Reading through so many posts in the Wirral History section brings back so many happy memories of childhood, but I am thinking....were things really better back then or was it just because we were children and didn't know all the evil in the world? We had no internet or mobile phones to google things, plus you never watched the news anyway because it was boring. Once the magic roundabout was over you didn't wait to watch Robert Dougal reading the news.
People who were old when we were kids would talk of the good old days and say things were better back in their day.
Is it our memory that makes us think things were better and also what will todays children say when they're in their 40's and 50's about how their life was back in the 2000's?

im a 70s and 80s kid and it was great! Bmx,computers vhs recorders and other stuff lol.

personally speaking i lived in birkenhead in the 50s and couldnt have had a better childhood.we had nothing so when christmas and birthdays came along it was special,even though we didnt get much.the problem these days is they get everything therefore things are just expected.i have a few dinky items and look at them with happy memories,what will todays kids do,look at old laptops and old mobiles.

Hi, thinking back to when i was young, now 76, i remember going to Thompsons Mission, and on leaving received a penny bun, at 14 worked in Birkenhead Market on a Saturday, my pay was Half a Crown, at 16 started an Apprenticeship, 46 hours a week, pay first year was nine pence farthing an hour, completed the time in 1956 on one shilling and two pence an hour, petrol was 4 shillings a gallon, then went up to 5 shillings because of the Suez Crisis, i don't think times were better.

i was a kid of the 70s teenager of the 80s and it was better back then, ie i never knew what a paedo was i was just told not to take sweets from a stranger which i accepted and didnt question so i had nothing to worry about as a kid, it was my parents that shouldered any worry unlike todays kids they know too much/grow up too fast so it shortens their childhood

I think it's selective memory. I was battered as a child and we never had owt to eat. My dad was always in the pub though. Back then that was considered normal. I never knew I was a battered kid when I was young, cos we all got the same. It was good back then, but today is a lot better

Short answer is yes, i think it was better, i cant go back as far as my childhood was in the 80's and early 90's. although the general living was probably worse and there where probably more people living in "poverty", the was generally a better neighborhood feeling, i never heard of anyone getting found beaten to a pulp etc for being in the wrong place, i grew up in egremont / seacombe way but i think that these days youths really have something to worry about. I used to get up and go out at 8am in school holidays and come home at as late as 9 10 at night, i would go to central park and all over. never had any issues... i think kids would have issues these days.

Personally, I think things were much better in the fifties and sixties. People looked after each other. You knew who your neighbours were by their first names. You could borrow a cup of sugar or a pint of milk if you were short without fear of being looked down on. You lent the same in return. Kids got clipped round the ear by the bobby (who's name you knew!!) The worst thing the bobby could say to you was "I'll tell your Dad!! Kids played outside and got fit. Money was tight, but you had each other. Teachers wore suits and ties and we stood up when they came into class. You got caned if you behaved like an arse. Parents supported teachers as long as they didn't overstep the mark. Going to New Brighton on a Sunday with the family was an adventure-especially if you came from Liverpool on the ferry (which cost buttons!!) People laughed a lot more. Yep. I'm glad I was young then. Jobs were plentiful and, although money was tight, you could go out on a Friday night with ten shillings (50p) and come back with change after a night at the pictures or a danc hall. I'd hate to be a youngster growing up now. Most of 'em are like zombies permanently attention-glued to some technostuff like an ipod or an MP3 player or a mobile phone. I think all newborn babies will have earplugs already fitted soon!! Kids txt now instead of speaking to each other. Facebook has become an animal where diseased people feel the need to tell the world useless information like "I'm in the pub" or "I'm having a poo on the loo" Aldous Huxley was right. It's a brave new world, isn't it? Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

Its all down to respect phil, and being nice to one another as well.And you find some nasty poeple thease days.
and probally would be nice in thease days as you say.
thanks for sharing this with us xx

In some ways it was better. You more or less knew the price of everything and it didn't fluctuate (go up) as prices do now. I can remember the outcry if the price of beer fags or a loaf went up by a hapenny.

We certainly knew how to amuse ourselves without the benefit of television and spent most of our time running the streets playing games and not vandalising all and sundry. We were fitter and I don't remember too many fat kids. We ate everything and anything because we had nowt and would have gone hungry if we didn't. No one said salt, fat, or any of the other "hazards" were bad for us. We even smeared dripping on our butties because as we oldies know Cholestoral wasn't invented then.

