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Birmingham in 1950s

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paul stacey said:
I have to say as a child I do not remember ever having the flue or a cold, (may have done) but it would have been very rarely I don't remember any of the family either, now with double glazing, central heating, we have about three a year, sore throats etc. Yet in those far off days of coats on beds and frost inside only a fire in one room and a paraffin heater on the landing, nothing. Yhe winters were harder then too.
paul
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I remember having colds I was always chesty. With a runny nose in my balaclava.
I think houses were healthier especially countryside ones.
They mentioned it on Jeremy Vine, they said we don't open our windows enough. Well personally we do and still have some sash windows. They are draughty and rattle in high winds. Wherever I sit the draught gets me, only me, it must follow me around!
 
paul stacey said:
I have to say as a child I do not remember ever having the flue or a cold, (may have done) but it would have been very rarely I don't remember any of the family either, now with double glazing, central heating, we have about three a year, sore throats etc. Yet in those far off days of coats on beds and frost inside only a fire in one room and a paraffin heater on the landing, nothing. Yhe winters were harder then too.
paul
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I don't remember having flu though Paul not till I was older. Mum had this rhyme and I can only remember half of it but it went out flew ?????????? and in flew enza. No one went to the doctor with a cold either. It was glycerine honey and lemon, then later beechams powders, and lemsip. Ellerman's embrication. Bowls of steeming hot water and a towel. And Deep Heat.
 
Nico, post #469. The table cloth would most likely have been oil cloth. Similar to lino but much thinner. A fabric like canvas treated with something like linseed oil
 
Michael_Ingram said:
Nico, post #469. The table cloth would most likely have been oil cloth. Similar to lino but much thinner. A fabric like canvas treated with something like linseed oil
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hi mike i can still smell those oil cloth table clothes...came in all different colours and patterns...

lyn
 
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Astoness said:
hi mike i can still smell thos oil cloth table clothes...came in all different colours and patterns...

lyn
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Thanks all. I never realised at the time how poor gran was. She would give you her last h'apenny and never asked for anything. She also had a small bow fronted mirror that made you look like you were in the hall of mirrors. Why did people have mirrors over the fireplace as I was often scorched?
 
Nico said:
My ma in law in France has old fashioned radiators like we had at school that you can sit on. On each one there is a long deatchable ladle type container for putting water in. Nan used to have little water containers by her gas fires as did my parents. We have this thing that takes the water out of the air and its always full up but I get very dry and bad sinuses with central heating and the house is still draughty. It has high ceilings. And when I am hot everyone else is cold and vice versa.
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I remember the Germans used a variety of methods to put moisture into the air, in their workplace as well as the home, when I lived over there.
All this talk about how healthy we were in the 50s, I'm not so sure about that. I remember colds, flu, impetigo, chickenpox, two kinds of measles, tonsilitis, chilblains, neuralgia, chapped lips, whooping cough, not to mention hot aches !
 
As a boy Nico, I would help the Wacaden milkman on a Sat morning, collecting the money, thinking back most of the older folk mainly Ladies would come to the door with their purses, and I don't think there was any silver in them old brass coloured 3d pieces, and farthings, halfpennies, and pennies, perhaps the odd tanner. These lovely old folks are all dead and gone now but us left behind remember there generosity, and great humer, even though poor as they were.

paul
 
There was an Whooping cough epidemic in the winter of 1947, me and my sister both got it and I survived and she died, Elizabeth Jayne Stacey died 9 mth's old at the, Birmingham Childrens Hospital. We lived in Vicarage Road, Handsworth then Jayell, 15yrs later the army doctor told me my lungs were still scared from the effects of the disease.
paul
 
Paul - do you remember I lived in Soho Avenue, just round the corner from your Nan. It was about 1947 when I got whooping cough too! Must have both had it the same year. I was quite poorly with it and I think it took about 8 weeks to get over it. I'm so sorry to hear about your sister. I went to a dancing school on Soho Road and was learning ballet, tap and acrobatics. I remember my red tap shoes with big bows on arriving while I was still in bed with it.

