According to the late Terry Pratchett (whose Discworld anecdotes were much better researched than many realize) white dog poo was regarded as 'squishy white diamonds' for its value to tanners who used it for tanning the finest leathers like kid for ladies gloves.
I miss being interested in new stuff: turning the radio/TV on and being curious about a new song, a new movie, a new book, a new game, my football team, something...
I miss being interested in new stuff: turning the radio/TV on and being curious about a new song, a new movie, a new book, a new game, my football team, something...
I simply don't care about most stuff nowadays
Yeah i'm kind of like that, not sure if it's my age or due to recent personal problem (which are starting to resurface) :(
According to the late Terry Pratchett (whose Discworld anecdotes were much better researched than many realize) white dog poo was regarded as 'squishy white diamonds' for its value to tanners who used it for tanning the finest leathers like kid for ladies gloves.
Yukk! That was in dodger I think. I'm all for fine glace leather..but yukk...saying that..you can't get that quality of leather for decades. This modern stuff is rubbish. I buy vintage items and the softness and shine and quality is far superioriorior. 1980s was the last time you got that. vintage gloves are difficult to obtain..because they are usually made for tiny wee hands ladies used to have. The last ones I bought on line from Edwardian era are so small that none of my female friends could get them on and some of them have what I call tiny little trotters. People really were tiny in them days. Hmm..more leather..more gloves..more white dog poo needed!
Sunday night at 10pm show on ITV was always good (Clive James, Spitting Image, The New Statesman). Would almost cover the doom of school on Monday. Nothing has ever replicated that Sunday night dread of school the next day.
Saturday morning TV. Nothing started the weekend better that some cartoons then Swap Shop, Saturday Superstore or Tiswas.
Excitement of going to the newsagents and getting your weekly/monthly mag. Shout out to Crash magazine, early 1984 to late 1986, and Roy of the Rovers 1981 to 1988.
Anticipation of an episode of something really good, like The Young Ones or Friday Night Live on C4.
Snow in the winter.
Locking myself in for the weekend and playing a game solidly. Champ Manager 01 and Tomb Raider were the last ones.
I think being "young" or "old" are in fact two sides of the same coin.
The important is to (try to) keep the ability of doing the same things, regardless of age.
I know how this sounds, but I believe there isn't much of mystery to achieve it: surround yourself of people you care about/care about you and of the things you cherish and bring you good memories.
Call it "mind over matter" or something else but that's a power we all possess and can do wonders when dealing with time going by.
Lie ins - the best lie ins ever are when you're a teenager.
Long summer evenings out playing with my pals at the local stream building dams or just wandering around.
My 3 years in Ist Broxbourne Scout Troop - going camping with them each summer to Holland, Belgium, Wales places where you could chop down trees, build bridges and dam streams to make swimming pools, lots of exciting stuff.
Outward Bound course in Lochearnhead Scotland and Towyn, Wales. Took part in sections as observer but you might as well have been a participant! Freezing cold nights, wet day long hikes up mountainsides, bloody rugged going.
Exploring abandoned and forgotten WW2 sites on EastAnglian coast. Finding all sorts of stuff left lying to rot away in overgrown pillboxes/bunkers. Travelling through swampy marshlands by jumping from concrete block tank trap to tank trap.
Lots of pyrotechnical experiments - least said the better.
Exploring abandoned and forgotten WW2 sites on EastAnglian coast. Finding all sorts of stuff left lying to rot away in overgrown pillboxes/bunkers. Travelling through swampy marshlands by jumping from concrete block tank trap to tank trap.
That actually sounds quite interesting, sadly i live nowhere near East Anglia, i would do that now. Nearest i got to that was finding a field that used to have AA guns from WW2, the guns were gone but the structures that housed them was still there, it's a bloody housing estate now.
Exploring abandoned and forgotten WW2 sites on EastAnglian coast. Finding all sorts of stuff left lying to rot away in overgrown pillboxes/bunkers. Travelling through swampy marshlands by jumping from concrete block tank trap to tank trap.
Lots of pyrotechnical experiments - least said the better.
Anywhere near wells-next-the sea, Cley or Blakeney by any chance Mike?
