50s/60s Britain and Now

[swampy]

4 hours ago, Chris M said:

And the competition to see who could pee furthest up the wall in these outside toilets. I never won

[Legend]

TV Rental shops . Used to be all over the high street  DER , Radio Rentals , Granada   . Now all we have is charity shops!

 

Toy shops everywhere or at least shops selling toys amongst other goods . I had at least 5 places to hunt for Airfix kits in Paisley, cant think of one now

 

Woolworths!

 

Kids walking to school . Now they all seem to need to be driven there

 

Don't miss some of the evil masters at school . You know the ones with the black gowns and hats  , Up in Scotland we had the tawse or "belt"

 

Snow and thick fog . Don't seem to get much of either now.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Legend

[Ohmisterporter]

Born in 1946 and one of the "baby boomers" I remember my first primary school class of 50 pupils. More teachers arrived and we dropped down to 42 for the rest of my time there. 

A galvanised steel bath that hung on a nail in the back yard until it was dragged into the kitchen every Friday evening and we took turns having a bath whether we needed one or not!

Outside toilet in the back yard cold even in summer. Dad painted the walls with green distemper and my older brother kept a grass snake in a fish tank on the windowsill.

The kitchen was typical of the time, sink, gas stove, water heater boiler on the wall and a kitchenette for storage. Also a cupboard with a fine mesh front for meat storage.  Only after we had moved to a bigger house did a refrigerator arrive. I remember opening the door and a light came on! Inside there was a bottle of milk and a pound of butter. It took a while before other items began to appear to fill the space.

Our new house had an internal bathroom and toilet. Wow, what will they think of next?

Hot water came from a back boiler in the fireplace. Great in winter but the fire had to be kept going even in summer. One day the council workmen came around the estate and started installing water tanks with immersion heaters. 

The only room with heat was the living room which had a fire. There were fireplaces in the bedrooms but I never saw one lit, probably because my parents couldn't keep an eye on them all.

Electric plugs and sockets had a large round earth pin in the centre with smaller rectangular pins either side. When the change came to the type of plugs we use now, all the sockets were changed by the council but tenants had to change the plugs on appliances themselves. Fire engines had bells ringing, there were no sirens for several years.

It snowed a lot more in the fifties and sixties.

 

 

[tomparryharry]

1 hour ago, Legend said:

TV Rental shops . Used to be all over the high street  DER , Radio Rentals , Granada   . Now all we have is charity shops!

 

Toy shops everywhere or at least shops selling toys amongst other goods . I had at least 5 places to hunt for Airfix kits in Paisley, cant think of one now

 

Woolworths!

 

Kids walking to school . Now they all seem to need to be driven there

 

Don't miss some of the evil masters at school . You know the ones with the black gowns and hats  , Up in Scotland we had the tawse or "belt"

 

Snow and thick fog . Don't seem to get much of either now.

 

Redifusion. Saw that a lot in south Wales.

[TheQ]

4 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Radio 2 Longwave was on 1500 metres.  247 metres was Radio 1

 

My own particular memory, icicles hanging off the eaves of the school toilet block and going to school with deep snow up to the top of our wellies. 

You're right it was 1500 metres 247 metres radio 1 was when I ventured to school in the big metropolis of Inverness. 

Edited April 6, 2020 by TheQ

[TheQ]

The only teacher I remember in a black gown,  was happy Harry he was one of the better teachers .

It was him who married one of his ex pupils shortly after she left school.  I suspect he would be arrested today...  Yes and I remember the tawse

 

I also remember the smell of the brickworks at Marston Moretaine, when I lived in Bletchley Park. 

 

Black board dusters wooden ones being thrown at pupils by the teachers.. 

 

 

[Reorte]

8 minutes ago, TheQ said:

I also remember the smell of the brickworks at Marston Moretaine, when I lived in Bletchley Park.

 

Was it worse than the smell from the landfill sites around there that drifted over sometimes when I was at Cranfield in the late 90s? (I always assumed it was the landfills, but the brickworks were still there)

[Hroth]

9 minutes ago, TheQ said:

Black board dusters wooden ones being thrown at pupils by the teachers.. 

