• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Items that have faded away

Status
Not open for further replies.
I had a bouclé jacket I got from a German import shop for about £3.50 and a pale 'flashing' mac for 50p. They sold them by the weight. All the posers in my office asked me where I got my mac from and I said oh some shop in Cheylesmore (that's posh or was then) and they said Oh you mean Roy Palin, I lied a yes. Pathetic!
I had another coat sort of woolish bobbly bitty, black with green underneath. It was warm but my partner hated it, she says I looked like Brian in New Tricks. She also says I am like him.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
My mother had an astrakhan coat, it was black and l know she felt real posh in it....when l came home for my fathers funeral Jan 1981 coming from a very different climate l did.nt have any warm coats only a red raincoat...well, on the day of the funeral mom suggested l wear her astrakhan coat, she was mortified l would wear red on such an occasion,l tried the coat on and nearly collapsed with the weight of it, so l wore my red coat and l,m sure some people are still tutting about it....Brenda
 
In 1965 I bought a dark brown astrakhan 3/4 length coat, with a shawl collar, it was about £30 roughly two weeks wages at the time, I absolutely loved it and felt a million dollars wearing it. I had it for ages and when it started to show signs of wear, the curly bits coming loose, I stuck them down with super glue!!
 
The last time I recall mum wearing the astrakhan was for a funeral. A friend of ours who was on the way to a wedding wore a red dress and a cream coat and she was tut tutted at too. At my families funerals I told folk to wear what ever they liked, a lot had summer clothes which cheered everybody up.
 
dontheturner said:
Yes, Tough stuff, and looked good too. Mother had a dining table cover, in fawn, and I recall it, with fondness.
Click to expand...
I wore mum's green sort of velvety tablecloth to play the Ghost of Christmas Past, with a plastic door holly wreath on my head with a torch stuck in it, in A Christmas Carol, my mate, the one who fell in the mud, Carolina, played the Portly Gentleman. "The insect on the leaf.... summat summat and his hungry summat brothers in the dust!" I wore her antimacasar for a fancy dress as an Irish washerwoman, why Irish? It was in an irish pub, and mum's frilly showercap. Great fun in the car at traffic lights.
 
And chokers? Bondage belts? Shoulders pads? Mum used her for pan grabbers. I put one of her falsies (not that she needed any) on the dog's head like a chinese hat. Dish mops? Hard rubber round things with a cross cut in them you shove your tea towel in, stuck on the kitchen door, and it traps your fingers and the towel falls on the floor? Saucer things for castors? Ash trays on a long stick I used to knock over. Plastic elasticated bags round the bottom of a bird cage like a giant flowery nappy - for budgies?
 
Gonks! How weird were they? Viv.

gy2ameta.jpg
 
Think they were before Cabbage Patch Bernie. Gonks would, I think, have been around the same time as Trolls and Dougall from the Magic Roundabout. I made both Gonks and Dougall (sewing skills certainly came into their own then. These things were so easy to make as we learnt the basic skills at school of making a pattern, cutting out, stitching together and filling using anything from old tights, to socks, old material, feathers - you name it). A great sense of achievement when you made something out of relatively little. And something that can still be achieved today with a bit of imagination. Although it does beg the question WHAT do you do with a Gonk? Viv.
 
brumgum said:
anyone remember Airfix Betta Bilda, made so much more realistic buildings than leggo. i used to play hours with them:excitement:..
https://www.legos.tabacaria.com.pt/clones/texts/bettabilda.htm
Click to expand...

Yea i had a set in early 60s you started by placing steel rods into holes on the base that was your framework you had to work it out i helped a friend do a house clearance 2 years back and i found a set ihad a go it all came back i took it to work at end of night when i buy all my staff a drink from my bar 9 of them were scatching there heads all in there 20s i let it go on Ebay in end
 
Donbogen said:
Yea i had a set in early 60s you started by placing steel rods into holes on the base that was your framework you had to work it out i helped a friend do a house clearance 2 years back and i found a set ihad a go it all came back i took it to work at end of night when i buy all my staff a drink from my bar 9 of them were scatching there heads all in there 20s i let it go on Ebay in end
Click to expand...
That sounds more like the Chad Valley Girder and Panel Set, i had one of those as well and bought one on e-bay about a year ago for £27 for nostalgic reasons:emmersed:, i must have been mad:redface:...
https://girderandpanel.mygamesonline.org/kenner/CV01.html
 
brumgum said:
That sounds more like the Chad Valley Girder and Panel Set, i had one of those as well and bought one on e-bay about a year ago for £27 for nostalgic reasons:emmersed:, i must have been mad:redface:...
https://girderandpanel.mygamesonline.org/kenner/CV01.html
Click to expand...
No the one i had was a airfix house buildinG set. YES i had the chadvalley girder set as well i still have some toys from the past mostly trains must get them out one xmas
 
I love dolls and my husband bought me a cabbage patch doll a little over 40 years ago.
Norris Ballard, it was his name I loved,I have his adoption certificate and his first birthdfay card sent by the makers.
My grandaughter Daisy plays with him when she comes to stay.
 
