50s/60s Britain and Now

[gordon s]

Talking of rockets, there were the ones you part filled with water and then inserted a modified cycle pump. Bumped to your hearts connect until sudenly, whoosh this thing hurtled ito the sky, but soaked you on the process.

 

Spangles? Had to be Acid drops.

 

Anyone mention Pear Drops?

 

Sunday school. Almost put me of religion for life...

 

Cubs and Bob a Job week. Enjoyed ATC when I was a bit older.

 

Penny bangers. How I've got all my fingers, God only knows...

 

Football rattles.

 

Escalado with the lead horses and the track across the table.

 

Steam engines. The Mamod types with a meths burner.

 

Jetex planes.

 

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by gordon s

[rockershovel]

Cap bombs! Little plastic rockets that took a cap in the nose, so you could throw them about to cause general annoyance! 

[Reorte]

23 minutes ago, gordon s said:

Talking of rockets, there were the ones you part filled with water and then inserted a modified cycle pump. Bumped to your hearts connect until sudenly, whoosh this thing hurtled ito the sky, but soaked you on the process.

 

Saw a YouTube video once where someone had built a 2-stage water rocket, reached somewhere around 800'.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qzOzjRJpaU

 

Seems that they've gone further since then though.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Reorte

[Danemouth]

3 hours ago, Philou said:

 

If we're going down Queen Street, certainly Dunn & Co, that had as part of its front window, the crests of other town and cities in stained glass along the top. Did buy the one suit there. What about Vic Sylvester and his band underneath the Capitol cinema? I never went there, but next door downstairs to the Continental restaurant. That was really, really for extra-special occasions.

 

 

I can remember VictorSylvester's becoming the Albert Rudge School of Dancing!.

 

Talking of the Capitol at one time I belonged to Cardiff YMCA Players. When the YMCA moved to The Walk they built a small theatre on the top floor and this included 140 seats from the Capitol bought when the furnishings of that place were sold off.

 

Dave

[The Johnster]

4 hours ago, Philou said:

I still have the Corgi Vanguard and its launch vehicle but not the launcher itself - my father perhaps foresaw what might happen!! However, did you know that the soft rubber nose could be removed (the nose had a metal tip) and a 'cap' placed within it? It sure made a BANG especially if my mother (who was nervous - but that may have been down to me and my siblings anyway) was not aware of what was going to happen!

If I ever knew that the Vanguard's warhead could be 'capped', I have long ago forgotten that; we just broke my mate's living room windows with them until we were banned.  I remember cap bombs, and trying to cram as many caps in as we could for a better bang; luckily that was about the limit of my interest in explosives.  I am certain our caps were much louder and better all round than the piddly little things they fob modern kids off with.

 

4 hours ago, Philou said:

he story goes regarding John 'The Centurion' Wayne was doing the take, he came out with the line 'Turooly, this mayun wuz a sunna gad' and the director told Wayne to put more awe into it, which he duly did, and said 'Awwww, turooly, this mayun wuz a sunna gad' - or so it is told.

 

This sounds entirely plausible.  Longinus was the first non Jewish convert to Christianity according to early church iconography.

 

4 hours ago, Philou said:

Back to the 21st century and trying to sort out the insurance on my car that has been declared a write-off - hey ho.

 

O, sh*t, you ok?  Cars can be replaced, but Philous can't.

 

4 hours ago, Danemouth said:

he cinema was the "Queens" closed in 1955 and the tailors was Dunns

http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/20805

 

Dave

Dunn's it was, Dave; I could see it in my mind's eye but couldn't spell it out!  1955 sounds right for my being taken there for Bambi when I was 3.  I have a mental picture of a photo the blaze in the Echo, and certainly recall the burned out site.  Wyman's was taken over by John Menzies btw, not W H Smith as I stated.  I think Wymans had the stall on Cardiff General between platforms 1 and 2 as well; I know I had an Airfix kit Wyman's on my own station!