 

A stop was put to that at our school when one bounced off a desk and shot through a window, narrowly missing the Head.  It was ok to hurl blocks of wood at the pupils, but not at the staff!  Afterwards the teachers perfected the art of propelling stumps of chalk at inattentive children...

 

11 minutes ago, TheQ said:

The only teacher I remember in a black gown,  was happy Harry he was one of the better teachers .

 

There were several teachers who wore black gowns, the best was "Jack the Rat" who taught Engineering and Geometrical Drawing, he ran a happy classroom and allowed the pupils the opportunity to grade their own work!

 

 

[auldreekie]

Chilblains.

 

auldreekie

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

5 hours ago, Chris M said:

And the competition to see who could pee furthest up the wall in these outside toilets. I never won

Did you but know it any of the girls could have beaten you. A late colleague had the photograph to prove it, a young woman with a couple of grifters who made their living by betting on who could get highest up the wall. (Clue. You don't have to stand on your feet, and if you don't mind a golden shower...)

[Kylestrome]

3 hours ago, russ p said:

Not being quite that old was born in 66, was the threat of instant vaporisation or a lingering death from a nuclear attack a very prevalent thought at the time obviously it must have been in the Cuban missile crisis 

 

As kid in the 50s & early 60s, this was not something I was really aware of so it wasn't a worry. It's much more worrying now to know how close we came to a nuclear attack in 1983*!

 

David

 

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov

[tigerburnie]

Some great memories I remember

farthing chews

flying saucers and sherbet dabs

wagon wheels that were massive

jubblies(frozen was de-riguer for train spotters)

barley twist.(you can see why my teeth are in a poor state now lol)

playing conkers and climbing trees

making catapults

being out all day in the summer and parents hadn't a clue where we were, because it was safe to do so back then

putting pennies on the line and steam engines running over them and making them huge

british motor bikes that all had different exhaust notes.

[Ohmisterporter]

6 minutes ago, auldreekie said:

Chilblains.

 

auldreekie

 

And the "cure" for them.

['CHARD]

5 minutes ago, Ohmisterporter said:

 

And the "cure" for them.

 

12 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

(Clue. You don't have to stand on your feet, and if you don't mind a golden shower...)

 

[iL Dottore]

Perhaps I was lucky, the masters at my prep school weren’t that bad. One, who really commanded respect - Mr Smithson - I reckon was ex Military or ex-“Job” (aka The Police). He was quietly spoken but had the attention of the entire class without trying. I recall, once, I was being particularly stroppy in class (as one does, as one does). He stopped the class, quietly told me to go sit at the back and prohibited me from participating in the lesson - which was, as always, fascinating with all the boys contributing (except me, chiz). Needless to say I was always well behaved in his class from there on.

I certainly remember the lack of heating in the houses of those days. Even my Great Aunt (from the more affluent side of the family) didn’t have central heating - even though she was the first in my immediate family to have a phone installed and to get a colour television. Her kitchen was always warm (a 4 ring gas hob at full blast made short work of warming up a relatively small space), but only freestanding electric heaters were used in the “front room” unless there was an extended gathering (or on Sundays) - when my Uncle would lay a coal fire. The WC was not heated, but the separate bathroom had two infrared lamps mounted on the (high) ceiling. Bedrooms had a one or two bar electric heater for when it was really cold (cue extending a trembling, freezing arm out from under the warm blankets [never duvets] fumbling to turn the electric fire on before getting out of bed). Entrance hall and corridor (it was a Bungalow) were unheated (as a side note, it’s a pity that the Bungalow went out of the family after my Great Aunt died, what I could have done with that property...)

When the family moved to Italy in 1969, we were all astounded to find that our 10 year old flat had radiators in every room - including kitchen and bathroom. It felt quite decadent!

iD

[Joseph_Pestell]

40 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

A stop was put to that at our school when one bounced off a desk and shot through a window, narrowly missing the Head.  It was ok to hurl blocks of wood at the pupils, but not at the staff!  Afterwards the teachers perfected the art of propelling stumps of chalk at inattentive children...

 

We had a chalk thrower, Mr Bennett, the science master. He was very accurate but on one occasion the target ducked out of the way and the chalk went straight down the throat of the boy sat behind.

