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Growing Up In Brum - Roy Blakey Inspired.

Eddie, growing up in Aston or Brum was a god basis for us all to live by....the word was RESPECT,...even our parents respected our teachers,..as you say we were no angels but by to-days standards we were not far off .....what the teachers have to put up with now is another story, but the high percent of them are okay and where would our children be without our teachers good or not so good...Brenda
 
With regard to remedies, don't forget poultices and blackjack for boils! Also Indian Cerate and Zam-Buk were always on the shelf!
(Lots of these products are on an old thread about products which have faded away.)
rosie.
 
I lived in Witton Street, opposite Garrison Lane Park, until I was 16. I didn't appreciate how lucky we were to have that green space just over the road. From photos I see that the park is now a bit posher!

maria
 
I remember when about 7 years old, I had an boil on my neck, a big one , my mom was all for the doctors, dad said no need for that, he made a bread poultice, I have never known such pain before or since, excruciating, but sorted out the boil though.Paul
 
To put it politely, I couldn't sit down when I had mine! I had one under my arm too. I think the poultice had kaolin, it was hot!
rosie.
 
I use to get boils on my legs! What caused them anyone know? I havnt had one now for years. John Crump
 
Hi John,

Boils and carbuncles were caused by bacteria, which would be killed by antibiotics today, which weren't around in our childhood. Legs are just one of the many "normal" places for them to appear.

Maurice
 
l had boils on my knees infact i still have scares to prove it, l also had boils on the back of my knees which were very painful..along with all this l had some big sties on my eyes, but never once did we go the doctors, it was always the old remedies passed down through generations, l do remember once l had a huge sty on my eye that my eye was completely swollen..it just so happened l was spending a weekend at a farm and the farmers wife put a tea leaf poltice on my eye and guess what it was all gone in the morning...l know bacteria caused boils etc but also our diet in the war did'nt help to much starch...one rarely hears of boils or sties or pokes as we called them any more .....Brenda
 
Brenda,

I guess the massive use of antibiotics to kill other bacteria wiped them out at the same time. You're right though, poor diet accounted for a lot of the recurring problems. But something else always develops to take their place, like that dreaded itching, urticaria, which doctors don't really know the cause ofm nor do they seem to be able to cure it. I've found that another old remedy, calomine lotion, seems to work better than anything the doctors have prescribed!

Maurice
 
Dick Barton - Special Agent!

His name crops up in lots of threads on BHF and I did mention that I had somewhere the recordings of Episodes 1 & 2 (when I could find them). Well the first ten episodes have now been added here:- https://archive.org/details/otr_dickbartonspecialagent and you can download them in the usual mp3 format for free. BTW, the site has recently had a makeover, but this link works OK in the old or the new version.

Maurice
 
SWITCHING TRACKS.( Always good for a smile when I think back).
There appeared to be times when our parents used covvenient ' change of rules ' to cover some events.
We had stayed out in the rain to finish off one of our street games and gotten a bit wet. Returning home our parents would
probably express their annoyance with something like: " FOR HEAVENS SAKE, GET THOSE CLOTHES OFF NOW, YOULL CATCTH YOUR DEATH OF COLD "
Maybe some weeks later you would be out with Mom and Dad and you would all get caught out in the rain and gotten just as wet. Now the statement from the parents would probably go something like " DON'T PULL A FACE LIKE THAT,A BIT OF RAIN ISN'T GOING TO HURT YOU"
Another one I recall.
Always before we all sat down at the table to eat there would be the check on us kids as in " GO WASH YOUR HANDS, YOU
DON'T WANT TO BE EATING ANY GERMS ".
Now here we are at a family picnic. Having climbed a tree or two, picked and collected a few cones we have generally got our hands pretty filthy. Mom calls us all over to eat. We enquire about the state of our hands. We get told " DON'T WORRY,IT WILL BE ALRIGHT, IT'S ONLY CLEAN DIRT ".
Must be almost mandatory though because I found myself using similar convenience " change the rules " with our own children eventually.
 
eddie, whenever we went to visit relles , it was always mind your Ps and Qs and speak when your spoken etc, which was fine and l always abided by the rules, but when l came to Texas it did'nt go over to well, l am sure people thought l was a snob , but after awhile l soon learned its not the southern style...it one can'nt fight them join them...Brenda
 
One day at school, when I was around nine or ten, and on a cold day, we were all in the playground, and the teacher asked us all to jump up and down to keep warm, and it we tried hard enough, we may start an earthquake. All silly fun, of course.

However, my question is, would we have caused an earthquake if we had been naked?
 
As young girl we had to learn to knit and the knitting sets, apart from the knitting needles the wool was always rainbow coloured. You normally just started with very simple plain and purl and hopefully progressed to making your doll's cloths. As you got older you used to help mom wind the wool. It used to come in shanks of wool and you used to hold it between your thumb and first finger and the outside of your hand and would do like a swaying motion which helped your mom in actually winding the wool. It was a godsend when you could buy your wool already wound. You could also put a little counter at the end of the knitting pins so you could turn it round one by one as you finished your row and this would help in counting your rows.
 