Judy
 
I think the illness that floored me was tonsilitis. I was in bed for God knows how long but all I could take in was Robinson's Barley Water, I was so sick of the stuff that I haven't been able to touch it since.
It seemed to have been fashionable in the 40s to "have your tonsils out", I remember being told I would have to have mine out when I was nine and thinking that was ages away.
I never did have them out.
 
That's very very sad. My mate lost his who would have been his auntie aged 7 I think to TB. We had a scare in the Juniors and we all had a jab Probably around 1963. And then another one later on.
There were many infant mortalities too.
And they used to whip out all your teeth for the sake of it. My dad and my mates mum ended up at the hospital because of the 'butchers' here.Different ones. And to the other point you could but a lot for a thruppeny bit or a tanner. I remember fresh peas being 6d a lb. If Nan thought somthing was cheap looking she called it a tupenny apenny so and so.
 
Good point, Paul Stacey, the winters WERE harsher, (why?). My 18 year old son had not seen really heavy snow until he was 16. The last fall, enough to cause REAL problems in the Midlands was 1991. Maybe the commuting patterns were different in the 50's. More buses, more people working/shopping/at schools closer to home? I'd forgotten chilblains...... not a pleasant memory. Oilcloth - Mom bought it from 'The Beehive'. There used to be a piece on every shelf at one time!
 
Pete R said:
Good point, Paul Stacey, the winters WERE harsher, (why?). My 18 year old son had not seen really heavy snow until he was 16. The last fall, enough to cause REAL problems in the Midlands was 1991. Maybe the commuting patterns were different in the 50's. More buses, more people working/shopping/at schools closer to home? I'd forgotten chilblains...... not a pleasant memory. Oilcloth - Mom bought it from 'The Beehive'. There used to be a piece on every shelf at one time!
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Mum used to stick her foot in the po a cure for chilblains. Lots of kids had verucas whitloes and stys. I was lucky as I didn't. I did get a sceptic toe and fingerd from biting them. I thought it was called sceptic. Not many kids had glasses then. Hardly any at all. Now they can't go to school without make up hair straighteners and expensive haircuts. Somebody was off school with the purples. Does anyone know what that was please?
 
paul stacey said:
As a boy Nico, I would help the Wacaden milkman on a Sat morning, collecting the money, thinking back most of the older folk mainly Ladies would come to the door with their purses, and I don't think there was any silver in them old brass coloured 3d pieces, and farthings, halfpennies, and pennies, perhaps the odd tanner. These lovely old folks are all dead and gone now but us left behind remember there generosity, and great humer, even though poor as they were.

paul
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Gran lived by Highfield Rd football ground. She put her 2 dining chairs out so we could park. There was a taxi firm and they parked up the street, she used to threaten him with one of her 2 walking sticks if he moved them.
 
Nico, l do believe the purples was impertigo....l had it all over my face when l was about 12yrs old....could'nt go to school and had to go to the clinic every other day to have the scabs soaked and peeled off then l was painted with that purple stuff....these days its treated with medication taken by mouth and after a couple of days it cleared up and still have to go to school.....Brenda
 
The only children with glasses when I was very small had NHS ones. And we called the NHS the National Health. I have heard it called 'on the Nashie' by a Northerner. Nothing much was abbreviated was it? Not like now. Apart from the Co Op and Woolies. The Cwop. Oh and pram of course. Gt Gran always said brasier, she meant brazzier. I detest the Americanisms coming in more and more. And words like genre.I feel like throwing a dictionary at them. I read Nan's Blackie's English Dictionary sometimes, forgotten words and phrases. I wonder how the word top came about for ladies' clothes. And you read or hear a male or a female on the news instead of a man or a woman. What happened to lady and gentleman?
 