[TheQ]

33 minutes ago, tigerburnie said:

 

being out all day in the summer and parents hadn't a clue where we were, because it was safe to do so back then

Actually it's safer now,  the unlawful death rate of children is much lower now. Traffic may be worse.. 

It's just people make more fuss now.. 

 

[Mark Saunders]

12 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

 

I certainly remember the lack of heating in the houses of those days. Even my Great Aunt (from the more affluent side of the family) didn’t have central heating.

 

My parents bought their house new in 1956 and it was a three bedroom semi and that only had two radiators and a heated towel rail; with an open fire in the front room!

[Bulleidboy100]

Living in a 2-bedroomed flat in Muswell Hill, London – bunk beds

Communal gardens and climbing trees

Attending St James’s Primary School – outside toilets – frozen solid in winter

School milk – uuuuugh!

Bill and Ben – TV News readers dressed in “Black Tie” – the Interlude – we should still have it!!

Being in the same class for six years with Dave Davies - future member of the Kinks pop group

Steam trains trips from Cranley Gardens to Alexandra Palace (not the one on the main line)

Saturday morning pictures – shops closing on Wednesday afternoons - Jubblies

Moving from the flat to a 3-bedroomed semi in Friern Barnet

Getting a paper round – 12/6d a week. Saving 10/- of that to buy a new bicycle – Dad said you save half – I’ll pay the other half.

Standing on the crossbar of my “new” bike at New Southgate station collecting numbers and seeing Mallard, Flying Scotsman, Blue Deltic and others.

Paying the 1.5d bus fare to get to and from school. Having to walk when there was thick fog.

Going with dad to take our trunk of clothes to Waterloo for advanced delivery to Swanage for our summer holidays.

Failing my 11+ and attending William Grimshaw Sec.Mod – still in the same class with Dave Davies!

School dinners – mash potato from an ice cream scoop and runny mince followed by pink semolina.

Ray Davis – Dave’s brother at the same school – Rod Stewart (The Rod Stewart) forever standing outside the Headmasters Room!

A school trip to Interlaken, Switzerland – two weeks cost my parents £30.00

Trips with mates to London Airport with a London Transport Red Rover – planes with propellers – Britannia's, Super Constellations, Avro Yorks, Viscounts and Vanguards - still have my Ian Allan Aircraft Registrations book – cost 2/6d.

Leaving school in July 1962 and starting  work as a clerk (runner) in a Barristers Chambers in Lincoln’s Inn - £5 per week.

Retiring from said job in March 2009 – after only three different employers – all within fifty yards of one another, over a forty-seven-year period– those were the days.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Bulleidboy100

[hmrspaul]

Some wonderful memories.

We moved from living with my grandparents in Alperton (near Wembley) to the countryside - well the outskirts of Staines. What a change, the garden backed onto fields and there were hundreds of gulls following the  plough. Indeed the morning and evening sky was filled with tens of thousands of gulls (no exaggeration!) going to and from the several reservoirs which surround Staines (on Thames!).

Both bread and milk were delivered by horse drawn vans - this is 1954! And the refuse lorry had a lovely "red indian" native American as the cap for the radiator filler. Despite being brand new the house (which cost £2000 with extra for the metal bin) had only a couple of radiators in the bedrooms and fires in the front and back room - the back room having a back boiler to heat the water although it did have immersion. Ice on the inside of the windows was usual in winter. And the front room was barely every used except at Xmas.

 

Incredibly I used to go, on my own, to London - Euston, and Kings X specially, train spotting whilst I was still at primary school - and I was the youngest in our class, I was still just 10 when I left that school. I did have  very cheap travel with Priv tickets - 1/4 of a childs ticket, but the journey was to change at Richmond and Willesden - not straight forward.