Bad things: Sundays especially in the winter were dire. Only the occasional shop open and that was limited by what it could sell. Most families would have the wireless on listening to the most mind numbing rubbish such as sing something simple. I bet there are a few on here who could give you the whole schedule for a Sunday still. Sunday school for those unfortunates amongst us so mum and dad could do their thing in peace.

Money extremely tight although being from New Brighton there was always a way of getting a few pennies either from the arcades, down grids or under the pier. If you were lucky enough to find a ten bob note which I did once then your mum took it off you because she needed it more.

Living conditions were pretty poor in a lot of households with outside toilets and most with no bath apart from a tin one. In the depths of winter ice formed on the inside of the windows and quite a lot of us had overcoat "eiderdowns" (quilts to the young).

Toilet paper was the Echo or if really unlucky Izal (sp?) which was originally a torture device used by the Japanese on our POW's. I might be stretching the truth there but you know what I mean!

Going on a bit sorry. I could write a book but so could most of us who were born in that era. Happy days? Sometimes!

Good stuff everyone.
Yes, everything seemed fine, looking back, I'm sure my parents
had their problems ( which they kept from me ). My Dad had his vices ( don't we all ) But as he said many times "I'm a good man" and yes he was. Looking back I had a great childhood in NB. I miss it very much. But when I read what's
happening in my home town and country I am not very proud any more. I wish I could.

Oh dear, another rambling one...

I was born in '73 in St Caths. My first significant memories of Birkenhead were of the Silver Jubilee street parties of 1977, when I won a Pound note in the fancy dress competition, dressed as a bumble-bee.

Yes, even then in the late '70s/early '80s everyone still knew everyone else in the street and helped each other out. As a kid, I used to get shopping in for elderly neighbours etc.. I'll never forget when I was eventually told the sad news, "You don't need to go around to Mrs Poselthwaite's any more. She's fell off her perch". Things have changed a lot since then.

I remember a friend and I quite rightly getting told off by a policeman for playing with an abandoned shopping trolley. This was in the "temporary" car park between Grange Road and Borough Road, where the Pyramids shopping centre now stands. We were very young at the time, but I'm sure there were more bobbies on the beat back then!

I remember the day when a mate showed me the bins at the back of "Toy and Hobby" were they used to throw out loads of toys that had some minor fault, or perhaps just couldn't sell. We used to go there and see what we could find.

I used to get 25p a week pocket money back around 1980 or so, which was enough for two chocolate bars and you could get Mojo sweets for half a penny each with the change. Thing was although I was only about 7 years old, I could walk in to the shop and buy "20 three fives" (cigarettes) for my dad and it was completely legal and normal back then to do that. Also remember the big tins of "Party Seven" beer everyone used to buy at Christmas or New Year, although I was too young to drink at the time!

The buses were generally better then with more routes that don't exist today. Like in Birkenhead, you could get a direct bus to Parkgate and also a direct bus from Woodchurch Road (the town end) to New Brighton (the 11 or the 12) My dad sometimes used to take us there after work on long summer evenings and we would tie a mussel to a string and fish for crabs in the marine lake. Also remember the loads of buses along that road at the the back of the arcades in New Brighton, pratically a huge line of buses, the place was pretty bustling even then. (And more arcades back then too). Used to love playing the video games like Pole Position for 10p.

Bus fare to school in Rock Ferry was 5p when I started and 9p by the time I left. Although, one good thing though was after deregulation of the buses (26th October 1986), you could for the first time get a bus directly to Liverpool without having to change onto a train or ferry. Before then, getting to Liverpool used to take longer for many people, using public transport. Likewise going to Chester, I remember having to change on to the diesel train at Rock Ferry. But the good (or bad) thing was that kids could use the trains all day on a 30p Saveway without needing adult supervision.

Of course also remember the great classic local radio programs like Hold yer Plums and "Tune tonic" with Monty Lister. We always seemed to have the radio on on Sundays back then.

I also remember the Overchurch woods before the bypass was put in. (It's near where my nan lived).

I wouldn't say violence or anti-social behaviour didn't exist back then, it certainly did. Coming home from school, I was once punched so hard in the face (totally unrpovoked) walking through Victoria Park by a schoolkid, my face was bruised for weeks. Also I vaguely remember the fires of nearby petrol stations (top of street and bottom of street) during the unrest of summer 1981. Football hooliganism was also pretty bad. We were threatened by hooligans who were going to throw our suitcases out of the train window coming back from Butlins around 1981 IIRC. So have things got worse? Possibly, but it there's always been good and bad everywhere IMHO.

