50s/60s Britain and Now

[tomparryharry]

4 hours ago, Philou said:

Goldblatt and Webb? I'd forgotten about them.

 

Did you know that in the 60s and 70s, Howells' Garage on Cowbridge Road West was the biggest seller of Rolls-Royces and Bentleys outside of London (or so the story was told)?

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

Yes, the instruction was to 'never' order someone out of Howells' garage. It did happen, and they lost a sale of a Roller because of it. When Godfreys were on City Road, a scrappy came in, bought a couple of D-cabs, and a Granada for himself. All paid in cash, of course.... I'm not sure anything is on City Road nowadays, but I'm sure Johnster will confirm.

[Joseph_Pestell]

28 minutes ago, caradoc said:

 How does such a person ever hope to get, or hold down, a job ?

 

 

Are you referring to the medical consequences of using recreational drugs? Or to the obvious disrespect for law enforcement?

 

If the former, you seem rather misinformed. Marijuana/cannabis will have negative health consequences for a small percentage of the population. Most people will function fine.

 

And likewise for cocaine and heroin. There are many addicts who can still function perfectly well in day-to-day life. 

[The Johnster]

6 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Corporal Punishment!

Along with Private Parts and General Incompetence.

 

3 hours ago, caradoc said:

The seemingly normalised use of drugs is one area that, unlike smoking, has definitely not changed for the better since the 50s and 60s. I too have smelt the stink of marijuana, both at home and at my Mum's house in Oxford (coming from neighbours' gardens, I hasten to add !), neither of which could be described as a 'rough' area.

Marijuana and cocaine are accepted by far too many middle class types who can afford them and then complain about the criminal behaviour they have encouraged in the underclass who can't and become addicted to crack, a serious issue where I live.  Dope is more or less endemic, and pre-pandemic, it was not unusual to be offered 'business' in the broad afternoon daylight of our local shopping street.  Thursdays is zombie day, when the heroin addicts go to the pharmacies for supervised methadone, and then spend the rest of the day begging and shoplifting.  The dead walk among us, and I wish they bloody wouldn't.  Self isolation isn't all bad!

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, tomparryharry said:

 

Yes, the instruction was to 'never' order someone out of Howells' garage. It did happen, and they lost a sale of a Roller because of it. When Godfreys were on City Road, a scrappy came in, bought a couple of D-cabs, and a Granada for himself. All paid in cash, of course.... I'm not sure anything is on City Road nowadays, but I'm sure Johnster will confirm.

He will.  City Road went through a bit of a transformation in the 90s when all the leases were up,  There are no car showrooms there now, and apart from 2 pubs, a couple of small supermarkets, and until recently a sex shop, it's more or less wall to wall kebabs, takeaways, ethnic restaurants and shisha cafes.  You can start at one end and work your way around the world's cuisines.  

 

Howells' on Cowbridge Rd W was the site of the Avenue Cinema, closed after the seats were all ripped by teddy boys when it showed Rock Around The Clock, an event my parents referred to every single time we drove past it.  There was a thing on 'Nationwide' on the tele about a Roller dealership in Solihull which was next to a gypsy/traveller site, which had learned from experience that the scruffier the customer the more he'd spend.  The best known scrappy Roller owner was probably Dai Woodham, who used to drive it to work through Barry with the windows down in his overalls smoking one of those foul cigars he always had stuck in his face.  He once told me it was something he'd promised himself to do one day in a foxhole at Monte Cassino; I never begrudged him it and was glad he was on our side... 

 

I went down there with a couple of lads from the Worcester Locomotive Society once back in the day (70s, so OT but it's a good story, pre BLAG) after parts for their pannier to show them around.  They were nice middle class lads and when we asked Dai for permission in his brake van body office they were terrified of him, not a ridiculous thing for them to be.  It was midwinter, and typical Bristol Channel weather; he expressed the view that we were all insane, but not in those exact words; permission was cheerfully granted but he wanted to be all done by 4pm for an early finish.  We stripped some panniers of some bits and pieces with a lot of swearing (middle class or no, they'd got the hang of that), some big spanners and a lump 'ammer, and several cans of WD40, and I was delegated to go into the office to negotiate the deal.  I asked Dai how much he wanted for a lubricator, the sort of thing that would have cost a couple of week's wages to get made even then.  'Gizzit yer', he says, hefted it without looking at it, and said '60p'.  I think we ended up paying less than a tenner for the lot, which are probably still functioning on 5786.  Can't remember what else we had, but certainly a sandbox featured in the deal.  Locos at Barry usually still had sand in their boxes.