 

4 hours ago, Philou said:

 

If we're going down Queen Street, certainly Dunn & Co, that had as part of its front window, the crests of other town and cities in stained glass along the top. Did buy the one suit there. What about Vic Sylvester and his band underneath the Capitol cinema? I never went there, but next door downstairs to the Continental restaurant. That was really, really for extra-special occasions.

 

Story regard Vic Sylvester's (and could be apocryphal): The 'Hokey-Cokey' was always one of the dances there and everyone was dancing along when suddenly a foot comes flying out of the circle of bodies on the dance floor and into somebodies drink. What happened was that one of the chaps had a false leg and when doing 'the left leg in and left leg in out in out and shake all about' bit, the foot had unscrewed itself from the rest of the leg and hence its unintended flight.

The Continental was proper posh and, as you say, for special occasions; it became a Berni Inn in a later existence.  Don't recall Vic Sylvester but the leg story is the sort of thing that, if it isn't true, bl**dy well should be!

[Tony Davis]

On 06/04/2020 at 10:51, chrisf said:

 I also patronised Taylor & McKenna in Harlesden right by Craven Park, NW10.  My journey there and back was by trolleybus, practically door to door.

I grew up in Harlesden and would spend hours peering through the window of that shop, didn't remember the name though. There was also another model shop in Willesden, can't remember the name of that one either, and then still another at Wembley Triangle, something like Wally Killminster I think.

 

Thanks for reminding me of my childhood!

[pH]

On 21/04/2020 at 01:12, Bishop of Welchester said:

 

The intermission probably clung on longer than the national anthem, which I remember from a cinema visit with my grandmother. The film was Peter Pan, which terrified me.

 

The first film I ever saw was 'Peter Pan'. I was terrified, too!

3 hours ago, gordon s said:

Talking of rockets, there were the ones you part filled with water and then inserted a modified cycle pump. Bumped to your hearts connect until sudenly, whoosh this thing hurtled ito the sky, but soaked you on the process.

 

Penny bangers. How I've got all my fingers, God only knows...

 

If I remember correctly, there was a recommended number of pumps for those rockets which was, of course, ignored. We conducted, actually reasonably methodically, experiments to determine the optimum amounts of water and air (i.e. pumps) for maximum height/range.

 

Penny bangers? Not tuppenny ones? No sense of adventure! You could actually hold tuppenny ones tight in your hand and set them off, but you did have to hold very tight! The cardboard was thicker, and the pressure of your hand meant the easiest way for the explosion to go was out of the ends of the tube. We also used to light fuses on bangers, drop them in screwtop bottles, tighten the stopper, and throw them into the sea off the pier. Depending on how quick you were, you either got the bottle exploding while floating on the surface, underwater, or an air burst. Never mind fingers, I'm amazed we all survived with a full count of hands, eyes etc. and no damage to major arteries!

[Philou]

@The Johnster Yeah, I'm fine thanks in respect of the car. It was parked outside on the footway (we're allowed to do that over here) completely clear of the carriageway, settling down for the night when 'BANG!!!'. I was indoors probably perusing this illustrious encyclopaedia of model railway extravaganza, when I thought to myself 'that's not normal'. Poked my head out of the door and there was my car with a slight crease in the wing and its nearside wheel at right angles to the bodywork. The other car had gone on another 50m with its nearside wheel almost torn off. Apparently he hit the traffic calming measure at speed (worked well dinnit) swerved and clipped the car wheel to wheel. The 'BANG' was my tyre bursting. It didn't sound terribly loud within the house, but it got everyone else in the village out of their front doors.

 

Because of the lockdown, there are only about three cars a day in through the village (yes seriously) and of course the third one was for us!! Unfortunately we're at loggerheads with the insurance assessor as his value places the car below the value of the repairs by about £450, but I have already looked at replacement vehicles (similar year, mileage etc) and they're about £500 more than his valuation that would bring just in line with the repair valuation. Tomoz we're going to the garage to get the mechanic's expert opinion as it's not so much resetting the front geometry up rather what other damage could there be behind that may push the repairs upwards. At a push if the assessor won't play ball, we'd stump up the difference of £450 to have the car back - but not if we open up a Pandora's box.