 

My secondary school - a grammar - was right under one of the Heathrow flight paths - I still remember the first Trident that buzzed us - I believe they had to alter the way these were flown as they were incredibly noisy. As were the VC10s but they went up like rockets - none of that lumbering into the air that we are familiar with now. But we still had to stop lessons when some aircraft went over - I had school friends whom laid in their beds taking the airplane numbers. Where I lived was too far away but the aircraft still woke me up at night. School was fine, we behaved well - I think being co-ed helped but the caps were a downer. Interesting to learn of someone else with a purple cap. That was our school colour and I still love it! I remember being very proud of my uniform - my parents borrowed my savings to pay for it, railway clerks were not well paid. Because we had a large choice of secondary schools my uniform wasn't so commonly seen in our local shop - and the first day I went the lady serving me - probably with a Jubliee - mentioned how awful the colour of the uniform was. Grey days, grey minds! No wonder we broke out in the 'summer of love'- some early casual clothes I wore had a purple shirt, orange trousers and a psychedelic tie! Good grief. And I was never allowed winkle picker shoes which were all the rage in about 1961.

 

Cycling long distances without anyone bothering about our safety - to Esher for train spotting - to the outskirts of Heathrow, mainly to go ten pin bowling. It was so cheap we could afford to spend an entire day there and have 10 games. Its the only sport I've ever been much good at!

 

I'll stop!

 

Paul

 

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2020 by hmrspaul

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, Legend said:

Snow and thick fog . Don't seem to get much of either now.

Edited 2 hours ago by Legend

Global warming, mate; rare to even get a hard frost these days.

 

Born in Cardiff in 1952.  Steam until 1965, Paddle Steamers until 1968, and Trolleybuses until 1970 (just, I was on the last one in January that year).  No.201, oldest in the fleet, would be decked out in coloured lights every xmas.  My dad had a 100E Prefect 3-speed which had vacuum operated windscreen wipers which would give up when you were accelerating or going up hill, and go completely bonkers when you were on the overrun.  Our first tv, which turned up in 1956, was a 9" cabinet type, and the bloke in the shop (Creemer's Electrical Goods on Cathays Terrace) sold my dad a sort of magnifying glass that hung over the screen and was alleged to make it 'look bigger'.  It was solid glass and I couldn't pick it up until I was 11!

 

A thing I haven't seen for many years is duffle coats with toggle buttons.  Mine was a massive grey thing that lasted me years, until my first Parka in my teens though we called them Snorkels then.  I barely had the strength to walk with the weight of this monster duffle, and was scuppered if it got wet.

 

Brown Windsor Soup, and 'rissoles' (yes, we all knew the joke). 

 

Bakelite telephones, and the insanity of having them in the freezing hallway, and the further insanity of telephone tables, which you had to have to prove you were middle class.

 

Toffo.

 

Those yellow sou'wester hooded capes you wore on your bike when it was raining, that would get you airborne in a decent wind.  And Pifco bike lights.

 

Green paint.  All outside wooden surfaces, doors, window frames etc, were painted green in the 50s and 60s; I think it was a legal requirement and you could be hanged if you used another colour.  

 

Those belts that came with the regulation schoolboy shorts, with an 'S' buckle.

 

(Great) Auntie Nell who lived in Tonypandy, had a beard, and even better, smoked a clay pipe which she called a 'duisheen' in the Irish fashion.  She'd been born in the house in 1860 and lived until she was 101; her parents had come to South Wales from Skibbereen, one of the worst hit places in the Great Famine in Ireland.  We visited the mass grave of victims on a family holiday there in 1963; several of her uncles and aunts are in it.

 

Coal hoists loading ships at Cardiff and Barry Docks.  And the glow, accompanied by a roar a few seconds later, when hot slag was tipped into the sea from Cardiff East Moors steelworks; our house was about 3 miles away as the crow flew but we could still hear this and see the glow at night.

 

Giving my grown out of shoes and jackets to poor kids in primary school, and, despite my tender years, having the sensitivity to do it quietly when nobody was looking; nobody ever told me to do this.  There was still a bit of proper poverty about then.

 

BSG injections and the nit nurse in school.

 

National Geographic, which dad subscribed to and whi eventually took over the garage.

 

The Parlour, which was never used and I never saw the point of.  If it wasn't being used, why couldn't I have a layout in there.

 

Primus stoves, and dad's perpetual losing battles with them on picnics (which is how I learned most of my swear words), which consisted entirely of cold food but the grownups had to have a cup of tea.