 

Back OT, who gave permission for Oil of Ulay to be renamed Oil of Olay?  Nobody consulted me about it!  I was miffed enough about Marathon becoming Snickers.  

[tomparryharry]

13 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

 

 

Back OT, who gave permission for Oil of Ulay to be renamed Oil of Olay?  Nobody consulted me about it!  I was miffed enough about Marathon becoming Snickers.  

 

I'm still looking for Opal Fruits, or, Opal Mints or toffees. What happened to Mothers Pride, or the big T loaf?

 

Things haven't been the same since we lost the Eurovision Song Contest. Where's Jimmy Clitheroe when you need him?

[caradoc]

4 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Are you referring to the medical consequences of using recreational drugs? Or to the obvious disrespect for law enforcement?

 

If the former, you seem rather misinformed. Marijuana/cannabis will have negative health consequences for a small percentage of the population. Most people will function fine.

 

And likewise for cocaine and heroin. There are many addicts who can still function perfectly well in day-to-day life. 

 

What I was saying, obviously not clearly enough, was who would employ a person stinking of drugs. Drug use/addiction was not tolerated in the industry in which I worked.

 

 

[Joseph_Pestell]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

 

 

Marijuana and cocaine are accepted by far too many middle class types who can afford them and then complain about the criminal behaviour they have encouraged in the underclass who can't and become addicted to crack, a serious issue where I live.  Dope is more or less endemic, and pre-pandemic, it was not unusual to be offered 'business' in the broad afternoon daylight of our local shopping street.  Thursdays is zombie day, when the heroin addicts go to the pharmacies for supervised methadone, and then spend the rest of the day begging and shoplifting.  The dead walk among us, and I wish they bloody wouldn't.  Self isolation isn't all bad!

I can sympathise with much of that. We have been fighting the "war on drugs" for about 60 years now with the results that you are seeing. Is it not time to look at another strategy?

[pH]

Marijuana is legal in Canada. It can be bought, and sold by those with a licence to do so. There are rules about location of shops e.g. distance from schools, and age of buyers. The rationale for legalisation was, since it was being used anyway, to remove it from the illegal market, where it could be an 'entry drug' into harder stuff. (There was also the attraction of being able to tax it!) Rules about where to smoke it are the same as those applying to tobacco.

 

So there is quite often a smell of the stuff around. However, since there are also skunks and skunk cabbage around the place, that's not something new.

 

Edit - seeing the latest posts about marijuana uses and employment, most businesses have policies on that. Even police departments spell it out for their staff. And not all departments have the same rules!

Edited April 18, 2020 by pH

[rockershovel]

A while ago, I did a short spell of agency work for the current refuse collection contractor. Around 2/3 of those who presented themselves for assessment and induction, failed the D&A test (mostly for marijuana) and were sent away. The contractor notified the agency, they can’t be submitted again to that employer and after two or three failures, the agency won’t send them for ANY work, for obvious reasons. They try another agency, with the same results. They are, in effect, unemployable. 

 

 

Up until the general privatisation of local services, council workers had a great reputation for low productivity and lack of ambition. I had my eyes opened to this, working as a dustman in the college holidays. A high proportion of council workers were war veterans in their fifties and sixties, and it was common knowledge that a high proportion of them had varying degrees of stress-related disorders - rarely diagnosed as such, in those days. Long-term effects of past injuries were common, too; Street sweepers, in particular, were rarely fit for any more challenging employment. 

 

However it was generally felt that it was “only right” that such men be employed, for as long as they could cope with it. Can’t imagine THAT, in the modern age. 

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Spot on!

 

Our local street sweeper was clearly, even to me as a child, “mentally disabled”, but the town gave him a job that gave him dignity.

 

I saw similar at work in the 1970s, when there were a couple of guys in one rolling stock depot that I worked at who had been really, really seriously damaged in Japanese PoW camps. One of the guys literally couldn’t sit still, he had to walk about all the time to cope with some inner stress, and he wouldn’t wear laces in his boots. Two other guys used to see him from his front door to work and back everyday.