Oh well..things I miss..I had two great periods of travelling the world..Been there, seen it, done it. For a while I felt like Alexander the great..for he wept when there was no more worlds to conquer..but now..everything seems just so..yesterday.
I miss the old days when everything seemed so much more innocent, and people were at least seemingly less guilless. Less cynicsm. Less defeatism. More fun. As much as I love technology..I kinda wish it wasnt so much so. Can you please stop time.
Oh well..things I miss..I had two great periods of travelling the world..Been there, seen it, done it. For a while I felt like Alexander the great..for he wept when there was no more worlds to conquer..but now..everything seems just so..yesterday.
I miss the old days when everything seemed so much more innocent, and people were at least seemingly less guilless. Less cynicsm. Less defeatism. More fun. As much as I love technology..I kinda wish it wasnt so much so. Can you please stop time.
"Old Days and wishing for less technology!?"
Then you'd have loved it when I was young. TV with only 2 channels, hardly any one had a telephone so you had to go find a public one and hope it worked and not used as a urinal, we had outside pizz-pots,gas street lamps which illuminated nothing, up at six every morning to light the sodding coal fire (which today some people find romantic for some strange reason) and choking in the street from the bloody smoke they spewed out, not to mention half a dozen or so killer diseases now thankfully eradicated, I could go on but don't fancy the doing the full rant.
Suffice to say give me what we have today any day, far superior in every way. Unlike a lot of my generation who have this romanticised of former times I have absolutely no desire to visit the past.
I would suggest that because you are still relatively young your past wasn't that much different from your today only now it's slightly more polished with a few more bells and whistles. I too have lived through the time period you refer to and frankly don't see a great deal of difference between then and now be it in people or things.
Just my opinion nothing more and no offence intended. :)
Anywhere near wells-next-the sea, Cley or Blakeney by any chance Mike?
Nope. I roamed the sea shore from Dunwich to Sizewell and Westleton heathland which still had land mines that the occasional rabbit or flung stone would set off. Very rare but it happened.
What you said to Aelita much the same for me. 2 channels, 405 line transmission TV. Didnt have the outside bog cos I would guess you were a townie? I'd guess maybe Manchester? Did have gas lamps in a few places cos of local gasworks but most were replaced by 53.
Mum had an AGA and guess whose job it was to trek 60 feet down to the coal bunkers in the back twice a day with a coke hod in each hand AND fill the AGA and take out the ashes to dump into holes in the unmade back lane that gave access to the rear of the garden.
We lived in a suburb of North London, Broxbourne, Herts (well it is now, then it was still almost country) Dad was a businessman import/export mainly big civil engineering stuff like trains, dams, cable cars etc. so he had to have a telephone.
By and large I agree with you though because I did some time in Manchester, industrial terrace houses outside bogs but the smoke was worse in London especially East End, I remember smogs you could barely see a few feet, breathe through a hanky it turned dark green/black from pollution. Not all that often but often enough.
Aelita i honestly have to say that people were pretty grim and not that friendly, after all there was still some rationing, Mum had to queue up with me at the council offices to get issued horrible cod liver oil and orange juice concentrate. Our area was relatively affluent compared to some but miserable people dont make good company. A thick ear was as likely as a smile.
It got better pretty quickly - remember "You've never had it so good!" - Macmillan so by 58 everything seemed much better, I still remember war victims, shell shocked alkies hanging out at bombed out areas, tramps soliciting for pennies sleeping under peoples hedges till they got nabbed by the cops. A lot of stuff that most have forgotten or never saw, lucky them.
Then you'd have loved it when I was young. TV with only 2 channels, hardly any one had a telephone so you had to go find a public one and hope it worked and not used as a urinal, we had outside pizz-pots,gas street lamps which illuminated nothing, up at six every morning to light the sodding coal fire (which today some people find romantic for some strange reason) and choking in the street from the bloody smoke they spewed out, not to mention half a dozen or so killer diseases now thankfully eradicated, I could go on but don't fancy the doing the full rant.
I would suggest that because you are still relatively young your past wasn't that much different from your today only now it's slightly more polished with a few more bells and whistles. I too have lived through the time period you refer to and frankly don't see a great deal of difference between then and now be it in people or things.