What happened to "Lady" and "Gentleman" Nico ? They became GUYS ! Aaaaaaaagh !
Another stupid Americanism that's crept in, "Train Station". Even the Beeb are using that one.
How about "A ball park figure" ?
There are many more, (I despair !).
 
maypolebaz said:
What happened to "Lady" and "Gentleman" Nico ? They became GUYS ! Aaaaaaaagh !
Another stupid Americanism that's crept in, "Train Station". Even the Beeb are using that one.
How about "A ball park figure" ?
There are many more, (I despair !).
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Don't forget to wiggle your 2 index fingers when you say that Baz or make the shaoe of your hand holding a mobile phone. When I do speak on mine I don't hold it like that with my pinkie and thumb sticking out. Hiss mo cowtya mayte innit! You hiss buryin me. I remember an old folk song, come lassies and lads. Mind you they have ladettes now.
 
When I was a young oaf, in the late 50s, I would sit with my oafish mates in the Maypole cinema, being generally rebellious, noisy and training to be a lout.
When the film ended we would join in a general stampede for the exit, before the National Anthem came on. As soon as that drum roll started we couldn't help skidding to a halt and facing the screen, that's how we were bought up.
I bet they daren't even play the National Anthem any more.
 
Hi all,talking about illnesses in the 50s, i caught glandular fever in 1953 when i was eight. The doctor called an ambulance and i was rushed off to hospital (little bromwich as it was called then) with the bell ringing i was scared to death i thought i was going to die. I was kept in an isolation ward for two weeks without visitors. Now if you get it, it's no more seriouse than catching a cold.
 
hi sylv;
was nt that the year women got liberated and burnt thre bra,s and became the moderen woman; and said to hell with the cleaing and scrubbing
and decided to go out and earn and have fun ; they was the new age woman of the globe and i think the woman today are leaving the men behind in every hink of todays society ; alan ; astonian;
 
maypolebaz said:
When I was a young oaf, in the late 50s, I would sit with my oafish mates in the Maypole cinema, being generally rebellious, noisy and training to be a lout.
When the film ended we would join in a general stampede for the exit, before the National Anthem came on. As soon as that drum roll started we couldn't help skidding to a halt and facing the screen, that's how we were bought up.
I bet they daren't even play the National Anthem any more.
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You just reminded me of the egg advert, I'm hungry aunt Ett? remember that plugging eggs? Then she said" 2 big eggs for 1 little oaf" We have an anglo French a joke in our ouse now, "do you want 2 eggs/", "no thanks one egg is un oeuf, (enough)"
Also Baz when is the last time you saw a Maypole? There is one in Bidford or Welford on Avon. I never danced round one, I wanted to. We had a aupermarket in Cov called Maypole.
 
Nico,
I love "one egg is un oeuf". Have never done that one before, will try it out here!
My daughter was on holiday up north and asked " où est-elle la plage? It came out as "where is she the bitch (beach)?"
 
Glennys Jean said:
Nico,
I love "one egg is un oeuf". Have never done that one before, will try it out here!
My daughter was on holiday up north and asked " où est-elle la plage? It came out as "where is she the bitch (beach)?"
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Well you can also try Adam Ant (a demain) see you tomorrow or apple tart (a plus tard) see you later. I can't tell you on here what I have said inadvertantly over the years but like that old TV add'' ow dya want yer eggs, fried or boiled?'' but in French, so I answered fried eggs - in the nude!. I said oeufs a poil (nude) instead of au pöele in the pan, which they call oeufs au plâte anyway, eggs on a plate.
 
Thanks. I also like watching Morris Dancing but I want to burst out laughing and leap around with them. I think I harken back to Frankie Howard doing it in the Great St Trinians Train Robbery or Terry 'Tight Lines' Thomas dancing on TV.
 
Do they still have chair a plane merry go rounds? (I sound old saying that) like in old steam rallies or old fairs like the one in Stourport. I remember toy monkeys on elastic at the same fairs and black baloons with moustaches and hats on them.
 
A couple of my ex ambulance colleagues are now involved in morris dancing,I once saw them dancing in the centre of Brum,I did admire their courage and energy although I had to reassure them that I had not been spectating
 
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