50s/60s Britain and Now

[Nearholmer]

50/60s vs Now: the place and role of women in society; how family life has changed; marriage and divorce.

 

We haven’t chewed those over, but somewhere in there are a lot of very fundamental differences, I think.

[great central]

38 minutes ago, Metr0Land said:

Does anyone remember the Flatley clothes drier kitchen heater?

 

Yes, there was one left behind by the previous owner of our first house, to be fair it did a reasonable job on clothes when the weather wasn't up to it.

Totally eclipsed by the tumble dryer bought just after our son was born, lots of reusable nappies, remember them?

[jjb1970]

One change for the better is that when using public transport it is no longer like travelling in a mobile Ash tray. 

Air is cleaner, we still have pollution issues and more work to do but we have come an awful long way since the great smogs, acid rain, leaded petrol etc. 

In Britain at least food is much better. We used to be known as the land without good food (how do you eat well in Britain? Eat breakfast three times a day etc etc) but now when I travel I miss the variety of food we take for granted here. 

 

[Fenman]

13 minutes ago, jjb1970 said:

 

...

We used to be known as the land without good food (how do you eat well in Britain? Eat breakfast three times a day etc etc) but now when I travel I miss the variety of food we take for granted here. 

 

Me too. A few years back I had to spend a month on a work trip in China: much as I thought I loved Chinese food, by the end of the month I was sick of it. I’m almost ashamed to admit I then sought out what must have been one of the few Italian restaurants in Shanghai.

 

Thinking back to 50s and 60s food, Saturday lunch was always sausages boiled in a pan with a couple of large onions; mashed potato; and a tin of marrowfat peas “for colour”. The sausages would often be served with a “white sauce” or, occasionally, a white sauce with mushroom bits. I remember being fascinated by the way boiling made the sausage skins burst and roll up. Everything was a sort of pallid grey. It was one of my favourite meals. 
 

While my favourite dessert was tinned peaches. My Aunt Rene served them, decanted into a big glass bowl, every Sunday afternoon for tea. 
 

It all reminds me of Fawlty Towers, where Sybil is asked by one of the old ladies what’s for dessert?

— Fruit salad

— Is it fresh?

— Oh yes, chef’s just opened a new tin. 
 

Paul

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, Metr0Land said:

Does anyone remember the Flatley clothes drier kitchen heater?

 

Yes, my parents had one though it was more a "pre-use airer".

 

Basically a white metal box with an electric heating element in the base (1 - 2 kw?) and a lid on top. The heat rose through slots above the element, passing over the clothes suspended on wooden dowels.  I wouldn't want to put anything dripping wet in it!

 

It would have also been a fairly inefficient space heater, but if you only had storage heaters, needs must!

 

 

I just had to google, and this is what I found... 

Edited May 3, 2020 by Hroth
Spelin ana googlin

[Ohmisterporter]

Mention of gambling reminds me that betting on horse racing was only supposed to be conducted at the races and on the Tote. Consequently, if you knew where they lived, there were individuals set up as secretive betting "shops" and a system of bookies runners who would take bets and occasionally pay out winnings. Later on, when betting shops were legalised, my uncle Ted opened his legal shop. It was listening to Ted that convinced me that gambling is a mugs' game and how "dodgy" the horse racing industry can be. For anyone determined to bet on the horses the best tip I learned is that if you put £1 on every horse starting at odds of 9-1 in every race throughout the season you will end up about £20 in pocket. 

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, Fenman said:

 

Well that’s me told, then. 
 

Paul

 

Thats not actually what I said..... one thing I learnt at an early age, was that the English (or significant elements of the population, at least) deal with politics by closing their eyes and ears to it. 

[Nearholmer]

Interesting to see what the Flatley family were up to before the bottom dropped out of the clothes drier market and they got into televised Irish dancing.

 

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by Nearholmer

[jjb1970]

My grandmother used to live on mince n'tatties, she was a fine old Scottish lady and had no use for such modern and alien intrusions as dishes based on rice, pasta or noodles (she accepted Heinz macaroni cheese though) and made a mean pan of stovies. My brother and I used to laugh about it and dreaded it at the time in the 1970's yet now every now and again I make mince n'tatties as it is quite an enjoyable comfort food with dumplings, and I miss her stovies (none of the recipes I've tried has come anywhere close).

[rockershovel]

The “boiled sausages and mushroom sauce” thing sounds perfectly revolting. I’m happy to say that I never encountered any such thing...

 

Tinned peaches and Carnation was a great delicacy in my mother’s opinion! My wife detested it (we weren’t married at the time, I still lived at home when I wasn’t working, and she still felt the obligation to keep on the right side of the old devil...) 

 

We had a Flatley for years, I used it in the workshop for air-drying engine parts after cleaning...

 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by rockershovel

[Hroth]

30 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

We had a Flatley for years, I used it in the workshop for air-drying engine parts after cleaning...

 

Probably the safest place/use for it!

 

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

I find that dismissive whenever it comes up. There's both good and bad that's been lost with time. Some people are more glad of the bad that's gone, some more sad of the good. And of course often which is which is subjective.