 

The other chap's car was a two year old Peugeot that suffered greater damage as the CV joint ripped out and demolished his gearbox.

 

I like my car, solid, big and roomy, 2 litre 140hp diesel and does 50.6 miles to the gallon - I mean what is there not to like? Before anyone says dirty, smelly, polluting diesel - apparently it's not. Speaking to a Peugeot engineer who is working in their battery/electric research centre admitted to me quite plainly that battery technology just cannot compete with diesel for the time being, particularly as diesels have been much improved in recent years especially with particulate filters and the like. I can do from here to Cardiff on one tank of fuel (65l). Imagine how many times you would need to 'refuel' your Torchy car and waste time on such a journey?

 

Anyway, sorry about going OT.

 

Mention has been made previously about TVs in the 50s and 60s. Like Johnster ours was 9" screen with the magnifying glass in front. The real luxury model gave you colour television - oh yes - translucent coloured bands printed on the magnifying glass with blue at the top, brown/flesh in the middle and green at the bottom - you couldn't make it up!

 

But what were we able to view - with one channel prior to 1955 and two thereafter? The Woodentops, Bill and Ben and Weeeeeeeed, Muffin the Mule (but that's now illegal) and Andy Pandy. There was of course Torchy the Battery Boy, Twizzle, Four Feather Falls followed by Fireball XL5 and the such.

 

My grandparents were the only ones in their street to have a television on Coronation Day. I just about remember the occasion, TV (probably a 6" screen) in their upstairs bedroom, curtains drawn and the whole of the street in to watch. My father acquired ours probably in the very late 50s second hand, but it did have the two channels. It took forever to warm up with it's high pitched whistle (that I have now - tinnitus) and if you dared look at it for more than an hour, the screen would go black and no amount of twiddling would make the picture come back. You'd have to switch it off and switch it on again (some things don't ever seem to change very much ) by which time you'd have missed the crucial part of the plot.

 

I never saw Quatermass, but I did see the first ever episode of Corrers with the opening words by Ena Sharples 'I'll 'ave a couple of them there eclairs'. I also saw the very first episode of Dr Who and the one scene I recall was the Dr's granddaughter being asked, in the school, 'How many sides does a triangle have?' 'Five' came back the answer.

 

I thought it was quite clever because she demonstrated that not only were there the three sides (a-b, b-c and c-a) but also its front side and its back side, five sides in all.

 

'Nuff of that - keep healthy out there,

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

[Philou]

@gordon s and anyone else regarding the water rocket. How did that work? I ask because we may have the grandchildren here on extended holiday and I did think of doing one. We have plenty of plastic bottles as we can only drink mineral water here due to the tap water being over chlorinated - though I seem to recall that Coca-cola bottles are slightly better shaped with their slender necks.

 

I would have thought that a stirrup pump would have been even better than a modified cycle pump - but where would you get one now? How do you seal the bottle?

 

Anybody got some details as I'm willing to give it a go!!

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

[rockershovel]

My principal memory of early 1960s television was of being one of the few people in the street to have one. I came in from doing whatever seven year olds do when left to their own devices, to find the room FULL of people watching a bald man shouting angrily, at one point banging on the counter in front of him. 

 

I didnt understand it, but I could tell something was very wrong..

 

[rockershovel]

12 minutes ago, Philou said:

@gordon s and anyone else regarding the water rocket. How did that work? I ask because we may have the grandchildren here on extended holiday and I did think of doing one. We have plenty of plastic bottles as we can only drink mineral water here due to the tap water being over chlorinated - though I seem to recall that Coca-cola bottles are slightly better shaped with their slender necks.

