Remember when...

[dunk]

esso tiger tails, the bullet holes in window stickers,

 

[TAITSIE]

luxury we had a poss tub and a dean gas boiler

Burco boiler and a mangle

 

[Kent]

Remember when you could leave your neighbour a brace of rabbits or Birds on their back door knob and they might say thanks when they next saw you. These days most neighbours should phone the Police if you did that sort of thing

 

[Benthosboy]

I remember getting the phone in our house.

My Mum and Dad's first phone was on a party line. Try explaining to the mobile device toting "yoof" of today that if you heard people talking when you picked the receiver up, you had to put it back down and try again later!

And to make it worse, we "shared" the line with two lesbians who lived down the road from us. Imagine the effect that had on the imagination of a pubescent schoolboy in the mid mid 1970's .


If anybody in their early 50's wants a fabulous "all our yesterday's" type read, look out for a book called "Where did it all go right?", written by Andrew Collins. Like many of us, he kept diaries as a kid. More importantly, he saved them. As a kid, he had a normal childhood, no "owzaboutthatthen" or "jer wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang" shenanigans. No skellingtons in the cupboards, no weird relatives, just normal. He described what happened at school, what was on telly at night, school,holidays, the music of the time, cars that his Dad drove, etc. Being almost the same age as me, just shy of 51, I remember every detail as if it were me. Brilliant read, recommend it to anyone.

And what about watching "Voyage to the bottom of the sea" on telly, starring Richard Baseheart? We used to have to switch the telly on about 10 minutes before it started to get a head of steam up .

Brilliant thread chaps, you've made a happy man very old .

 

[brightspark]

My Mum and Dad's first phone was on a party line. Try explaining to the mobile device toting "yoof" of today that if you heard people talking when you picked the receiver up, you had to put it back down and try again later!

And to make it worse, we "shared" the line with two lesbians who lived down the road from us. Imagine the effect that had on the imagination of a pubescent schoolboy in the mid mid 1970's .


If anybody in their early 50's wants a fabulous "all our yesterday's" type read, look out for a book called "Where did it all go right?", written by Andrew Collins. Like many of us, he kept diaries as a kid. More importantly, he saved them. As a kid, he had a normal childhood, no "owzaboutthatthen" or "jer wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang" shenanigans. No skellingtons in the cupboards, no weird relatives, just normal. He described what happened at school, what was on telly at night, school,holidays, the music of the time, cars that his Dad drove, etc. Being almost the same age as me, just shy of 51, I remember every detail as if it were me. Brilliant read, recommend it to anyone.

And what about watching "Voyage to the bottom of the sea" on telly, starring Richard Baseheart? We used to have to switch the telly on about 10 minutes before it started to get a head of steam up .

Brilliant thread chaps, you've made a happy man very old .

iv watched voyage to the bottom of the sea last week on sky the best bit is where there getting blasted with depth charges and they all run from one side of the sub to the other but never fall over and theres allways something to grab hold off

 

[oddbob]

Your first Dansette record player (well, it was really my sister's, but she couldn't stop me hijacking it!)

 

[brightspark]

Your first Dansette record player (well, it was really my sister's, but she couldn't stop me hijacking it!)

bet u wish u still had it there fetching a fortune

 

[Benthosboy]

My Dad had the kind of mates you want. One worked at a dairy near us, and in those days, leftovers didn't go in the skip. Friday nights saw our house full of cream cakes and fresh trifles, along with sacks of powdered milk and barrels of liquid sugar. Another of his mates worked at the local coking plant. We were never cold in winter! The next-door neighbour worked at an abattoir, so we also had a lot of fresh meat .

iv watched voyage to the bottom of the sea last week on sky the best bit is where there getting blasted with depth charges and they all run from one side of the sub to the other but never fall over and theres allways something to grab hold off

They regularly had giant squid get hold of the sub, and got rid of them by electrifying the outside . Those were the days!

 

[oddbob]

bet u wish u still had it there fetching a fortune

Old record players/gramophones had a certain, distinctive smell about them ...they still have it if you find them in junk shops now.

 

[CRB]

And pink paraffin I've got a badge somewhere

I have a keyring hiding in the garage......somewhere, probably next to the Shell car coins.

 

[Cobbler]

You couldn't sell pink paraffin today could you, not politically correct. Reading about the 2 Woodbine screw, someone I knew reckoned when he was in his teens there was a girl that would do it for an apple. The only thing was you would be halfway through & all of a sudden you would hear chomp, chomp as she started munching the apple.

 

[roofman]

Sundays back then and no shops anywhere open and the roads were deserted...My mam used to take us "window shopping" to show us what we could,nt have...the days before every shop had roller shutters on the fronts. Iff you never went to the pub you had to buy at the off sales,a little counter stuck at the end of the bar with a window hatch to the outside. My p1sshead oldman used to make me run up there with 2 empty milk bottles and i had to get back before they went flat or i would get flat with the hairy side of his hand

 

[octo0072000]

still got the mains portable version of the dansette in the loft

i have a Aladdin paraffin wick trimmer in the shed along with a primus paraffin pressure stove and 2 primus or tilly paraffin pressure lamps

this kind of stove
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/PRIMUS-No...361?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item487bfc3079

lamps similar to these

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tilley-X2...519?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item487c1aa5f7

 

[500e]

Hover keymatic just beginers before that the twin tub

and in 1948

 

[Robotstar5]

I have a keyring hiding in the garage......somewhere, probably next to the Shell car coins.

Due to my dad working as a forecourt attendant at a Shell garage I used have the full sets of all the coins in the proper card mounts probably worth a few bob today.

 

[Wallace]

Spud guns. Once they become boring you realise the slug they take out of a spud fits nicely in a .177 air pistol and makes Richard Hall yelp when shot in the thigh.

 

[brightspark]

Spud guns. Once they become boring you realise the slug they take out of a spud fits nicely in a .177 air pistol and makes Richard Hall yelp when shot in the thigh.

i had an apprentice and found a 1.77 air rifle in the vicars cupboard where we were working. i put some blue tac in it and shot him on the legs he showed me a blood blister the next day it seemed funny at the time . but ive never forgot it and wished i never did it probably just get sacked if u did it now now

 

[brewdexta]

every few months we would get a new second hand radiogram to replace the old one which was basically the same but in a different sideboard sized cupboard. They all had a Garrard turntable and were usually tuned to radio Luxenbourg for some reason. The proximity of vinyl records and a cocktail cabinet can only make sense. Putting it next to the prow of a boat bar is a step too far and it is highly likely that whisky and vodka based miniatures have already been replaced by tea or water.....

 

[brightspark]

radio lucky luxenbourgh them were the days. the signal used to fade in and out on am on a night . then was radio caroline . and then there was radio one thats crap now

 

[Keith 66]

This brings me to pirate radio, Listening to Radio Caroline on an ancient Pye Transistor radio, under the bedclothes in the early 70's. I was just surfing the dial & caught Tom Anderson Carolines best DJ & he played Kashmir by Led Zep. Blew me away & i listened to Caroline for years after. When the Mi amigo sank on the Long sand head i listened to it all as it happened & on the BBC news we saw the radio mast sticking out of the sea as they played Caroline by the fortunes. I am not ashamed to say that i cried. In 1983 they restarted on the Ross Revenge one saturday afternoon & me & a bunch of mates sat outside the Half Crown in Benfleet with a radio & listened to it with joy in our hearts. We got royally ******! Still tune into the old Girl online once in a while.