 

Not that I'm old enough to remember the period in question but my general impression (and it's also borne out by what I can remember from later) is that I'm glad some things have gone (certainly not all) but I like very little that's been added.

I'm glad that trains aren't steam hauled any more. (apart from rail tours)

Nice to look at and model but definitely of a past age.

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, melmerby said:

I'm glad that trains aren't steam hauled any more. (apart from rail tours)

Nice to look at and model but definitely of a past age.

 

They were unsustainable and had to change but I can't say I'm at all glad of that. I find the necessity of change easy enough to grasp, but I rarely feel the appeal of it (sure, you can find exceptions, such as it's great that so many rivers aren't open sewers any more, and there's an inter-relationship between them all); it usually has the opposite effect on me and leads me to get ever more depressed. I can understand why some people do welcome it all, I just don't share that feeling in the slightest and it being unavoidable doesn't help.

Edited May 3, 2020 by Reorte

[TheQ]

On the Norfolk broads,  for years there were people campaigning against boat discharges into the rivers, so in most circumstances it was banned***.  Nothing much happened to the water  quality.  It was only when improvements to sewage works happened, that the water quality improved. 

 

It been quite remarkable how clear the water is now.. But it now gives us another problem... Weed and  water lilies clogging engine intakes,  also they catch on keels and rudders.. 

 

***Short Visit seagoing motorboats / yachts  and pre ban yachts don't have to have  holding tanks.  Pre ban yachts often have no room For a tank. 

 

[The Johnster]

3 hours ago, Ohmisterporter said:

Mention of gambling reminds me that betting on horse racing was only supposed to be conducted at the races and on the Tote. Consequently, if you knew where they lived, there were individuals set up as secretive betting "shops" and a system of bookies runners who would take bets and occasionally pay out winnings. Later on, when betting shops were legalised, my uncle Ted opened his legal shop. It was listening to Ted that convinced me that gambling is a mugs' game and how "dodgy" the horse racing industry can be. For anyone determined to bet on the horses the best tip I learned is that if you put £1 on every horse starting at odds of 9-1 in every race throughout the season you will end up about £20 in pocket. 

This dodgy world was instrumental in the formation of my love of railways; my (great) uncle, also Ted, was a 'bookie's runner'.  He did the nags himself, and it was claimed that he'd once been given a medal for stopping a runaway horse.  By putting 2 bob on it...  Hang in there, it'll make sense in a minute.  Bookie's runners took the bets to the illegal bookies', then distributed any winnings to the punters.

 

This involved getting the trolleybus into town, collecting bets from driver and conductctor, doing his rounds in town at various shops, and finishing up at Cardiff General station, and he'd take me with him; see, we got there in the end.  We would watch the departure of the Red Dragon, and then make our way over to Riverside platforms 8/9, where I would be left on the footplate of the down side pilot, usually a 94xx, for about an hour while he 'did the biz' with the bookie.  We would then make for home on the trolleybus; any winnings were distributed after the day's card was finished by another runner.  

 

Ted was a 'character', a good yarn spinner, who had spent WW1 in Aldershot in the Catering Corps and got a job on the GW when he was demobbed on the Barry-North Shields 'Port to Port Express' Restaurant Car, double home.  This train's successor, the 08,35 Cardiff-Newcastle, was still famous for it's full English in the 70s.  His wartime exploits never prevented him from regaling an anklebiter size Johnster with tales of how he'd shot down the Red Baron, or blown up Hill 60, or drawn up the blueprint for the first tank on the back of a packet of Woodbines he then gave to Lord Kitchener.  Of course, he'd never seen a shot fired in anger, or even so much as a fit of pique...  His love of railways was palpable and knowledge considerable; they were in his blood.

[The Johnster]

There are things I certainly don't miss, some of which have been mentioned; the food was dreadful, I hated Izal, and there was a dread of TB and polio that the world is better off without.  But without doubt the underlying intolerances of a society schooled in 'empire' attitudes,  the all pervading and institutionalised racism, the 'woman's place is in the kitchen' view, and the homophobia, as well as the overbearing psuedo-morality that condemned 'bad girls' who got pregnant without considering that she didn't do it on her own, are now things of the past: though racism and homophobia linger unpleasantly they are no longer accepted as part of a societal norm.  Unfortunately the down side of this is that they have been marginalised to become extremist and violent; there was always a violent element to them, but now this is the only element left to them.

 

[Colin]

2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

There are things I certainly don't miss, some of which have been mentioned; the food was dreadful, I hated Izal, and there was a dread of TB and polio that the world is better off without.  But without doubt the underlying intolerances of a society schooled in 'empire' attitudes,  the all pervading and institutionalised racism, the 'woman's place is in the kitchen' view, and the homophobia, as well as the overbearing psuedo-morality that condemned 'bad girls' who got pregnant without considering that she didn't do it on her own, are now things of the past: though racism and homophobia linger unpleasantly they are no longer accepted as part of a societal norm.  Unfortunately the down side of this is that they have been marginalised to become extremist and violent; there was always a violent element to them, but now this is the only element left to them.