Just my opinion nothing more and no offence intended. :)
I concur with your last statement but what I find refreshing these days is that ,unlike my generation who were supposed to be deferential to all things official and agreeable to all government utterances, to-days youth question things more, not just accept the official line and fight back when pushed hence the Greta Thunbergs et al.
Thanks for your reminisces Mike and yes a townie who loved that bloody orange juice.
By the way you forgot to mention National Dried . :))
No Aga for us sadly just the old black leaded range and hard as it is to believe the last gas lamps in my district were there till 72. Most of the area was converted to mercury vapour lamps then sodium lamps in the mid/late 60's but this little oasis was slotted for compulsory purchase slum clearance so had to make do with the old gas mantles till demolition.
I like the phrase you used by the way " Did some time in Manchester" You make it sound as if being sent north was the equivalent of being sent to Van Diemen's land. :))
Sorry Mike the whisky is kicking in and I'm getting a bit squiffy. :D
ZX1 real eggs were very hard to come by, almost impossible during the war and so powdered eggs from America were used for recipes like baking where you had to have eggs. Powdered eggs though have great evil potential. Scatter some around the outside of a home of someone you hate and just wait for the awful smell to develop and see them try to work out where its coming from!
We kept chickens to combat the egg problem and Mum stored them in a big wide earthenware bowl containing isinglass which you mix with water to preserve the eggs.
Moggy remember the Co-op? I liked collecting those weird metal tokens you got like coupons, trouble was that most of the Co-op stuff was pretty crap. I lived in Buxworth for a while and the Whaley Bridge Co-op was where we went for stuff like clothing, curtains, bedding and furniture.
I've seen the Industrial North/Midlands at its worst, worked for Ferodo's in Chapel en le Frith where the air is thick with asbestos dust. Villages full of unemployed miners with no hope except the dole - talk about grim.
Oh more things I miss
Horse drawn coal and milk delivery.
Horse drawn rag and bone cart with the man calling out "Any old iron or lumber?"
Sweet shops that sold real sweets like vicious peppermint sticks, bulls eyes, humbugs, aniseed balls.
Mongers - nobody 'mongs' any more. Ironmonger, fishmonger, coalmonger .
Powdered egg is still available believe it or not and makes bloody lovely scrambled egg(I think Sainsbury may still do it I last got it years ago from Morrisons).
I don't think it was American I'm almost sure Magnus Pyke had something to do with it as he was part of the ministry of food at the time and seem to recall an interview he gave mentioning it and according to wiki wotsit it's a British invention.
Yup the Co-op was and still is crap and expensive but you did have the "divvy" (dividend) a nominal amount that you earned with each purchase and could redeem at a later date and there are still old duffers who will walk past an Aldi or Asda to buy things at an overpriced Co-op because that's what their parents did and they don't have the wit to think for themselves.
You mention sweets etc, Liquorice root was our weapon of choice or "Spanish" as it was know locally. Many hours spent chewing a dirt covered root but it did taste nice!
I spent some of my younger days delivering sheet steel with my late father around Sheffield and Rotherham to long forgotten companies such as J J Habershons and Arthur Lee's and can agree about the grim working conditions you recall.
Surely TV has always had 3 channels? But coal fires. The smell of the first smoke. A bowl of tomato soup, and toasting bread on the open fire with my dad. Happy days. Let's forget you froze or roasted if you moved an inch, the newspaper to light it going on fire inside the room, the trek to get more coal in the cold, and whatever the hell that foul beast was that could live at the bottom of the bunker in the deepest black and wet of winter!
Surely TV has always had 3 channels? But coal fires. The smell of the first smoke. A bowl of tomato soup, and toasting bread on the open fire with my dad. Happy days. Let's forget you froze or roasted if you moved an inch, the newspaper to light it going on fire inside the room, the trek to get more coal in the cold, and whatever the hell that foul beast was that could live at the bottom of the bunker in the deepest black and wet of winter!
British TV started with just the one channel BBC about 1950 then ITV not long after.
BBC 2 came mid 60's then colour TV shortly after that.
Nor did it run all day as it shut down in the afternoon then restarted about teatime till about 10.30pm (depending on the region) and when it shut down the national anthem was played (BBC only I seem to recall) and a lot of silly buggers would stand up and salute the Queen!