I had since lived down south for some years in the '90s and I still do very much like to travel around the country quite a bit. Whilst there are many places that are far more interseting e.g. London, I still feel very happy to live on the Wirral for the time being, but even in my time (and I'm only 38 now) it has changed so much. Just like the rest of the UK I suppose.

And you just don't get Val Doonican on the TV anymore.

Ha!! I used to think that "Sing Something Simple" was the Irish National Anthem!! (you could tell jokes like that in those days without being pilloried as a racist!!)

Hmmm. Nostalgia is certainly not what it used to be.

I became a teenager in the early 70s and can say quite indubitably that things were seriously grim in those days round Birkenhead.

We had scallies in those days but they were known as boneheads, bootboys, hooligans, or yobbos back then. Typical fashion for a young lad was a cardboard stiff denim Wrangler jacket, voluminous polyester trousers worn at half mast, and a shirt worn with the collar over the top of the jacket. Footwear was either bright red Dr Marten's boots or worse, platform shoes. To set off this classy ensemble, a football scarf was often worn tied around the wrist.

We also had paedophiles back then but they were called child molesters. Worryingly, Gary Glitter was enormously popular with the nation's children and Stefan Kiszco was disgracefully convicted for a crime he was later proven not to have committed.

Politically, the ineffective governments of Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, and Jim Callaghan led to the election of Margaret Thatcher. The unions held the country to ransom and power cuts were not uncommon. This was not because we didn't pay our bills but because the power workers went on strike and cut off the electric supply. Call this a recession ? More like a tea party if you ask me.

Musically, it was a great time if you were into northern soul, prog, heavy rock, reggae, or punk. Sadly the most popular band of this time was The Bay City Rollers; a talentless five piece who were heart-throbs for the girls. As a general rule we regarded Queen, Abba, and Elton John as naff music for our parents.

I was quite bright at junior school but neither I nor any of my friends were invited to sit the 11-plus and were thus deprived of any chance of a grammar school education. Bullying was rife in the comprehensives and the bullied were just expected to keep their heads down or fight their own corner.

In all fairness, I was never offered drugs and didn't know anyone who used them. Getting off one's head would involve a can or two of Woodpecker cider and ten Consulate cigarettes.

Everywhere seemed to have graffiti on it (WEBB, NEBB etc) and the council didn't come along and jet wash it off the next day.

In the style of the four Yorkshire men I shall finish by saying "try telling that to the young people today and they won't believe you".

I also remember renting our first VHS video recorder back in 1984. Virtually everyone else had one by then, we were quite late getting one.

The exictement of buying our first 2-hour blank tape for £8 from Martin Dawes (Probably about £20 in today's money). We'd gone over it that many times, practically wore the tape out. Funny thing is we now have loads of channels and crisp clear digital recording technology at our fingertips, yet I generally don't bother watching TV nowadays. Back then, everyone seemed to watch all the same programmes, due to the fewer number of channels and everyone talked about them at school. You'd probably feel left out if you hadn't watched "The Young Ones" the night before or if you hadn't seen the latest "red triangle" film on Channel 4.

And my dad sometimes used to rent poor quality copied tapes of Star Wars, Indiana Jones etc.. for £1 from the back of a van.

Dad (with pint glass in hand):- Adjust the tracking on that video Paul, it's not very clear.

Me: It's a pirated worn-out tape the tracking's not going to fix it.

Also we used to go down to the film club at the gas works at Hind Street where they used to have a movie projector and show films on two or three reels with a break between each reel. Happy times.

I consider myself part of a "blessed" generation. Things were simpler then, no doubt. Kids played together and the older ones ruled the roost but you worked out your place in the scheme of things and got on with it. I got battered a few times myself but it was part of the learning process, at least you didn't get a hiding just so someone could take a bloody phone off you. In school you knew exactly where you stood, the bottom of the pile, the teacher's word was law. No if's, no and's, no but's.
You could usually get some pop, a lolly ice or a toffee apple, to brighten your day, a bit of sherbert or packet of plain crisps. A stick of liquorice was a bit of a treat, as was a gob stopper which changed colours as you sucked it through the bands. People spoke to you on the street and Charlie Pepper was the only paedo you knew about, which didn't stop the gang from winding him up. Thompson's Mission for a treat and a sing-song. Games of kick the can, the alleyo, or leg it to the park, Bidston Hill, Seacombe, Moreton Shore. I could go on all night, it was brilliant and not a care in the world. Even the teens was better, no muggings, stabbings and what have you. I feel sorry for the kids nowadays to be honest, except for the little gits what cause bovver of course, they can go and swing.

sing something simple! now that brings back memories! my dad have that on the radio--'wireless'! every sunday night, then sunday night at the london palladium on the tele, bath and bed for school next day!! yes i grew up in the 50s/60s,they were the best times, everything was so simple and straight forward then, normal toys for christmas like--paint box's,colouring books, annuals, i even got a 'film star book' once!table tennis sets, skittles,toy phones--we did'nt have real ones! now look at what kids get! give them something like we got and they would look at you as if you were soft!!

