cold feet in front of the coal fire..i can hear our mom saying "you will get chilblaines" im sure that for that mom used a little round tin of almost clear green cream...nice thread this...keep the posts coming folks:) ive got a photo somewhere of me and my brother at a pubs christmas party...will sort it out and post it
 
christmas party at the crown pub villa st/nursery road...first on the left me second on the right brother mark...

christmas party at the crown.jpg
 
Advice from NHS.....
If your skin gets cold, it's important to warm it up gradually. Heating the skin too quickly, for example by placing your feet in hot water or near a heater, is one of the main causes of chilblains.

The following advice should help:

  • stop smoking – nicotine causes the blood vessels to constrict, which can make chilblains worse
  • keep active – this helps improve your circulation
  • wear warm clothes and insulate your hands, feet and legs – wearing long johns, long boots, tights, leg warmers or long socks will help, and it's a good idea to wear a clean pair of socks if you get cold feet in bed
  • avoid tight shoes and boots – these can restrict the circulation to your toes and feet
  • moisturise your feet regularly – this stops them drying out and the skin cracking
  • eat at least one hot meal during the day – this will help warm your whole body, particularly in cold weather
  • warm your shoes on the radiator before you put them on – make sure damp shoes are dry before you wear them; if your feet are already cold, make sure your shoes aren't too hot to avoid causing chilblains
  • warm your hands before going outdoors – soak them in warm water for several minutes and dry thoroughly, and wear cotton-lined waterproof gloves if necessary; if your hands are already cold, make sure not to warm them up too quickly to avoid causing chilblains
  • keep your house well heated – try to keep one room in the house warm and avoid drafts
  • if you are diabetic, regularly check your feet (or ask someone else to do this) – people with diabetes may not be able to feel their feet and could have infected chilblains without realising it
 
I was always worried in case I got chilblains as I didn't want to use Nan's remedy! (You know the one, in the "gazunda!")
My luxury one Christmas was a pair of wellies with fake fur round the top....no more red rim on my legs!!
Lyn, Mom had Zam-Buk, that was green in a tin.
rosie.
 
 
  • This snap - sorry not very clear - was taken at Shortheath Park, Erdington, sometime in the mid-fifties. I remember not being able to feel my feet or my fingers almost as soon as we got outside. Notice the boys' knees! Short trousers in the snow! Balaclavas! Soggy gloves and wellies (why did the snow always go down the top of your wellies?)
  • As we lived next to the park (literally) we could nip over the fence and sledge to our hearts content (or our Mom's got worried or fed up). There was a lovely hill in the park, just the right size although it seems very tame now. I remember that sometimes the snow drifted up to the pre-fab almost to the height of the back door. Lovely!
  • My brother is on the right of the picture and his friends on the left (no girls on my side of the road).
 

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Lady Penelope said:
  • This snap - sorry not very clear - was taken at Shortheath Park, Erdington, sometime in the mid-fifties. I remember not being able to feel my feet or my fingers almost as soon as we got outside. Notice the boys' knees! Short trousers in the snow! Balaclavas! Soggy gloves and wellies (why did the snow always go down the top of your wellies?)
  • As we lived next to the park (literally) we could nip over the fence and sledge to our hearts content (or our Mom's got worried or fed up). There was a lovely hill in the park, just the right size although it seems very tame now. I remember that sometimes the snow drifted up to the pre-fab almost to the height of the back door. Lovely!
  • My brother is on the right of the picture and his friends on the left (no girls on my side of the road).
Click to expand...
Ah the balaclava knitted by an aunt, always wet around the mouth and often with gloves to match ( in summer there were the cossies - but let's not go there). The wellingtons were last years or someone's castoffs, usually tight around the toes and I would swear that snow used to jump in them and then the gloves got wet and the fingers cold and you knew that the fire at home struggled with the coal that was supplied to give out any heat, still there was always Dick Barton to listen to. Never suffered with chilblains but my sister did and we had all the lotions and potions, Zambuk, Snowfire, germoline because the lady down the road said it cured hers. Nan at Harborne said she always cured hers with an old fashioned remedy that I was not allowed to know but it was met with a look of disgust by my mother and any of the aunts that were present. Did you know all my childhood, I was told that my bedroom it was the front one on Court Lane was so cold when the east wind blew because there were no hills to block it coming from Russia. I am typing this on an iPad and have just manually checked it, sign of the times....Germoline was in as Germ online.
Keep them coming, does anyone remember the snow it would be 57 or 58 when most of the buses were stopped at 6 pm. By 11 pm odd routes were running, but I could not get a 5a and had to struggle from Kingstanding