As for coal fires forget it horrible dirty smelly sulphur ridden bronchitis causing smoke everywhere and if you were toasting bread it wasn't on a coal fire more likely a COKE fuelled fire which is a different beast altogether being all bright embers and such like, trust me you would not eat toast done on a coal fire.
Sorry no romantic notions from me God bless the Saint of central heating Amen.
Does anyone remember coin operated electricity meters? My Gran had one right up till the mid 90's. You'd be sitting and suddenly the power would go out and you'd have to put a 50p in the meter to get the power back on.
Surely TV has always had 3 channels? But coal fires. The smell of the first smoke. A bowl of tomato soup, and toasting bread on the open fire with my dad. Happy days. Let's forget you froze or roasted if you moved an inch, the newspaper to light it going on fire inside the room, the trek to get more coal in the cold, and whatever the hell that foul beast was that could live at the bottom of the bunker in the deepest black and wet of winter!
British TV started with just the one channel BBC about 1950 then ITV not long after.
BBC 2 came mid 60's then colour TV shortly after that.
Nor did it run all day as it shut down in the afternoon then restarted about teatime till about 10.30pm and when it shut down the national anthem was played(BBC only I seem to recall) and a lot of silly buggers would stand up and salute the Queen!
I remember my late mother telling me about when she was a kid in the 50's, my grand parents brought their first TV. Before they would switch it on in the evenings they would have to tidy and clean up in the living room because my grand parents believed the people on TV could see into the living room.
Does anyone remember coin operated electricity meters? My Gran had one right up till the mid 90's. You'd be sitting and suddenly the power would go out and you'd have to put a 50p in the meter to get the power back on.
"Mayday, mayday, mayday..." *CLUNK*
"...the meter! I need a shilling for the meter!"
Or words to that effect. When I discovered the Bank of England's inflation calculator circa February last year, I was intrigued about when a shilling had the same purchasing power as a pound would do now (or, rather, 2018, as last year's records would reveal). The answer: 1964, give or take a few months. Tony Hancock's "Radio Ham" was made for TV in 1960 and re-recorded for audio-only in 1961, so it was approximately equivalent of him having to put a 12-sided pound in the meter round about now.
Comments
https://mb.boardhost.com/BikerMike/index.html?1593001131
I simply don't care about most stuff nowadays
Yeah i'm kind of like that, not sure if it's my age or due to recent personal problem (which are starting to resurface) :(
Hmm, let's see...
I miss watching The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Brilliant musical scores for a cartoon.
Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future.
Computer CGI looked... well, computer CGI!
The voice of Soaron (I kind of liked him).
And Highlander, the TV series with Adrian Paul.
CRT TV's with rounded edge screen.
Cars with digital dashboards and speech synthesizers.
LCD calculator wrist watches.
Arcade saloons.
Going back every summer holiday with family to the same location and finding everything is still the same.
Staying in the sun for hours not being concerned with my skin health.
Not to have to go the doctor.
Driving for fun.
Not being worried about climate changes.
Enjoy a good night's sleep.
Dream a pleasant dream.
The excitement of holding a girl by the hand.
Time going by slowly.
Yukk! That was in dodger I think. I'm all for fine glace leather..but yukk...saying that..you can't get that quality of leather for decades. This modern stuff is rubbish. I buy vintage items and the softness and shine and quality is far superioriorior. 1980s was the last time you got that. vintage gloves are difficult to obtain..because they are usually made for tiny wee hands ladies used to have. The last ones I bought on line from Edwardian era are so small that none of my female friends could get them on and some of them have what I call tiny little trotters. People really were tiny in them days. Hmm..more leather..more gloves..more white dog poo needed!
Saturday morning TV. Nothing started the weekend better that some cartoons then Swap Shop, Saturday Superstore or Tiswas.
Excitement of going to the newsagents and getting your weekly/monthly mag. Shout out to Crash magazine, early 1984 to late 1986, and Roy of the Rovers 1981 to 1988.
Anticipation of an episode of something really good, like The Young Ones or Friday Night Live on C4.
Snow in the winter.
Locking myself in for the weekend and playing a game solidly. Champ Manager 01 and Tomb Raider were the last ones.
Just being young and having no (real) worries...
The important is to (try to) keep the ability of doing the same things, regardless of age.
