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Birmingham Christmas of the past

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This Birmingham Lord Mayor’s Christmas card of 1900 puts “Plenty” with a very full bread basket at the beginning of the procession for 1901. I doubt this card was for the eyes of the working Birmingham man. As already said, for most Birmingham people this would have been beyond their expectations. Viv.

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father was An old friend of Santa Claus,

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Two old men with white beards have come to symbolize the holiday season. The first, Santa Claus, visits homes on Christmas Eve ( Father Christmas; . The second, Father Time, appears on New Year's Eve. Father Time, a folk figure that personifies time, represents the passing of the old year. He is usually depicted as an old man with a long white beard. Frequently he carries an hourglass, representing the passage of time, and a scythe (an old farm tool used to cut down ripe wheat), reminding us that all living creatures must die and all things come to an end. On occasion he will be depicted with wings, which stand for the idea that time passes very quickly. As the saying goes, "time flies."
 
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Vivienne14 said:
This Christmas produce booklet must have been pre-1971. At a guess I’d say this was from around the 1950s (?). It’s what Birmingham Co-op had on offer to help make your Christmas food special for the occasion.

Can’t say I’ve heard of Evaporated Dessert Fruit before. And BCS claims to have had dairy farms in Denmark. No surprise really as I expect their bacon came from Denmark too. Remember the “Danish” name printed on the rind of bacon joints ? Presumably Temperance wines were non-alcoholic. And there’s was me thinking non-alcoholic wine was a new thing. And all 113 shops are listed for your convenience. Viv.

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Muscatel wine (my favourite ) for 1&8 pence abottle. Wish i had a time machine !
 
Morturn said:
All for the very privileged and wealthy middleclass. For working-class people Christmas would have been their only day off from working a seven-day week, it was a festival that the poor could rarely afford to partake.

For a few family’s it would have been potatoes, dripping on bread, oat and milk pudding. If you were really fortunate working-class you may even dine on rabbit or freshwater fish or eels.

While history paints a picture of an opulent Victorian society, it was a lifestyle for a few with everyone else living invisibly in poverty.
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Good picture of my home life Mort, except noticed my bread is mouldy. Actually all joking aside, a spot on picture of true Victorian life.

Bob
 
Christmas for some 2000 inmates at Spring Hill workhouse in the 1880s. Certainly not a typical day by any means, but at least for a few hours there was something that could be enjoyed by all. Can’t imagine what the “usual breakfast” must have been. Viv.

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Vivienne14 said:
Christmas for some 2000 inmates at Spring Hill workhouse in the 1880s. Certainly not a typical day by any means, but at least fir a few hours there was something that could be enjoyed by all. Can’t inagine what the “usual breakfast” must have been. Viv.

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For a couple of days at least, it was the good old days. How( mostly )lucky we are these days.
 
Vivienne14 said:
And hence why Dickens wrote a “Christmas Carol”. It was originally going to be a pamphlet called : “An Appeal to the People of England on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child”, but he decided to write a story to get his points across instead. Viv.
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Viv, my favorite Christmas movie, particularly in black and white with Alister Sim! I remember being take to the Villa Cross with my sister who is seven years older and being scared to death when the ghosts came out!
 
Morturn said:
Interesting that Pete. My grandfather got married on Christmas day as he too worked a seven-day week. It was the only time he could take off work, as was the case with most working people.

It ok to challenge what is shown on TV programmes, as you quite rightly say, “a load of tosh”.

What we must remember is that history (as taught at school) is not just a body of knowledge that’s fixed, cast in stone and immutable. History needs to be a way of thinking about the past where we discuss and challenging the past that’s written by a few. By exchanging ideas, we can the gain a better understanding of how our ancestors really lived, who they were and what their lives were like. We can then add this to the body of historical knowledge.
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Very well said Mort! With new technology history is being re-examined. My wife and I just watched a documentary on Tintagel, King Arthur & Anglo Saxons et Al. It is remarkable what technology has allowed moving toward more factual rat her than option based concepts.
 
Christmas 1885 at Queen’s Hospital sounds like a nicely balanced cooperation between patients and staff, patients participating in tasks where capable. I’d forgotten how smoking and a bottle of beer were once allowed in hospitals. Viv.


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Not forgetting parcels and food for the troops, especially in wartime and away from home. Viv.