Bob
 
I was a bit of a whimp I think, I was usually the first to go in when my feet were so cold I wanted to cry. I don't remember any ointment, I guess I had to suffer the awful itching.
I have, over the years since, loved walking in the snow on those lovely sunny dry cold days, well wrapped up, with thick socks inside sturdy boots. When the snow has stopped and the world is quiet and so still. Now as I near my 80's I don't venture out even if it's just a hard frost. I can be a whimp all over again.

The photo is outside our house in the lane where we had lovely winter walks
 

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Radiorails said:
Chilblains were a real menace to me as a teenager but after I moved to Devon, aged 15, I never have had them since - even during my RAF service which took me to cooler places from time to time.
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I love the quote on your posts Alan, so true!!
 
nice snow scene di....i am like you now and stay in if its bad under foot..not like back in the day when our mom could not get us in if it had been snowing...:D
 
Onceabrummie said:
Ah the balaclava knitted by an aunt, always wet around the mouth and often with gloves to match ( in summer there were the cossies - but let's not go there). The wellingtons were last years or someone's castoffs, usually tight around the toes and I would swear that snow used to jump in them and then the gloves got wet and the fingers cold and you knew that the fire at home struggled with the coal that was supplied to give out any heat, still there was always Dick Barton to listen to. Never suffered with chilblains but my sister did and we had all the lotions and potions, Zambuk, Snowfire, germoline because the lady down the road said it cured hers. Nan at Harborne said she always cured hers with an old fashioned remedy that I was not allowed to know but it was met with a look of disgust by my mother and any of the aunts that were present. Did you know all my childhood, I was told that my bedroom it was the front one on Court Lane was so cold when the east wind blew because there were no hills to block it coming from Russia. I am typing this on an iPad and have just manually checked it, sign of the times....Germoline was in as Germ online.
Keep them coming, does anyone remember the snow it would be 57 or 58 when most of the buses were stopped at 6 pm. By 11 pm odd routes were running, but I could not get a 5a and had to struggle from Kingstanding

Bob
Click to expand...

nice post bob...i remember the big freeze of 62/ 63...great fun for us kids but chaos for the country..cant recall having a day off school though we just got on with it...must have been difficult for our parents trying to keep us warm...i would imagine coal would have been in short supply...i remember we had a paraffin heater in the kitchen..no heating in the bedrooms..short video clip below and if you read the birmingham posts report i have just noticed that our own paul stacey and our forum gets a mention...

https://www.birminghampost.co.uk/news/local-news/the-big-freeze-of-196263-3907861



lyn
 
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On Christmas morning in 1961 I went ice skating on Wyndley Pool in Sutton Park. I remember it because someone there had a twin lens stereo cine camera and asked me to jump over him as he lay on the ice pointing his camera. Later I was well ready for afternoon Christmas dinner, pud, and mince pies.
 
I remember that in the late fifty's early sixty's everyone was obsessed with Chill blains, and yes we all wore wellies, balaclava's and big jumpers, every one crowed around the one coal fire. I do remember it being a very cosy period in my life. Paul
 
oldMohawk said:
On Christmas morning in 1961 I went ice skating on Wyndley Pool in Sutton Park. I remember it because someone there had a twin lens stereo cine camera and asked me to jump over him as he lay on the ice pointing his camera.
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Hope you did a risk assessment first! Dave
 
That severe winter of 1962/3 lasted for almost two months in parts of Devon. At that time I has a small Ford Anglia van and travelled around the South Devon countryside. Leaving my home, which was situated on the English Channel, saw me driving in rain, Some miles away, climbing a big hill overlooking Torbay saw me enter a totally different white covered landscape. :eek: I continued at a gentle pace until meeting a downhill part where I was greeted with the sight of vehicles, including a fuel tanker, in all manner of difficulties. Noticing my hands were shaking I got out of the van - no other vehicles were up there with me - looked westwards to where my home was located and lit a cigarette. (I did smoke back in those far off days) ;)
After the ciggy I turned to look at the hill to be delighted to see that all had sorted themselves out and gone someplace. Gently I descended the hill - hills are usually quite steep in Devon - and made my way to Newton Abbot on roads which had had snow removed by moving traffic. As snow is rare in many parts of South Devon it always took a long while to sort out the road conditions. I slid into a 10ft. snowdrift in a country lane on one occasion from which I walked to a nearby farm and got the farmer to pull me out and haul the van back up the hill with a tractor. I gave him ten shillings in gratitude.
The roads away from towns were covered in packed snow/ice for weeks, especially in the foothills of Dartmoor, so my life became difficult for some weeks, in fact I was unable to visit some of my customers in small hamlets for about a month.
 