I know how this sounds, but I believe there isn't much of mystery to achieve it: surround yourself of people you care about/care about you and of the things you cherish and bring you good memories.
Call it "mind over matter" or something else but that's a power we all possess and can do wonders when dealing with time going by.
Long summer evenings out playing with my pals at the local stream building dams or just wandering around.
Outward Bound course in Lochearnhead Scotland and Towyn, Wales. Took part in sections as observer but you might as well have been a participant! Freezing cold nights, wet day long hikes up mountainsides, bloody rugged going.
Exploring abandoned and forgotten WW2 sites on EastAnglian coast. Finding all sorts of stuff left lying to rot away in overgrown pillboxes/bunkers. Travelling through swampy marshlands by jumping from concrete block tank trap to tank trap.
Lots of pyrotechnical experiments - least said the better.
https://mb.boardhost.com/BikerMike/index.html?1593001131
That actually sounds quite interesting, sadly i live nowhere near East Anglia, i would do that now. Nearest i got to that was finding a field that used to have AA guns from WW2, the guns were gone but the structures that housed them was still there, it's a bloody housing estate now.
Anywhere near wells-next-the sea, Cley or Blakeney by any chance Mike?
I miss the old days when everything seemed so much more innocent, and people were at least seemingly less guilless. Less cynicsm. Less defeatism. More fun. As much as I love technology..I kinda wish it wasnt so much so. Can you please stop time.
"Old Days and wishing for less technology!?"
Then you'd have loved it when I was young. TV with only 2 channels, hardly any one had a telephone so you had to go find a public one and hope it worked and not used as a urinal, we had outside pizz-pots,gas street lamps which illuminated nothing, up at six every morning to light the sodding coal fire (which today some people find romantic for some strange reason) and choking in the street from the bloody smoke they spewed out, not to mention half a dozen or so killer diseases now thankfully eradicated, I could go on but don't fancy the doing the full rant.
Suffice to say give me what we have today any day, far superior in every way. Unlike a lot of my generation who have this romanticised of former times I have absolutely no desire to visit the past.
I would suggest that because you are still relatively young your past wasn't that much different from your today only now it's slightly more polished with a few more bells and whistles. I too have lived through the time period you refer to and frankly don't see a great deal of difference between then and now be it in people or things.
Just my opinion nothing more and no offence intended. :)
Nope. I roamed the sea shore from Dunwich to Sizewell and Westleton heathland which still had land mines that the occasional rabbit or flung stone would set off. Very rare but it happened.
What you said to Aelita much the same for me. 2 channels, 405 line transmission TV. Didnt have the outside bog cos I would guess you were a townie? I'd guess maybe Manchester? Did have gas lamps in a few places cos of local gasworks but most were replaced by 53.
Mum had an AGA and guess whose job it was to trek 60 feet down to the coal bunkers in the back twice a day with a coke hod in each hand AND fill the AGA and take out the ashes to dump into holes in the unmade back lane that gave access to the rear of the garden.
We lived in a suburb of North London, Broxbourne, Herts (well it is now, then it was still almost country) Dad was a businessman import/export mainly big civil engineering stuff like trains, dams, cable cars etc. so he had to have a telephone.
By and large I agree with you though because I did some time in Manchester, industrial terrace houses outside bogs but the smoke was worse in London especially East End, I remember smogs you could barely see a few feet, breathe through a hanky it turned dark green/black from pollution. Not all that often but often enough.
Aelita i honestly have to say that people were pretty grim and not that friendly, after all there was still some rationing, Mum had to queue up with me at the council offices to get issued horrible cod liver oil and orange juice concentrate. Our area was relatively affluent compared to some but miserable people dont make good company. A thick ear was as likely as a smile.
It got better pretty quickly - remember "You've never had it so good!" - Macmillan so by 58 everything seemed much better, I still remember war victims, shell shocked alkies hanging out at bombed out areas, tramps soliciting for pennies sleeping under peoples hedges till they got nabbed by the cops. A lot of stuff that most have forgotten or never saw, lucky them.
https://mb.boardhost.com/BikerMike/index.html?1593001131
Hah..rant away.
I concur with your last statement but what I find refreshing these days is that ,unlike my generation who were supposed to be deferential to all things official and agreeable to all government utterances, to-days youth question things more, not just accept the official line and fight back when pushed hence the Greta Thunbergs et al.
