Old Age

[jennyann]

This is a great thread and recall of memory when you are older is the key to so much of it. I certainly remember the plate cameras.My friend and I used to watch the photographers at Erdington Parish on Saturday afternoons photographing weddings. The cameras had wooden tripods and brass fittings. There was always a curtain for the photographer to disappear under and each photographer had a small case which held the glass plates. Quite a long process for the wedding parties but I think the quality of the black and white photographs was very good.
My brother and I still own our family home in Erdington, built on a plot bought by my parents in 1935. The phone number is still the same as it was in the early 1950's when we had a phone installed for my Father's job. We haven't changed the listing in the
phone book and it is still under my father's name.
There weren't many cars in our area after WW2. There was a chap with a 1929 car down the road and a couple of cars belonging to people with businesses. My father had a company van for the MEB where he worked complete with radio communication.This would be in the early 1950's. Our first family car, an Austin Somerset A40 was bought in 1957. All the houses in our street had garages built on but no cars for many of them for several years. Some people did own motorcycles with sidecars though.

We had a New World Gas cooker. Mom bought a kitchen cabinet when they came out in the l950's. One of those with glass fronted cupboards for china and a fold down front pllus cutlery drawers and two cupboards underneath. We had a stone sink which was originaland eventually the sink unit arrived to replace it. The kitchen cabinet eventually went in the early 1960's and was cut down for a small aviary. Dad being in the electricity business bought a good radio before the war. Family washing was done with an outside boiler, tub with dolly and a portable wringer with the dreaded rubber rollers. This was eventually replaced by an electric Hotpoint Washing Machine in the late 1950's with automatic wringer rollers. along with the spin dryer, which my brother tells me is still working after he "reconditioned" it. Eventually the New World stove went when the appliances in the house all became electric.

 

[David Weaver]

Great stuff Wendy, does anyone remember the water battery in 'Wirless Sets'? My granny said she got better BBC news off hers because all we had was a new fangled 'lectricality one

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This was sent to me the other day I thought I would share it here........it does make you think!!



Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favourite 'fast food' when you were growing up?'


'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him. All the food was slow.'

'C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?'

'It was a place called 'home,'' I explained, Mum cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.

But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I'd figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis , set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.

My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 10. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 10 PM, after playing the natio nal anthem and epilogue; it came back on the air at about 6 p.m. And there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people...

I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home... But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers. My brother delivered a newspaper, seven days a week. He had to get up at 6AM every morning.

Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.


Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

 

[JohnO]

Re' 'plate cameras' - back in the 'Dark Ages' when I was at a college of photography, we trained on 'Gandolphi' large format cameras: quarter, half and full-plates. They were beautifully made in wood and brass and were indeed beautiful pieces of 'furniture' in their own right. We not only had to learn 'photography' but 'how' to clean the cameras with metal-polish and wood-oils! Any scratches and 'dints' had to be carefully polished-out and woe betide anyone who left a noticeable mark!

I was also taught that I must never employ a plural to the word 'lens' .....there were no such things as 'lenses' - only 'lens'......and to this day I still find my self becoming annoyed by adverts like 'spec-savers' when they insist on saying 'lenses'. I wonder what the kids of to day will employ in place of 'pedantry' when they are similarly ancient ?