What about Radio Luxembourg, 208 mtrs, medium wave, with Dick Barton, Riders of the Range and pop records of the time sung by real singers (I'm going to get told off there). Everything just seemed so laid back in comparison to the mad rush, must have everything now attitude.

oh yeah--radio luxemburg, used to listen to that under the bedclothes when i should of been asleep! listening to the beatles! one christmas i got my very own first radio,i was over the moon!!! it was only a tiny thing but it was mine!!!did'nt have ear phones so turned it down low and held it to my ear!!we were easy to please were'nt we!!

spot on bandy,50s no leccy,matchbox boats in the gutter,street football,alleys and bollies,broken fish and batter for tea on friday paid for with echos and birkenhead newses,swing park on camden street,smells in the old market,dinkies ,watching footy on the cinder pitch in the park where the goalies had a dimp when the ball was up the other end,going over the street to dennies to pay the rent and getting a reject yacht,the floating bridge,the wireless,great school cathcart street,walking round the pitch at the rovers at half time selling sweets,cowies in the rocks,the arno.all these and many,many other great memories.today,computers,mobiles,thats about it.

remember also the joy at the end of rationing and going in the corner shop whith a whole 3penny bit and not needing sweet coupons.

'Sing Something Simple' was one of the longest running radio shows in the world. Cliff Adams, the man behind the show, also composed the music for many classic telly ads of the 60's and 70's - like Fry's Turkish Delight and Cadbury's Smash! Compilations of the radio show's songs sold millions. Let's face it, the Cliff Adams Singers were doing musical medleys and 'mash ups' long before the likes of Glee.

And never mind MP3's and ipods. We listened to the radio via a rented Rediffusion telly! Listening to the Top Forty countdown on a Sunday evening before 'Sing Something Simple' started was always a must for me. I don't have a clue who's in the charts nowadays. It's not the same anymore without Top of the Pops, or the Sunday teatime countdown.

Does anyone remember that sherbert stuff that used go go Pop in your mouth? Wierdest feeling ever. It was called "Space Dust" or summat. I almost died once after eating it when I swallowed my cheeks!! :-)

You can still get it. Ever given it to a dog???

and the sherbit you used to dip a wet finger in and your finger turned yellow!!!

If you where posh and there was a TV in the house during the early part of the 50s there was the Black and White Minstrel show every week

...and Radio Luxembourg with Horace Batchelor trying to sell you his formula for winning the pools - If it was that good how come he didn't just do it himself ?

Bob

You mean Horace Bachelor.......from Keynsham.........Bristol!! (Note the pauses!! :-)

I once got 8 draws on the pools-and won £2.78p cos there were 23 draws on the pools that week. (It was in the days before no-score draws counted too!!) Bah!! Still laughing at giving space dust to a dog!! hilarious. Never thought of that!! (here, Rover!!)

Horace Batchelor's "Ifradraw Method"

"Keynsham, that's K E Y N S H A M, Bristol"

The guy didn't need to spell it out, as it was on almost every advert break and therefore ingrained deeply into the swede. Every kid in the 50's/60's knew how to spell it AND where it was.

Thanks for the memory jolt 8HBob !

Educating Archie...listening to a ventriloquist on the radio!!

Apparently there was a husband and wife team who used to do conjuring and mind reading.(On the radio) I never heard them but my dad used to talk about them and how marvelous they were!!!!

Also on the radio, Lesley Welch - The Memory Man. What a memory for random facts and figures he had!

Black and White Minstrel show----used to watch that too!

Radio again...'Journey into Space'. Frightened the life out of me at the time (the power of imagination). I got a CD of all the episodes not long ago - not as frightening this time round. Still excellent listening even after all these years.

Birkenhead Park was definitely better, you could see the ducks' feet as they were swimming, the fish going under the bridges, the pike stalking anything that moved. There were even water voles in the banks, we used to call them water rats, and shame to say, used to throw stuff at them. You could get a lolly at the kiosk if you was lucky enough to have a penny. Sergeant Woodcock was on your case if you did anything wrong,you weren't allowed over the railings for instance. People lived in the Lodges at the Park Entrance and the other lodges. It was just a great place to go as a kid.