@Mike
Not Lancashire Sir I'm a Yorkie!!
Thanks for your reminisces Mike and yes a townie who loved that bloody orange juice.
By the way you forgot to mention National Dried . :))
No Aga for us sadly just the old black leaded range and hard as it is to believe the last gas lamps in my district were there till 72. Most of the area was converted to mercury vapour lamps then sodium lamps in the mid/late 60's but this little oasis was slotted for compulsory purchase slum clearance so had to make do with the old gas mantles till demolition.
I like the phrase you used by the way " Did some time in Manchester" You make it sound as if being sent north was the equivalent of being sent to Van Diemen's land. :))
Sorry Mike the whisky is kicking in and I'm getting a bit squiffy. :D
We kept chickens to combat the egg problem and Mum stored them in a big wide earthenware bowl containing isinglass which you mix with water to preserve the eggs.
Moggy remember the Co-op? I liked collecting those weird metal tokens you got like coupons, trouble was that most of the Co-op stuff was pretty crap. I lived in Buxworth for a while and the Whaley Bridge Co-op was where we went for stuff like clothing, curtains, bedding and furniture.
I've seen the Industrial North/Midlands at its worst, worked for Ferodo's in Chapel en le Frith where the air is thick with asbestos dust. Villages full of unemployed miners with no hope except the dole - talk about grim.
Oh more things I miss
Horse drawn coal and milk delivery.
Horse drawn rag and bone cart with the man calling out "Any old iron or lumber?"
Sweet shops that sold real sweets like vicious peppermint sticks, bulls eyes, humbugs, aniseed balls.
Mongers - nobody 'mongs' any more. Ironmonger, fishmonger, coalmonger .
https://mb.boardhost.com/BikerMike/index.html?1593001131
Powdered egg is still available believe it or not and makes bloody lovely scrambled egg(I think Sainsbury may still do it I last got it years ago from Morrisons).
I don't think it was American I'm almost sure Magnus Pyke had something to do with it as he was part of the ministry of food at the time and seem to recall an interview he gave mentioning it and according to wiki wotsit it's a British invention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powdered_eggs
@Mike
Yup the Co-op was and still is crap and expensive but you did have the "divvy" (dividend) a nominal amount that you earned with each purchase and could redeem at a later date and there are still old duffers who will walk past an Aldi or Asda to buy things at an overpriced Co-op because that's what their parents did and they don't have the wit to think for themselves.
You mention sweets etc, Liquorice root was our weapon of choice or "Spanish" as it was know locally. Many hours spent chewing a dirt covered root but it did taste nice!
I spent some of my younger days delivering sheet steel with my late father around Sheffield and Rotherham to long forgotten companies such as J J Habershons and Arthur Lee's and can agree about the grim working conditions you recall.
British TV started with just the one channel BBC about 1950 then ITV not long after.
BBC 2 came mid 60's then colour TV shortly after that.
Nor did it run all day as it shut down in the afternoon then restarted about teatime till about 10.30pm (depending on the region) and when it shut down the national anthem was played (BBC only I seem to recall) and a lot of silly buggers would stand up and salute the Queen!
As for coal fires forget it horrible dirty smelly sulphur ridden bronchitis causing smoke everywhere and if you were toasting bread it wasn't on a coal fire more likely a COKE fuelled fire which is a different beast altogether being all bright embers and such like, trust me you would not eat toast done on a coal fire.
Sorry no romantic notions from me God bless the Saint of central heating Amen.
I remember my late mother telling me about when she was a kid in the 50's, my grand parents brought their first TV. Before they would switch it on in the evenings they would have to tidy and clean up in the living room because my grand parents believed the people on TV could see into the living room.
"...the meter! I need a shilling for the meter!"
Or words to that effect. When I discovered the Bank of England's inflation calculator circa February last year, I was intrigued about when a shilling had the same purchasing power as a pound would do now (or, rather, 2018, as last year's records would reveal). The answer: 1964, give or take a few months. Tony Hancock's "Radio Ham" was made for TV in 1960 and re-recorded for audio-only in 1961, so it was approximately equivalent of him having to put a 12-sided pound in the meter round about now.
Aren't you glad you knew that?