I remember Lewis toy floor had a huge display, every one has a unique name and they became quite collectable,.

Later they brought out cabbage patch babies ,much smaller dolls without the names.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I knitted my Gonk! Not very well though, I couldn't afford the right wool with my pocket money, it was too fine for the needles and he was very floppy....not enough old stockings to fill him with! He was a good cushion. In later years my dog tore him to bits.
rosie.
 
l remember when Ron and l got married in 1956, the marriage license was the same price as a dog license,and l had to borrow the 7/6 from my dad.....Brenda
 
Glass cobbles to light up the underground Gentlemens' conveniences. And addressing a man as a Gentleman, i.e. the gentleman at the till.Metal downspouts and guttering. Drains with an arc over to prevent leaves and rubbish.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The glass cobbles mentioned are still used: my church has some over a small chapel. With regard to dog licences, I am sure we staill have one or two somewhere but, I hasten to add, not with our marriage certificate. :friendly_wink:

Many years ago, in the less touristic part of Torquay, there was a model shop. His very long counter was supported by empty wooden lemonade crates. I never found out what happened to them; bonfire night perhaps. The new owner modernized the place.
 
Radiorails said:
The glass cobbles mentioned are still used: my church has some over a small chapel. With regard to dog licences, I am sure we staill have one or two somewhere but, I hasten to add, not with our marriage certificate. :friendly_wink:

Many years ago, in the less touristic part of Torquay, there was a model shop. His very long counter was supported by empty wooden lemonade crates. I never found out what happened to them; bonfire night perhaps. The new owner modernized the place.
Click to expand...
On my grandparents wedding night they had to construct their bed, it comprised a frame, 2 legs, some bricks and a beercrate substituted for the missing legs, leather laths which they had to string across and a straw mattress, Nan said she was done in. Grandad was given an hour off to get married he couldn't go to his own wedding reception.
 
As a matter of interest when did they abolish dog licences? We still have them in Ireland, yet another way they rip us off.... I last had one 14 years ago even though I have had a dog all of that time, if the money went for animal welfare I would buy it but as it goes into government coffers I will not unless i'm forced to!!

Simon
 
6918 said:
As a matter of interest when did they abolish dog licences? We still have them in Ireland, yet another way they rip us off.... I last had one 14 years ago even though I have had a dog all of that time, if the money went for animal welfare I would buy it but as it goes into government coffers I will not unless i'm forced to!!

Simon
Click to expand...
Haha!... It's to payback the billions borrowed from the UK for the bail-out and Enda Kelly's new suit. :crushed:

Anyway, the British Dog Licence was abolished in 1987.
 
There has been talk of bringing them back as a curb on dangerous dogs - but marriage licences do not seem to have helped with dangerous wives, so nothing further came of it
 
Smethwick Striver said:
My mom used to do the washing in a galvanised tub with a gas ring underneath. In the winter, she used to put it in the back yard, with the gas pipe through the kitchen window. She didn't want the house steamed up, I suppose.

Another galvanised tub - the bosh I think my mom called it - was used with a dolly to work the washing. The dolly looked like a 3 legged stool, with a handle.
Click to expand...

My Mum called the "dolly" a "posser" - I recently visited the Black Country Museum and the chap in the hardware shop told me that a "posser" (like an upturned colander on a stick - like Mum's) was for washing delicate items, whilst the dolly was for the heavyweight things.

On the subject of washing, can you still get "Tide" washing powder? In the 1950s, growing up in Brum, with a Brummy mother, but Welsh father, I was constantly tormented by my peers for calling my Welsh grandfather the same name as the washing powder -you see, in Welsh, "Grandfather" is "Taid" (pronounced "Tide")!!

And on the subject of Welsh grand-parents, my "Nain" (pronounced "nine", and Welsh for "Grandma" - more ribbing from my peers!) was strictly teetotal (great Chapel goer, taken the pledge, etc.) was prescribed "Sanatogen" by her doctor, as a tonic, and drank bottles of the stuff!! It is still available, or was, a couple of years ago, in the little Spar shop in Dolwyddelan (Conwy Valley, North Wales).
 
Bendy foam rubber toys were popular when my son was a baby. He had a "Rupert Bear" but it perished very quickly and bits came off exposing the wire! He had a stretchy toy of that man who turned green, (can't remember the name of the programme) it had strange liquid inside. I'm glad toys are safer now!
rosie.
 
Rosie, I also remember these toys. My daughter had Pluto and Disney Dog, and she loved it, always putting it into the bath with her. Like your Rupert Bear though, he did perish leaving the wire exposed.
 
There was a Topo Gigio bendy toy too. The foam/rubber had a lovely sweet smell to it. (There's another name lost in the past; Topo Gigio). He had a really cute voice and was on a programme but can't remember the name of it. Think he was very shy too. Viv.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top