When we did eventually get to see him on the TV we couldn't believe how bad he was. You could clearly see his lips moving. He was so poor he used to partially cover his mouth when Archie was "talking".

It was better in the 'good old days'. Late 60's early 70's you didn't need an NVQ level 2 in Retail and Customer Care to work in a shop, nor a degree to work in a bank. If you didn't like the job you had, you could walk out on a Friday and have a new job on the Monday, doing something completely different. My first job payed £9.10.0d a week (£9.50p). We could afford to go out Friday or Sat nights, usually to the Beachcomber or the Drift Inn in Liverpool,wearing mink eyelashes made by 'Eyelure', which were so thick and heavy we couldn't keep our eyes open to see where we were going. Maybe have something new to wear, a new pair of shoes cost 29.11d (£1.50). The morning after the night before we looked pretty horrible, so would put a flower or something in our hair and our Mary Quant style PVC coats which were freezing and pretend we were from the'flower power' brigade. Such drama queens. We didn't ask our parents for money, we didn't need to and wouldn't have got it anyway and we paid our keep (unlike my three).
Everything was much happier but maybe that transferred from our parents as I suppose they were happy to be leading a normal life again and counted their blessings after the war and rationing etc.had all finished, Everything aeemed to be on the up and no worries. A far cry from today.

Aye, the government messed that up eh granma?

I don't know Ste. Things change alot. I got fed up and went travelling at the end of 1971, one way or another until 1975, coming back in between trips but of all the places I went to, I can honestly say good old England was the best. The road networks, health facilities, the humour and all,even down to the rain. Had enough rain now tho'.

an old radio show Workers Playtime,late 40s early 50s, think it was done in works during lunch time. WILFRED PICKLES and his saying was give him the money Maybel, or some think like that. anyone as old as me may well remember it.

You are right with Wilfred Pickles and "Give 'em the money Mabel", but I think that show was "Have a Go". Didn't Mabel give them Half a Crown ? Worker's Playtime was a separate show from canteens at factories etc. in the war and the post war years. Tommy Handley (??) "Can I do you now Sir ??") etc.

There again, is that from something else. My brain hurts!

Pinz, your right about Wilfred Pickles's show been called Have a Go. It may have been seperate from the show called workers playtime. But if so it was also done at workers canteens and such. During the build of the second Ark Royal at Lairds, he came and did a Have a Go show at the yard. I know this due to my dads brother was one of the workmen on the show. If you feel like been Sherlock Homes and MP Bert1 he may tell you the connection in all this with me.

You're right about Tommy Handley, Pinz. The show was I.T.M.A.
It's That Man Again. "Can I do you now, sir?" was the cleaning lady, Mrs. Mopp.

Do you remember 'The Goon Show' Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Harry Seacombe and Michael Bentine.

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Goons/_/The+Ying+Tong+Song

Completely mad but hilarious if you could understand what they were on about.

It was "Have a Go". With Mabel at the Table and Harry Hudson at the piano...

Thanks Colgo. I'd quite forgotten the "Mabel at the table" phrase. Wilfred Pickles stood out from the usual folk on the beeb in those days. Receieved pronounciation/correct English was the order of the day then. A broad Yorkshireman with "ee by gum" etc. must have ruffled a few feathers in the BBC's hierarchy !

I've enjoyed reading and following this thread and there has been some excellent contributions, the only thing now is I've formed the opinion the most of you are barking mad. I would not give up my present day lifestyle, living or working conditions to return to what it was like years ago.

Don't worry you lot, they can treat you with pills now, no need to zap you with a thousand volts via the brain.

Hey Bert, Wakey wakey. Ner ner ner ner ner. Name that show. Easy peasy one that.

While I don't miss a lot of it, certainly Sundays with all that stuff on the wireless makes me think of my mums dinner on the go and her baking for hours. Wish I had paid more attention to what she did and the ingredients.

I still think that cow pies from Starbucks (Golden Teapot) New Brighton were the best in the world. One shilling. Bargain!

There's the nub bert. Got to square the circle somehow, yesteryear's innocence coupled with todays conveniences, if only. Certainly couldn't do without the central heating, the tele, the car etc. but would be nice to not see all the nastiness that goes on as well eh? One of the funny ones to me now is seeing my generation getting all their pills out and comparing treatments over a pint. I don't think half of us would've lasted this long without the mod cons.