 

Yes, I tend to agree with all you say here - nowadays when I think of some of the things we used to laugh at, it makes me cringe. Aside from the obvious racial humour in the ‘60s, sick and disabled (especially mentally disabled) people were also considered to be fair game as I remember; at school I used to feel rather uncomfortable (but perhaps didn’t quite understand why I felt that way) when someone in my class came out with the latest “spaz” joke. I also remember at least two of my teachers calling boys “spastics” for doing something particularly stupid. Thankfully, even that particular word seems to have been consigned to history’s dustbin.

[Reorte]

10 minutes ago, Colin said:

Thankfully, even that particular word seems to have been consigned to history’s dustbin.

 

Problem with that is the word became regarded as derogatory because it was used to insult rather than the other way around. Until attitudes change any word would end up with the same fate, however purely academic it started off as.  This is reflected in the original name of Scope. Since it's rare now to hear the word used as an insult (a definite improvement!) over time I suspect it'll loose the negative connotations again.

[The Johnster]

My mum did the spastics; you wouldn’t say that out loud these days, wrong on several levels!   ‘The spastics’ in this case was a football pools coupon, and she won £600, a fortune then, on them once.  This is why silence was obligatory when the results were on Grandstand. The coupon actually had ‘Spastics’ in big letters on it, and the term was the standard way to describe anyone with that condition.  
 

A similar usage was ‘cripple’ to describe anyone with a physical disability, and could be used with no intention of causing offence.  Offence with such terms was predicated on context.

Edited May 3, 2020 by The Johnster

[Colin]

Yes, I remember the Spastics pools! I also remember seeing little stickers next to the postage stamp on Christmas card envelopes with a small picture of a child and the legend “Help Spastics” or similar. Presumably they were sold by a charity for the disabled. (The Spastics Society? Rings a bell)

It’s perhaps unfortunate that the word became nothing more than an offensive term, but IMHO it’s best forgotten now.

The last time I saw the word “cripple” used other than in a derogatory manner was in a recent copy of Steam World (cripple siding, of course a perfectly legitimate railway term).

[Philou]

Izal so non-absorbent, that your ar$e ended up with the colour and shine of a conker - or so I'm told. WE had the best off-cuts of the South Wales Echo that made your ar$e black and shiny!

 

I'm glad that girls (and women) are generally accepted on an equal footing.

 

Talking of bookies, when I first started in Bud Morgan's, one Saturday, Grand National day, I was told to go to the bookies and place a bet on three horses. Mr Williams gave me a folded piece of paper and a 10 bob note and quite seriously said that I had better read the names just before I got there - yes I fell for that one! 'Hoof-Hearted' 'Sheaf-Hearted' and 'Ice Smelter'.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited May 3, 2020 by Philou

[Philou]

I forgot to add that over here it's only in the last couple of years that the French have realised that there are people with disabilities in France (not seen and certainly not heard). To make the point (in their best whiney voice) they have recently asked Europe 'Oh puleeeese can we puleeeese have extra time to fulfill all our obligations to person with disabilities, oh puleeeese'. For goodness sake, the UK had implemented the Disability Discrimination Act (the DDA) well prior to 2011 when I finally retired.

 

For those that don't know: The DDA, amongst other things, was to ensure that access to all public spaces was made to all people with a disability. I know in the railway world there is still a lot do regarding access to platforms or even getting across from one platform to another. Over here, very many shops still have a step at the threshold, for example.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited May 3, 2020 by Philou

[jjb1970]

I am always amazed that so many diversity initiatives exclude the disabled. I asked one of the professional institutes of which I am a member what they were doing to open up marine engineering and the maritime sector when I got all sorts of stuff about a campaign on gender diversity. The answer was nothing, it's not their priority. Now you may say that disabled people can't go to sea or become marine engineers because it involves hard physical work. Well, no. Firstly it depends on the nature of the disability, secondly there are hundreds of roles in marine engineering which are open to those with physical impairments. In Lloyd's Register I was a design approval surveyor and in rules development and physical impairment would be a non-issue. My current role would have no issues with reasonable adjustment.  I even offered to take up the challenge myself but to no avail. I found it hugely disappointing.  I fully support efforts to encourage ladies into maritime, but whereas there are now a lot of women in the industry I still find disabled persons to be very very rare.

Edited May 3, 2020 by jjb1970

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Colin said:

Presumably they were sold by a charity for the disabled. (The Spastics Society? Rings a bell)

 

That's "Scope" now, with the way the word had become derogatory they changed their name (in 1994 according to Wikipedia).

[J. S. Bach]

12 hours ago, Fenman said:

Thinking back to 50s and 60s food, Saturday lunch was always sausages boiled in a pan with a couple of large onions; mashed potato; and a tin of marrowfat peas “for colour”.  Paul

For me it was potato salad & New England style oyster stew. Later, fried beef kidney was sometimes had instead of the stew. Why? Because Mother would cut up a raw kidney for the cat and one day I asked wheat it tasted like.

 

"You will not like it."

"Please, let me try a little"

"Oh, alright."

 

She cooked a little up and from then on the cat was out of luck, to this day fried beef kidney is a favorite. Sorry, kitty!

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by J. S. Bach