Christmas Day 2010 was extremely cold. When I took this photo it was -8° outdoors.
index.php

only visible if logged in
 
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'62/3 was another memorable winter for me. It was to be the last we spent in Birmingham. Our daughter was born in August and 3 weeks later Brian went off to rejoin the R.A.F. The snow started in December and the flat above ours in Fentham Road in Witton was empty. The first frost saw its water pipes freeze overnight and the heat from our flat thawed the pipes next morning. Luckily the water poured down into the hall of our flat. It was a mini nightmare, on my own with a baby and a 2 year old. It was eventually sorted out when the water was drained from the upstairs flat, but for a couple of days I had no running water just the stuff running in the hall.
 
hi did that must have been very difficult for you...i have a vague memory of our dad lagging the pipes with any old pieces of rag etc...is your old flat still there di ? as fentham road looks pretty much intact

lyn
 
Hi oldMohawk, I can never view your pictures despite being logged in. I seem OK with everyone elses. It's definitely a puzzle. I've tried logging in and out again but to no avail. Any ideas?
 
Lady Penelope said:
Hi oldMohawk, I can never view your pictures despite being logged in. I seem OK with everyone elses. It's definitely a puzzle. I've tried logging in and out again but to no avail. Any ideas?
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Hi Lady P, the photo is an existing forum photo and to save uploading a new copy I link to the existing photo and it should be visible if logged in. The photo is in a thread here https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/christmas-trees-of-the-past.41543/page-2#post-483235 since 2013
See if you can see it there immediately after trying to see it in this 'Chriiiiiiiiiiistmaaaaas' thread.
Perhaps you could also try something I advised to Rosie in a thread 'Getting Logged Out' here https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/getting-logged-out.46898/page-5#post-580617
oldmohawk
 
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I remember the winter snow of 62/63 - it started to snow as we walked home from midnight mass and then the snow lasted ages. Walks to school in snow getting harder as it thawed on top and then froze again - but we just got on with things.
I also remember the snow 61/62 as my Grandad died on 31 Dec 1961 and I have a vivid memory of my Dad carrying me to the neighbour's house so she could "sit" me while he went to my Mom and Nan and then to fetch the undertaker - we didn't have a phone in those days. (I was aged 9 and in my dressing gown - a red one - funny what you remember!). I can see the banks of snow where he had cleared a path.
 
OldMohawk, I've used the link you suggested and have been logged out less frequently, but something is still not quite right, see attached, you can see, top right that I am signed in but the link to your picture is denied to me!
Screenshot (34).png
When I tried to post this message I was unable to do so as I was not signed in.
So I signed in.
But when I tried to edit to make the above comment I again had to sign in, all the time I appeared to be signed in at the top of the page!
 
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pjmburns said:
I remember the winter snow of 62/63 - it started to snow as we walked home from midnight mass and then the snow lasted ages. Walks to school in snow getting harder as it thawed on top and then froze again - but we just got on with things.
I also remember the snow 61/62 as my Grandad died on 31 Dec 1961 and I have a vivid memory of my Dad carrying me to the neighbour's house so she could "sit" me while he went to my Mom and Nan and then to fetch the undertaker - we didn't have a phone in those days. (I was aged 9 and in my dressing gown - a red one - funny what you remember!). I can see the banks of snow where he had cleared a path.
Click to expand...

I've added a photo of our back yard showing the snow, our first of the season, and definitely not the last.

Dave A
 

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devonjim said:
OldMohawk, I've used the link you suggested and have been logged out less frequently, but something is still not quite right, see attached, you can see, top right that I am signed in but the link to your picture is denied to me!
View attachment 110392
When I tried to post this message I was unable to do so as I was not signed in.
So I signed in.
But when I tried to edit to make the above comment I again had to sign in, all the time I appeared to be signed in at the top of the page!
Click to expand...
Hi Jim, I have commented in the other thread
 
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