 

I would have thought that a stirrup pump would have been even better than a modified cycle pump - but where would you get one now? How do you seal the bottle?

 

Anybody got some details as I'm willing to give it a go!!

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

 

Take a cork or rubber bung. Drill a hole through the centre and fit a plastic or brass tube snugly through it, securing it with glue. Part-fill the bottle with water and insert the bung, ensuring a snug fit. 

 

Fit a flexible plastic tube snugly to the protruding tube.

 

Balance the bottle upright, bung downwards.

 

Connect  the tube to a foot pump.

 

Pump vigorously until something happens...

 

This will take several attempts to get it right..

 

[Philou]

@rockershovel Thanks for that - it so happens I have a double piston foot pump that I use to top up the car tyre pressures. Got the kit - corks (plastic and cork), tube, glue, bottles and water - just wait until we know when the grandchildren are due and we could have 'lift -off!!!'.

 

 

Edited April 22, 2020 by Philou

[Fat Controller]

7 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

Take a cork or rubber bung. Drill a hole through the centre and fit a plastic or brass tube snugly through it, securing it with glue. Part-fill the bottle with water and insert the bung, ensuring a snug fit. 

 

Fit a flexible plastic tube snugly to the protruding tube.

 

Balance the bottle upright, bung downwards.

 

Connect  the tube to a foot pump.

 

Pump vigorously until something happens...

 

This will take several attempts to get it right..

 

We have someone on our grape harvest who builds these things- the best so far has been perhaps 100m.

[The Johnster]

10 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

a bald man shouting angrily, at one point banging on the counter in front of him. 

This might have been President Kruschev at the United Nations arguing that the USSR needed a nuclear deterrent to defend itself against the West, which I thought was not an unreasonable viewpoint.  He worked himself up into a proper tizzy and banged the desk shouting (in Russian) 'We will bury you' as an illustration of what would happen if they were attacked.  This was the beginning of the 'deterrent' and the start of the end of the nuclear arms race; both sides now had enough to obliterate each other by Mutually Assured Destruction, and take the rest of the planet down with them.

[Fat Controller]

3 minutes ago, The Johnster said:

This might have been President Kruschev at the United Nations arguing that the USSR needed a nuclear deterrent to defend itself against the West, which I thought was not an unreasonable viewpoint.  He worked himself up into a proper tizzy and banged the desk shouting (in Russian) 'We will bury you' as an illustration of what would happen if they were attacked.  This was the beginning of the 'deterrent' and the start of the end of the nuclear arms race; both sides now had enough to obliterate each other by Mutually Assured Destruction, and take the rest of the planet down with them.

Didn't he bang the desk with his shoe?

[Philou]

I think the detail that's missing from the desk banging bit is that he did it with his SHOE!!

 

Edit: Sorry Brian W, writing as you posted!

Edited April 22, 2020 by Philou

[Nearholmer]

Make sure it’s a plastic bottle, not a glass one.

 

TVs? We had tens of them, likewise prams and pushchairs, because they always came together.

 

My father was an ace with valve radios and TVs, having been a ‘radio mechanic’ and a WTO during and after the war, so he would buy a ‘dead’ one for pennies at a jumble sale, and a pushchair to cart it home in, these being huge things.

 

He would then spend hours fiddling with it, changing valves, HT leads, variable condensers etc using bits from the many other deceased devices in his shed, until it worked ......... for about a fortnight, and then whole cycle began again.

 

I can’t remember any programmes, but I did acquire a working knowledge of outdated TVs by the age of about seven!

[Ian Kirk]

I miss a lot of 50s stuff but only found this thread today and I think most of these have already been mentioned.  My Maternal Grandfather bought the first TV I can remember for the Coronation.  We all gathered round to watch the small screen in a huge floor standing cabinet with doors to shut it away when not in use. In those days programmes were only transmitted during the day and shut down at night. They played the National Anthem  before shutting down (and the dot in the centre of the screen faded away. ) my Grandfather always stood up at his own fireside while this was playing.