 

Many years later, I also learned that “Old C******” the very eccentric head of maths at school was a victim of the Japanese too. After he died, his wife told my mother that he had woken screaming, and fighting-off invisible enemies every night for the fifty years since the war.

[62613]

21 hours ago, caradoc said:

How does such a person ever hope to get, or hold down, a job ?

 

I would imagine in the same way that someone who "Likes a drink or two" does, I would think!

 

[tomparryharry]

16 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Spot on!

 

Our local street sweeper was clearly, even to me as a child, “mentally disabled”, but the town gave him a job that gave him dignity.

 

I saw similar at work in the 1970s, when there were a couple of guys in one rolling stock depot that I worked at who had been really, really seriously damaged in Japanese PoW camps. One of the guys literally couldn’t sit still, he had to walk about all the time to cope with some inner stress, and he wouldn’t wear laces in his boots. Two other guys used to see him from his front door to work and back everyday.

 

Many years later, I also learned that “Old C******” the very eccentric head of maths at school was a victim of the Japanese too. After he died, his wife told my mother that he had woken screaming, and fighting-off invisible enemies every night for the fifty years since the war.

 

I'm told of a similar story, as told by my Father. A Japanse delegation went to the Royal Mint, when it was still in Tower Hill, London. One of the staff attacked a visitor with a hammer before he could be hauled off. 

[rockershovel]

5 hours ago, 62613 said:

I would imagine in the same way that someone who "Likes a drink or two" does, I would think!

 

 

One material difference over time, is that a significant proportion of those trapped in the “zero hours” labour pool (and it IS a trap, with no training provided and no real chance of advancement) don’t WANT to do more than they have to, often the 16 hours a week which forms the threshold at which their benefits start to erode, or they need to do a short period in work to maintain their benefit claimant status. I met a number of these at Royal Mail, last Christmas. 

 

 

[62613]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

 

One material difference over time, is that a significant proportion of those trapped in the “zero hours” labour pool (and it IS a trap, with no training provided and no real chance of advancement) don’t WANT to do more than they have to, often the 16 hours a week which forms the threshold at which their benefits start to erode, or they need to do a short period in work to maintain their benefit claimant status. I met a number of these at Royal Mail, last Christmas. 

 

 

I know about that. What I was on about was those who could put lots of alcohol away, and still be functionl enough to hold down an employment position. I saw these both at sea ( the old man who stayed in his cabin drinking, after giving "full away", and you didn't see him again until you arrived at the next port, was legendary) and on shore.

 

If we all worked the sort of hours people worked at the turn of the 19th century, unemployment would be permanently above 3 or 4 million, IMHO. You have to work 21 hours a week minimum wage before you (and your employer) start having to pay N.I. contributions. So having people working less than that is financially advantageous to employers as well. What it does for future pension entitlement, I don't know.

 

[rockershovel]

The oil industry used to have its fair share of those, but they were purged in the general restructuring during the 1980s oil price crash. Civil engineering abandoned the “pub breakfast” around the same time. 

[St Enodoc]

Late to the party I'm afraid but reading the topic has reminded me of these, which I don't think have been mentioned already.

 

Context: Born and grew up in North London from 1956 onwards.

 

- Haliborange tablets

- Lifebuoy soap

- Cream soda (delivered to the door)

- Dr J Collis Browne's Mixture

- the Gibbs Ivory Castle Club

- Blue Peter badges (I got a Silver!)

- Daily Mail Boys' and Girls' Exhibition (for them, not of them)

- The Ice Show at Wembley Empire Pool

- Bertram Mills' Circus at Olympia

- Galloway's cough medicine

- eating the skin off the rice pudding (and scraping the bowl)

- the nit nurse at school

- Co-Op divi tokens (before they were replaced by stamps). My Mum's divi number was 424251 - why do I still need to know that?

- vacuum-operated windscreen wipers

- Spangles

 

I could go on...

[BernardTPM]

40 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

Co-Op divi tokens (before they were replaced by stamps). My Mum's divi number was 424251 - why do I still need to know that?

Same here! (not the same number, but can still remember it).

 

I still make rice pudding with skin - yum.

[tomparryharry]

3 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Late to the party I'm afraid but reading the topic has reminded me of these, which I don't think have been mentioned already.

 

Context: Born and grew up in North London from 1956 onwards.

 

- Haliborange tablets

- Lifebuoy soap

- Cream soda (delivered to the door)

- Dr J Collis Browne's Mixture

- the Gibbs Ivory Castle Club

- Blue Peter badges (I got a Silver!)