 

Proper transport caff's, specifically the West End near Over Bridge in Gloucester and the Windrush up on the Cotwolds.  Dad was too mean to pay for nice places on long car journeys (London was about 5 hours by A48 and A40 then), and these did good cheap food 24/7.

Edited April 6, 2020 by The Johnster

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, Mark Saunders said:

 

My parents bought their house new in 1956 and it was a three bedroom semi and that only had two radiators and a heated towel rail; with an open fire in the front room!

Mine built their own in 1952 : no radiators, and normally the only heating was the fireplace with back-boiler in the kitchen. This had an oven built in, but it was a half-hearted thing, normally only used to keep the kindling dry.

 

[Fenman]

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

...

When the family moved to Italy in 1969, we were all astounded to find that our 10 year old flat had radiators in every room - including kitchen and bathroom. It felt quite decadent!

iD

In 1938 Freud finally escaped from the Nazis and was given sanctuary in London. Almost all his personal letters after that express astonishment at how cold English houses were, and bewilderment that such a technologically advanced country had never seemed to work out how to heat them. 
 

My memories are of growing up in a repressive, socially conservative world. I attended one of what I later learned was just a handful of surviving single-sex primary schools (Norfolk County Council wasn’t going to take any chances with co-ed 7 year olds getting frisky). A divorcee moved into a house across the road from mine, and my mother and aunts were genuinely terrified that she’d try to steal their husbands — she was considered to be little better than a free prostitute. Looking back, much of it was horrifically small-minded: “what would the neighbours think?” was a pervasive state of mind.

 

School was a brutal experience, with corporal punishment and bullying the norm. My school only cared about sport, so if you were geeky/ nerdy/ academic it was a pretty soul-destroying place (with a spectacularly unpleasant unheated swimming pool). 
 

I remember “early closing” as a particularly tiresome occurrence in my childhood; both Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, when all the shops were closed (and Sundays too, of course). Tuesday was the main market day, including a huge “cattle market” (actually all forms of livestock), right in the heart of the town. Extra trains and busses ran every Tuesday, bringing-in people from miles around. 

Craftsmen were an integral part of life; the local blacksmith, for instance, who’d knock you up a set of wrought-iron gates to set into that hedge. Horses still in everyday use, housed in urban stables. I remember visiting a local boatbuilder, two ancient men crafting large, clinker-built fishing boats, softening and shaping the planks in a steam cabinet, G-clamping each new plank onto the one below, then at the end caulking and tar, the latter boiling away in a vast vat. 
 

I do miss roasted suet pudding, though I can’t imagine it did much good for our arteries. And silver service restaurant cars on trains — all pale green crockery, and silverware stamped “GER” (that was well into the BR era — I’m not *that* old). 

Paul

[MJI]

What do I miss?

 

Huge toy departments full of Lego and Mechano.

 

Airfix, Frog and similar kits EVERYWHERE.

 

Gerry Anderson stuff everywhere.

 

Model shops, used to have loads.

 

The discussions of TV with fellow fans, we even once refused homework due to this, they wanted us to watch an ITV soap when EVERY boy in the class wanted to watch Dukes of Hazzard. We won.

 

Usable buses.

 

As I got older and road legal.

 

BR Blue

Cheap easy to fix vehicles. Especially cheap bikes (Could get a decent 250 for £50). And later cheap cars with handy scrap yards.

 

The ease of upgrading your old banger with better interior, or engine. The ease of producing something fun. I do miss 1970s cars.

 

Logo free TV beyond BBC.

 

Less traffic.

 

1980s music and the weird mix on TOTP. One minute NR, the next NWOBHM, then Disco, and so on. Mind you Saxon looked on on TOTP.

 

Do not miss a lot of things, especially smoking, I hated it. My friends generally didn't as bikes and music were more fun.

[tigerburnie]

2 hours ago, TheQ said:

Actually it's safer now,  the unlawful death rate of children is much lower now. Traffic may be worse.. 

It's just people make more fuss now.. 

 

Murders were un heard of back when I was a nipper, crime in general was low where I grew up, the streets are no longer safe for kids, we used to go to engine sheds, usually in the rougher parts of towns at all hours. I'd want an armed guard to go to some of those areas now. Prior to the lockdown there were more stabbings in a day than we had in a decade in the 60's.