Aahh---but back then there were more jobs around,i can remember leaving one job on a friday and starting in another the following monday--can't do that today! also---you did'nt need NVQs for this that and the other, you learnt on the job!!
and a job was for life,not like now were your lucky to get any kind of work cos there are 100s after one job!!

More jobs or less people to fill them, women staying at home bringing up children kind of thing, there was certainly more false teeth, all the adults close to me when i was a child had them, full sets, I grew up thinking it was compulsory to have all ones teeth out by the age of 40. I also grew up thinking the only thing that killed females was this incredible disease called Woman's Trouble, shudder the thought of anyone mentioning the real names for these problems.
Bandy mentioned there wasn't the nastiness, as kids I think we were protected from it, like a lot of things we are suppose to protect children from, that's a great sadness, they know to much to quick now.

Was it Hughie Green on "Take Your Pick" with the Yes/No interlude in it?
What was the name of the talents type of show and the well-known
acts that came out of it (was it Hughie Green again in it?)

Micheal Miles, Take your Pick and Opportunity Knocks with Hughie.

The teeth thing was definitely funny, one minute its the piano keyboard, one black, one white, one missing and the next they're all grinning like Shergar. Then they decided they couldn't get on with the top set so left them out in the house and put them in to go out, and that's on top of them working loose when they laughed too much or as they were trying to knock a song out. Eye popping stuff for us kids then.

my granddad never had a tooth in his head! how he managed to eat meat i don't know but he did! i remember my nan had an old set lying around and he put them in!! OMG!he looked awful,he looked like a horse!lol, old skinflint he was he wouldn't of dreamt of buying his own!!!!!!!

Ha ha ! the teeth thing reminds me of my old nan, she used to have 2 pairs of teeth- 1 for eatin an they looked like a row of bus stops!dont know how she managed it but she did ,she ate all kinds pigs feet,tripe,pigs tails, all sorts, sittin there gnawin away on them!
And then her 'goin out teeth' which she kept in tisssue in her handbag! looked like red rum in them! she d say "Ay arold go n get me bag am off out.. !

You lot on this page are hilarious! Best laugh for a long time.

It's your quiz inquisitor, Michael Miles-with Bob Danvers-Walker banging the gong on the "Yes-No" interlude!! Anyone remember that? Was what that? Yes? BOING!!!

It's your quiz inquisitor, Michael Miles-with Bob Danvers-Walker banging the gong on the "Yes-No" interlude!! Anyone remember that? Was what that? Yes? BOING!!!

...and then of course..... The Goon Show !!!

"He's fallen in the water"


Loved fighting over the skin on the rice pudding

Bert 1 mentioned the women been at home bringing up the kids, yes we where brought up. We had to be in bed early so as to get up for school next morning., not like these days young kids running round the streets till all hours of the night. AN OLD RADIO PROGRAMME weekday evenings at 6-45pm for 15 minuets, had to be ready for bed or was not allowed to listen to it. Who out there remembers it { DICK BARTON special agent and his side kick jock or snowy i think}Can hear the signature tune in the back of my head as i write this

The Billy Cotton Band Show, WAKEY, WAKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!
Victor Sylvester and His Dance Band
Joseph Locke
Joe Loss and his dance band (saw him live at the Hammersmith Palais)

Yes, I remember Dick Barton and Jock and Snowy, his sidekicks. The tune was "The Devil's Gallop".

went to see have a go joe in liverpool think it was 1955,the pianist was violet carson a.k.a.ena sharples,corry st.

oh wow, all these memories coming back-----i remember going to the Liverpool Empire to see Scott Walker and the Paper Dolls--anyone remember them? i was 16 at the time, was'nt really keen on Scott Walker but just wanted to say i'd been to see someone famouse!! i liked the Paper Dolls tho, what did they sing?----something here in my heart wasn't it??

http://youtu.be/X2WplU1jihQ
here it is on youtube-----

Does anyone remember that rude musical 'Hair' which was on at the Empire? It was called "digusting" by the parents who hadn't seen it! (Quite remarkable really as a copy of the Titbits was usually hiding in a cupboard somewhere). That was a night to remember. Some chap landed me one on my nose, for a remark someone else made.
His girl was black and blue so I suppose she was glad it was me and not her! Good show tho' or it was then.

I remember two of the cast of hair-one a black girl and one a white girl, coming on with their periods in the middle of Act 2. They were horrified-but the entrepreneur in the stalls shouted "Wow, look at that-the Black & White menstrual flow!!"