I seem to recall having a freshly worn woolly sock around my neck at bedtime if i was suffering from a sore throat...
 
badpenny, that sock around ones throat with vicks was a common thing for a sore throat, we used it all the time and now my children and g/children use that old remedy....l call it brummie ingenuity, infact i have salvaged a piece of flannel just for that purpose and have used it for years.....Brenda
 
norfolk brummie said:
One day at school, when I was around nine or ten, and on a cold day, we were all in the playground, and the teacher asked us all to jump up and down to keep warm, and it we tried hard enough, we may start an earthquake. All silly fun, of course.

However, my question is, would we have caused an earthquake if we had been naked?
Click to expand...
I`ve seen a few old wrinklies naked & they would certainly have caused the gods to tremble. All that skin flapping about would probably cause a hurricane. Seriously though, when we go to other folks country we should show respect for their laws & customs. After all, that`s what we expect from visitors to our green & pleasant land.
 
" OVERTURES AND BEGINNERS PLEASE ".
What a treat to quietly watch your kids and their friends playing out their little ' Grown Up ' mimicking. Right across all districts and during all periods of history the kids have played their own ' interpretations ' of grown up behaviour in the form of their own bit of ' Theatre '.
Some of the most popular play / theatre games would appear to be: (1) Moms and Dads. (2) Playing Shop. (3) Playing
' House ' and (4) Playing Doctors and Nurses.
I guess the truth is that ' The skies the limit ' in terms of their imagination and many different types of theatre would and will be acted out in the back garden, the front living room and the school playgrounds.
I would recommend to anyone who gets the opportunity. Just watch and listen to their interpretations if you can.
You'll not find a better bit of entertainment for sure.
Sketch : Playing Moms and Dads.
image.jpg
 
Doctors & Nurses, as I recall, could be a bit 'dodgy'. A child's curiosity......It always ended up wanting to know more about the human body! As you say, Roy. The skies the limit.

Playing Shop, and playing House was much safer.

Eddie
 
KEEP YOU SHIRT ON.
( Period 1949 ish ).
A name some might recall.
CHARLES ATLAS. The story used to run about him that a bully kicked sand into his face at a beach. At this time in his life he was reportedly to be only 97 pounds in weight. Humiliated he began to do numerous exercise routines, becoming obsessed with strength. He went on to produce one of the first world wide mail order body building courses.He became known as the Worlds best built man. His advertisements and photos appearing in newspapers and magazines all around Brum as well.
WHY AM I WRITING THIS.
Truth was this guy gave us young men more bother than Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and David Niven put together.
Just imagine,at this time,how some of the local young ladies might have viewed us young blokes in comparison to this guy.
In the main, I guess we might have looked fit enough but what chance did we have as soon as we took our shirts off.
Not much of a contest. Rot his socks said we.
Photo : A 1949 " ATLAS " advertisement.image.jpg
 
They used me in the Charles Atlas adverts. I was the before photo & Charles was the after photo! Still, i could run faster than him, i could play cricket & footie better than him & the girls liked to run their fingers thru my curly hair, so being skinny wasn`t so bad!
 
Comparing the old Charles Atlas photos to todays pumped up flesh, makes him look very mediocre. But at the time, very red blooded males wanted to look like him, except me. My idea of 'pumped up' was a smoke filled jazz club.

At the time, the guy who was Mr Universe, Steve Reeves, had a much better physique, and a better following. I worked with a guy that took body building lessons at the local gym, somewhere in the city. He would go there most lunchtimes. He was always talking about Steve Reeves, who was his hero. I think that Reeves went on to make a few films.

I suppose Charles Atlas made a small fortune out of his body building course.

Eddie
 
A LITTLE LOOK ROUND THE FACTORY SCRAP HEAP.
Creating little things made up from factory scraps was an occasional lunch time activity for young workshop beginners and apprentices. Around the early Post War period I recall the factory youngsters got into making a variety of ' toys ' for their younger brothers and sisters from bits of waste factory scrap ( bought toys were a bit hard to come by at the time ).
Some of the most popular " Productions " I recall were :
The ' Phut Phut ' model working boat.
The ' Propellor Launcher '.
The metal handled ' Catapult '.
The miniature ' Kitchen Set ', pots and pans for the Dolls House or for the younger sisters to play kitchen games.
If Dad needed a tough and rough working knife, a bit of work on a piece of disposed machine hacksaw blade would provide him with this.
Moms would probably have been quite pleased with the little steel ' coat hanger brackets' that had been made for them.
The Factory may have lost a tiny bit of of scrap metal, a bit of Soldering Iron and Flux and a piece or two of scrap wire but their benefit would be very much in the gaining of the experience and skills being achieved by their young engineers as each ' foreigner ' was created.
A fair ' Win - Win ' all the way round I reckon.
Photo: A ' Phut Phut ' toy boat.image.jpg
 
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