My other Grandfather made his own TV using a Government surplus  cathode ray tube from a night fighter radar. This was green and white not black and white.  I was fascinated but my Mother was terrified I would be electrocuted as he never boxed it in and was always adjusting it. He seemed to get shocks but was relatively unharmed. The whole thing covered a whole kitchen table and the picture was about post card size.

 

best wishes,

 

Ian

[pH]

41 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

Take a cork or rubber bung. Drill a hole through the centre and fit a plastic or brass tube snugly through it, securing it with glue. Part-fill the bottle with water and insert the bung, ensuring a snug fit. 

 

Requires a bit more precision in the boring/fitting, but results in more control - use the original screw cap from the bottle in place of a bung or cork, and proceed as above. Attach the cap to something solid, an 'X' of crossed short wood bits works. Turn the 'X' over, screw the bottle into the cap, re-invert and pump up. To release, unscrew the bottle. I seem to remember string wrapped round the neck of the bottle to do that.

[gordon s]

If you’re going for it, go big.......

 

 

[Steamport Southport]

6 hours ago, rockershovel said:

Cap bombs! Little plastic rockets that took a cap in the nose, so you could throw them about to cause general annoyance! 

 

I read that as "Car bombs!" 

 

They cause a bit more than general annoyance. 

 

 

As for caps. You can't even play with toy guns anymore. Whereas a few years ago you could buy firearms from the Littlewoods catalogue. 

 

 

Jason

[St Enodoc]

8 hours ago, gordon s said:

Anyone mention Pear Drops?

You just did.

 

8 hours ago, gordon s said:

Football rattles.

Navy-and-white of course.

 

8 hours ago, gordon s said:

Escalado with the lead horses and the track across the table.

One of our horses only had three legs. Fell at every fence.

 

8 hours ago, gordon s said:

Steam engines. The Mamod types with a meths burner.

 

Jetex planes.

Never allowed to have those. Too risky (Dad was an insurance and risk manager...).

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, Philou said:

Twizzle,

In my early days at work, if somebody was asked to do a job that involved an awkward or long reach, the inevitable answer was "Who do you think I am - f***in' Twizzle?".

[rockershovel]

3 hours ago, pH said:

 

Requires a bit more precision in the boring/fitting, but results in more control - use the original screw cap from the bottle in place of a bung or cork, and proceed as above. Attach the cap to something solid, an 'X' of crossed short wood bits works. Turn the 'X' over, screw the bottle into the cap, re-invert and pump up. To release, unscrew the bottle. I seem to remember string wrapped round the neck of the bottle to do that.

 

I can’t see how using the original screw cap would work, the cap needs to be released quickly so that the pressure all goes into pushing the water out the neck as quickly as possible. 

 

Last time I saw this done (at a Scout meeting in the early 2000s) the seal was effected using rubber bungs sold for home brewing, and insulation tape around the neck and bung to provide a seal which would be gas tight but release abruptly 

 

on thst occasion they were launched at an angle of about 60 degrees across a school playing field, from sections of guttering - simple but effective! 

 

Edited April 23, 2020 by rockershovel

[rockershovel]

One thing which hasn’t changed, is the enthusiasm for vast projects controlled by politicians and bean-counters which end in huge cost over-runs and eventual failure due to flawed original concepts. The Ground Nut scheme was probably the first such scheme. Building a whole fleet of steam engines, followed by diesels, when electrification was the answer. The aircraft industry, culminating in TSR2 and Concorde. The disappearance of whole industries, which had fallen behind in design and were incapable of working to the necessary standards. 

 

The “Brain Drain” of the 50s and 60s was no accident, but a general failure of concept; the people who could actually make things happen, had lost faith on their masters and managers and that has never been regained. 

 

The Selby coalfield development, and the abandonment of efforts to develop the North Sea oilfields as a national asset (on the Norwegian pattern) would follow. 

 

Hence my utter cynicism about HS2...