Very good.

For the ladies amongst us. What about the knitted dresses that were all the rage? With enormous knitting needles and thick wool, you could knit a dress in a day. Start on Saturday morning and be out in it on Saturday night.They stretched so much, we went out in a mini dress and came home in a maxi a few hours later. I don't think any of them got as far as their first wash.

This site is beginning to annoy me as I am not getting any housework done. On that thought, yes it was better.Housework wasn't on our agenda back then..

love this topic xx

Firemanfil touched on something that strangely enough is still logged in my memory banks, I have this childhood memory of the nearest shop to where we lived having a shelf behind the counter full of unmarked brown paper bundles, about the size of a small box of washing powder. I can remember seeing young children carrying these bundles through the streets, I can remember accompanying my older sister on a purchasing mission to get one of these bundles.What seemed strange at the time was these items couldn't be bought without handing a sealed envelope to the shopkeeper first, only after the shopkeeper read the contents of the envelope was the bundles and monies transferred. If I didn't know better now I would think it was an early form and very amateuristic form of drug dealing. It was however the sale of Dr Whites sanitary towels, now they are displayed on the tele every 5 minutes, with wings.

Housework was certainly harder back then. I think we'd be lost without our time-saving gadgets now.

Do people still do their doorsteps and window-sills with donkey-stones? (What was all that about anyway?!!)

Can you still buy 'Vim' and 'Ajax' for cleaning the bath?

Remember the elaborate pully systems and racks for hanging your washing to dry indoors ...or did you just take a risk and put things on the back of a chair and stick it in front of the fire?!!

Back again. Ah yes, so true, just emptied the dish washer.
We didn't have a clothes pulley but they have gone full circle and everyone wants one now. Less fortunate we were with plenty on singed clothes. By the time you smelt that distinctive smell from the area where the blazing coal fire was soaring up the chimney, it was too late, yet again!
In the winter when icicles would be inside and outside the windows. You could scratch the frost off the panes of glass and write messages like "I hate boys".
Dad would get out his parafin heaters. I am sure they must have been the cause of many a house fire they were so unstable if you knocked into one.One night in that very cold winter of 60 something,he set one up for my great aunty who was 80 yrs old and bedridden and lived a few doors away. We, as a family went off to the pictures. When we got home mum and I went t see if all was well with my aunty. Oh dear! Something had gone wrong with the thing and her whole house was black. Upstairs, downstairs and she, poor soul, was lying in bed, black. Her white hair was black her nostrils were black, everything. It took weeks to clean. She had to be shipped out to her sons and before she got back the tank in the loft burst!

All good clean fun eh granny! My folks had an Aladdin paraffin heater in the hall that was supposed to heat the upstairs rooms! Oh yeh ?? The whole house had that whiff of paraffin which maybe gave the illusion of warmth.

It was no big deal to scratch a smal hole in the frost on the inside of the bedroom window to look out. It just "happened" in the winter didn't it!

When the fire was bright red, if you forgot to shut the damper, the back boiler would throw a wobbler and cough and fa*t. You then had to run off surplus (brown) scalding water out of the tap!

Mmmm. times have changed.

Oh Lord yes, many a rusty bath. Can you imagine this present generation getting into a bath full of rusty water?

What about the "Flit Gun" for the flies. We used to chase each other round the house spraying each other with DDT and now it is supposed to be dangerous. Failing that there were the fly papers with loads and loads of dead flies on them, especially in the greengrocers shops. Reminds me of the joke, "how much are your wasps mrs?", We don't sell wasps. "Well you've got 2 in the window."

Saw Bruce Forsyth at the Empire in panto during the fifties (very early sixties?). Bugger is still around and still just as annoying.

Yes, and look at the state of you now.

There's probably a lot of truth in that CK but I'm still here, like bloody Bruce Forsyth, now him I would've flit gunned.

Hardly see a fly now, what does that tell us?

Tells us that we don't see many flies, Bert.

Hitch Hiking. There was plenty of that going on in 60' and 70's.