- Daily Mail Boys' and Girls' Exhibition (for them, not of them)

- The Ice Show at Wembley Empire Pool

- Bertram Mills' Circus at Olympia

- Galloway's cough medicine

- eating the skin off the rice pudding (and scraping the bowl)

- the nit nurse at school

- Co-Op divi tokens (before they were replaced by stamps). My Mum's divi number was 424251 - why do I still need to know that?

- vacuum-operated windscreen wipers

- Spangles

 

I could go on...

The skin off the rice pudding, oh yes.

Caraway seed cake. 
Billy Smarts' Circus on Blackheath 

Spangles. Yes, I remember, but I wasn't too fussed about those. 

Getting off the train at Brighton, and getting the full aroma of the seaside. 

Raining at Ramsgate. It always rained when we went there!

 

Cream soda? Yes, we had R. Whites, with a blue label. (Or, was it Corona?)

Greengage jam.

ABC Saturday pictures.

Airfix kits suspended with cotton on my bedroom ceiling.

 

Memory has the capability to reach out over the years, and touch you on the shoulder. 

Edited April 20, 2020 by tomparryharry
Greengage, My bad.... I like plums..... And gooseberries...

[SM42]

50s and 60s before my time, just. However

 

I've been sorting out the years of accumlated stuff at my mum's and the thing  that strikes me as being totally different is the language used to communicate and how things were done before phones and the internet were commonplace. Some examples

 

Letters written to B&Bs booking holidays, letters back stating rates or if there was no room and who else had rooms.

As for the language used the following is an extract such a letter enquiring as to accomodation for mum dad and older brother (no me at this time)

 

"My rates are £7 per week and £4 for the boy"

 

Letter from the council's Chief Medical Officer (do these still exist at County Hall?)  regarding a school nurse visit at my brother's school

 

"A parent, guardian or friend should be present during the inspection. If this is not possible you will be notified of any defect found"

Can you imagine that language being used now

 

Another letter was regarding a meeting about family allowance

 

The meeting was agreed to take place with the man from the council at 2pm at the Church Hall and could mum arrange to obtain the key.

 

 

Of course all done by post. The house telephone being rare, a situation that lasted well into the 80s

 

Other things I've found are mortgages for less than £1000, buying house insurance through a solicitor and driving licences that were little red books with a renewal glued in every 3 years.

 

Life seemed simpler  yet more complicated then

 

Andy

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by SM42

[Colin]

We had a party line phone in the early ‘60s, the number was one digit away from the furniture department of the local store. We used to get countless calls from customers complaining about late deliveries or damaged goods!

[Joseph_Pestell]

1 minute ago, Colin said:

We had a party line phone in the early ‘60s, the number was one digit away from the furniture department of the local store. We used to get countless calls from customers complaining about late deliveries or damaged goods!

 

My parents used to get calls for the Aylesbury Dog Pound. We didn't even live anywhere near Buckinghamshire; we were in mid-Surrey.

[The Johnster]

2 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

 

I could go on...

I've already mentioned nit nurses and vacuum operated windscreen wipers.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

 

Life seemed simpler  yet more complicated then

It now uses a huge amount of complication to make itself simpler.

 

1 hour ago, tomparryharry said:

 

Memory has the capability to reach out over the years, and touch you on the shoulder.

Ian's waxing lyrical!  I've got to the age when I don't like things touching me on the shoulder, in case they're a bloke who's been on a diet wearing a black cloak and carrying an hourglass and a scythe...

 

1 hour ago, tomparryharry said:

 

Airfix kits suspended with cotton on my bedroom ceiling.

My HMS Hood suspended from the ceiling looked great...

Edited April 20, 2020 by The Johnster

[St Enodoc]

3 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

I've already mentioned nit nurses and vacuum operated windscreen wipers.

Thanks. Easy to miss something in nearly 300 posts.

 

One more - The Gang Show at Golders Green Hippodrome.

[The Johnster]

1 hour ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

My parents used to get calls for the Aylesbury Dog Pound. We didn't even live anywhere near Buckinghamshire; we were in mid-Surrey.

For some inexplicable reason we used to get them for a Chinese Takeaway in Leicester.  I used to put on a faux Chinese voice and take the orders if the person on the other end became shirty.