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In the previous war a number of “Christmas Boxes” were organised by the Birmingham Gazette for our troops. Several schemes operated to provide serving men with these.

The contents of this example are interesting and, while certainly not what you’d expect in a Christmas Box, they were more valuable, such as water sterilisers, vermin powders, throat sweets and ampoules. Other boxes I’ve seen contained quinine & phosphorous tablets, shaving sticks, oxo cubes and tea tablets. Viv.


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Vivienne14 said:
In the previous war a number of “Christmas Boxes” were organised by the Birmingham Gazette for our troops. Several schemes operated to provide serving men with these.

The contents of this example are interesting and, while certainly not what you’d expect in a Christmas Box, they were more valuable, such as water sterilisers, vermin powders, throat sweets and ampoules. Other boxes I’ve seen contained quinine & phosphorous tablets, shaving sticks, oxo cubes and tea tablets. Viv.


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Interesting contents, what was "Tinned heat" a soldiers cooker?
 
Tinned Heat - solidified methylated spirits "Tinned Heat' was a little round tin pocket stove, or 'Campaigner's Cooker'. Only 3½ inches in diameter and 1½ inches high, it contained solidified methylated spirits. It was deemed to be perfectly safe, quite practical and absolutely efficient; an ideal arrangement for a soldier's use in the trenches. If anything could be pronounced ideal in those circumstances. 'Tinned Heat' cost 10½d each."
 
Christmas was a busy time at my father's greengrocers shop on Slade Road in Erdington during the early 60s. We sold 450+ fresh turkeys each year and I well remember watching my dad plucking and dressing every one of the ones that had already been sold, on the last Sunday before Christmas every year, to have them oven ready for collection the following week (I had the job of clearing away everything but the giblets).

Buying that many turkeys was a big outlay and it was always a worry that turkeys would be left unsold and a lot of money would be lost as a result. I will never forget the look of worry on my mother's face, when my father came back from the market once on the afternoon prior to Christmas Eve with 100 extra birds that he had paid 10/- each for. He was convinced that we would sell them all within the 24 hour deadline we had at £1 (which we did) as it was a good price for a 15lb - 20+lb turkey and quite a few passers-by/customers bought a turkey or a second turkey, as it was cheaper than buying a joint of meat.

Apart from the usual fruit & veg, we also sold Christmas Trees (I was able to pick one for ourselves, from the trees that had not been sold a couple of days before the 25th), Holly wreaths/crosses (which we sold at cost price), dates, figs, nuts, Turkish delight and those lemon & orange candied slices. For a young lad, it great to be able to help my parents in the shop and even more so, at Christmas when they were so busy and had the Christmas songs playing on the radio at the back of the shop. Happy days (even more so, if it snowed)!
 
what a lovely nostalgic post john....it felt as though i was actually in your dads shop...i still buy the orange and lemon slices:):)

lyn
 
Never come across a Tommy’s cooker before. For the purposes of the trenches it must have been a sought after item, so including it in Christmas boxes to the troops must have been a very welcome thing to receive. I can image soldiers around it remembering Christmas time at home. Vi
 
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Just found out in 1915 Newburys, Bull Street were selling Tommy’s Cookers for people to buy to send to those serving in the trenches costing 1 shilling, a bit more expensive than Pete’s post #60.

“Soap the men like” well carbolic and sulphur they’re welcome to but coal tar I like. However, any form of soap would have proved essential in the trenches if you could get it. The stronger the antiseptic powers the better.

Viv.

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Tommy cookers​

our foes rode in tigers of steel,
And iron panthers that spit fire,
We received the humble Sherman,
And we named her the Tommy cooker,
Because she was not quite the best,
Armour as thin as toilet paper,
Her gun was at best a bee sting,
The Gerries hit us with sledgehammers,
And woe betide you get hit my son,
Those Shermans did a proper job,
Fuel and ammo went up at once,
Roast Tommy on the menu tonight?
Now don't get me wrong about her,
She was the best we bloody had,
And while I'll sing her faults,
She did us proud in the end,
Oh what a glorious sight she was,
Speeding across the battlefield,
We felt right grand to fight in her,
We did king and country proud,
Now when you remember us in prayer,
Give the Sherman a thought,
Without the humble Tommy cooker,
You'd be speaking German today in school.
 
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