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Things We Sent Off For

Like many of us on here, I collected the paper Gollies off Robertson’s Jams. I sent off and got the hockey enamel badge and the guitar player. Remember how excited you were when you got something back in the post !

And remember how you used to have to fill out a coupon in magazines and newspapers to get brochures e.g holiday brochures, home appliances, advice leaflets etc. Non of this Googling thingy me bob at the tip of your fingers ! Viv.
 
I remember writing off in my awful child's handwriting (still is awful) to various commonwealth embassies to get information about their countries for projects on the countries visited by Elizabeth on the Royal tour after the coronation. Found them in my loft recently while excavating it
 
Me and my brother wrote to Gene Autry for photographs, we both got them but my brother was quite peeved because I got a colour one and his was black and white.
 
I remember completing the forms to send off for things, but never actually sending off for them. Just used to like completing the forms (realised how sad that is !).

Do you also remember having to send a postcard off to receive things, usually brochures etc. ? Sometimes when sending off for stuff you’d be asked for a S.A.E. Now if you asked a youngster today what a SAE is, they’d have no idea. Viv.
 
Look forward to them mw0njm ! Actually thinking about it, did SAE stand for ‘self addressed envelope’ or ‘stamped addressed envelope’ ? I always thought it was ‘stamped’ but maybe not. Viv.
 
In my early teens, whilst still living in Warwickshire, I wrote to two bus companies. Ribble Motor Services was one, who sent me a colour photo of one of their Leyland PD2's. The other was BCT who granted me permission to visit Kyotts Lake Road to photograph CVP 216 which was the corporation 1951 Festival of Britain decorated bus. (details in Birmingham Buses thread - post # 1274)
 
Vivienne14 said:
Look forward to them mw0njm ! Actually thinking about it, did SAE stand for ‘self addressed envelope’ or ‘stamped addressed envelope’ ? I always thought it was ‘stamped’ but maybe not. Viv.
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Depends if you were sending it to someone else?
 
I always thought it was stamped addressed envelope. If it was addressed then that would be to yourself
 
mikejee said:
I always thought it was stamped addressed envelope. If it was addressed then that would be to yourself
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99.9% of the time I guess it was, Mike, but there is no specific reason, it could not be someone else's address. Although when SAE's were more frequently used by me I can't recall another addressee just myself.
 
Stephen0002002 said:
They're both (Shell + BP) in the top 10 world companies (just for info). Shell used to transport sea shells back from the middle east for shops to sell here and it was them that went on to supply their vehicles for the transport of oil (eventually) because they had a good transport system ~ simple as that ~ thats how the petrolem connection started and thats why they have shell signs outside the garages. Factoid of the day - my brains hurts now :)
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Remember " Keep going well, Keep going Shell, you can be sure of Shell" ?
I sang all the jingles as a child. Esso Golden, get a tiger in your tank, They asked me how I knew it was Esso Blue, I of course replies, lower grades one butys smoke gets in your eyes, sang in a Northern accent.
 
Nico said:
Remember " Keep going well, Keep going Shell, you can be sure of Shell" ?
I sang all the jingles as a child. Esso Golden, get a tiger in your tank, They asked me how I knew it was Esso Blue, I of course replies, lower grades one butys smoke gets in your eyes, sang in a Northern accent.
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I can remember Bing Crosby singing the the Shell song on the TV adverts. Must have cost them a fortune but with the profits they made they could afford it.
 
Vivienne14 said:
Like many of us on here, I collected the paper Gollies off Robertson’s Jams. I sent off and got the hockey enamel badge and the guitar player. Remember how excited you were when you got something back in the post !

And remember how you used to have to fill out a coupon in magazines and newspapers to get brochures e.g holiday brochures, home appliances, advice leaflets etc. Non of this Googling thingy me bob at the tip of your fingers ! Viv.
Click to expand...
I got a pottery drum golly and a football enamel golly. Dad saved Kraft coupons I foget what the food was but it was carboard, cut along the dotted line, excitment, and we got a 45 rmp Let's Go Fly A Kite from Mary Poppins except it wasn't the original. Plus the greens
shield stamps and cigarette coupons.
 
Now I’d definitely have filled this coupon in. ‘A Merry Tiller demonstration’ ? Expect the demonstrator was a salesman in disguise. An interesting Wolseley product with a lovely name all the same. Viv.
 

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I remember my Mum sending off for Reddicut rugs in the 60s. The order used to come in a large cardboard box complete with a back matting with holes with the coloured pattern marked on it. Wool tufts and a bobbin to tie each wool tuft into the appropriate hole. It was fairly easy to do and I often used to help my Mum. They were good rugs to as I still have one of my Mums masterpieces, even if it is on the garage floor.
 
These rugs were a version (which cost money of course) of the old style rag rugs. Scraps of material (from old cloths and similar) were used and sewn into a hessian backing. Hessian (or some other backing) could be bought but often scrounged which meant they cost nothing to make - other than time. I believe you can buy kits to make them but that defeats the frugal (cheapskate) idea. They were a good makeshift for many during WW2.
 
Radiorails said:
These rugs were a version (which cost money of course) of the old style rag rugs. Scraps of material (from old cloths and similar) were used and sewn into a hessian backing. Hessian (or some other backing) could be bought but often scrounged which meant they cost nothing to make - other than time. I believe you can buy kits to make them but that defeats the frugal (cheapskate) idea. They were a good makeshift for many during WW2.
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my dad made rugs out of the old flower sack from his work. bless him he would spend hours pulling bit of wool through it.
he was no cheapskate. i resent the saying that people who made them was cheapskates
 
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mw0njm. said:
my dad made rugs out of the old flower sack from his work. bless him he would spend hours pulling bit of wool through it.
he was no cheapskate. i resent the saying that people who made them was cheapskates
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Well I encountered folk, some while after WW2, that could afford factory made rugs, who were cheapskates who preferred to hang on to their money and search around for thrown away cloth to make these rugs. I used the word frugal and only put cheapskate, in brackets, as a secondary explanation.
 
Both my mother and grandmother made these rag rugs with a hessian backing, frequently from clothes the various members of the family had grown out of, and very good they were too. I think Dad's workplace was the source of hessian as many raw materials for pen & stationery manufacture came in such bags.

Maurice
 
Hessian was widely used for many reasons years ago. It is still available in different weights (based on weave).
I have seem is used in a lot of home furnishings.
'Many years ago, in the late 1960's there was a gentleman - of no fixed abode - who wandered around couple of south Devon seaside towns picking up rubbish. He was dressed in the fashion of a monk. However, his cowl (the complete outfit) was made from a good weight hessian. It was immaculately stitched and one could have assumed that it had been professionally made, but given his circumstances, I doubted it. I did speak with him a couple of times and intended to ask about his garment. I had the impression that sewing had been part of his life at some point.
I never did get to ask the question as the Police moved him on - or took him away somewhere.
 
I remember my mother making those rugs out of hessian sugar sacks and cut up clothes, she also had a home work job making shopping bags from the same sugar sacks (I've still got her Singer sewing machine)
The man who employed her for the shopping bag job was a Mr Shaughnessy, had a shop on Hawthorn Road Kingstanding, I'm told he committed suicide some time later.
 
So the idea of the Reddicut rugs of the 60s derived from the early idea. I dont think they were cheap but they were good.
Does anybody remember them though, nobody has said they do.
 
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