1970 HITCH HIKERS GUIDE TO THE NORTH WEST.
WHAT NOT TO DO.
1)Don't get up on a Sunday morning in late September and decide to go hitch hiking to the Lake District that day
2)Don't set off at 3pm the same day in the pooring rain
3)Don't think you're doing well when you have arrived at Preston by 9.30pm
4)Don't get so wet that you need to get your clothes and boots dry before the laundrette closes at 10pm.
5)Don't go to the nearest pub at last orders to ask someone where you can pitch a tent for the night
6)Don't pretend you can see in the dark when all the lights are out and everyone is snug in bed ,take a torch it helps when pitching a tent.
7)Don't put yourself in a situation when you will hear "Stand By Your Beds"
the following morning when the tent flap flys open, and there in your face is a Bobby with one of those big hats.
8)Don't most definitely Don't burst out laughing when you are told to move because you have parked in someones back garden.
7)On arriving at your destination that same day Don't go swimming in Lake Windermere (no clothes) at midnight ...it's bloody cold.

The good old days eh!

What happened to carbolic soap? My gran was still using that in the 70'S.

Carbolic soap has been banned!!!! I kid you not. Ffs! Only recently, I tried to get some Lifebuoy Soap. The bog standard pink/red bars - not the poncy toilet soap stuff. No shop has it, so via Mr Google it transpired that the braindead of Brussels banned it a few years ago because it contained Phenols !!

Jeez, I and about 50 million other folk (at least) were washed and scrubbed with the stuff for years! Apart from a third ear under my left armpit and my mouth is now under my chin - it didn't do me any harm!!

DON'T get me going about the nanny state - just DON'T.

Oh, by the way. There is a site that claims to sell the stuff now. Don't be fooled. The stuff is made somewhere desparately foreign and of course it doesn't contain the original goodies. It's just lookalike poncy Lifebuoy "style" toilet soap and another thing.... if I remember rightly, it costs silly money!

Rant susended - for now.

lol

weve got big bellies !!!!!!!

Lol @ Pinz,down with the Brussels mob,i say!

I miss the smell,strange i know.

An ear under your armpit is a bonus i would have thought!

Off to google Phenols!!

Yes, I rather liked the smell too. I "think" it was the phenols that was in the disinfectant that they used to dampen the old platforms with, using a watering can, at Hamilton Square and James St. stations. Always remember that smell as a kid when you got out of the lifts or subway.

Oh dear, rambling again. It's obviously the effect of the phenols !!!!!!!!!

Another question,for the older generation.

Can you still buy hodge (spelling?) I had a strange craving for it a few weeks ago. I think its a stomache,not really sure,last time i had it was at my gran's almost 40 yrs ago.

Enter Bandy.

Went to Haworth some years back and they had a kind of retro shop there that sold carbolic soap. Came in long bars they had to cut so we bought a chunk for the novelty and the smell.

Some things that have disappeared in my life time.

Gas street lamps and the men who lit them.
Pig swill bins.
Decent coal shovels.
Coal men (well I don't see many).
Bread men.

Carry on!

Eeew yeah pig swill bins.
There's still a few coal men i see when in wales,and a few still left on the canals that keep us boaters warm through winter.

My mum was a bread woman in the 50's for the co-op and then sunblest.
Lots of memories of delivering in the snow,with snow chains on the wheels and a sledge full of bread.Having to make a fire in a steel tin underneath the diesel engines to get them started.
And trying to catch people in to pay their weekly bill!!

Rag and bone men
Tar bubbles
Silver topped milk bottles that the blue tits used to pierce and drink the milk from in the winter. I still get bottled milk but they don't do that anymore.If it was really cold the milk would freeze,expand and push the top off.

Horse pulled milk carts
There was never any horse muck around.Everyone would fly out of their doors trying to get there first and scoop it up for their roses.

Bubble cars (a bit later I think)
Great fun they looked, but were banned because they were too small and dangerous. Not much difference between some of the ones we have today. They were so light, people could pick them up and walk off with them.
There used to be a competition to see how many could get in one....and travel with them in! You'd see heads poking out of the top.

Kenneth Horne in 'Round the Horne' and 'Beyond our Ken'

Any more?

Haha tar bubbles,i can remember getting rubbed for hours with butter to remove said tar!

Pressing button "B" in the phonebox to see if you got any money.

You could still get hodge in St Johns over the water earlier in the year so can't see it disappearing. Liverpool dockers were known as "hodge eaters" but I used to have it as well. Boiled and soaked in vinegar, used to love it, a bit chewy and would now be called an aquired taste.
I still eat lambs fries, sweetbreads, oxtails, pigs feet, ham shanks, and any other stuff I can get hold of. I'll never starve.

Thanks Bandy,i used to spend every weekend and school hols at my grandparents,and they ate all sorts,and so did i.
I couldn't eat sweetbreads or lamb fries now,but still have roast oxtail and ham shanks,liver kidney's,and now hopefully hodge!

There was also a pigs head on the shopping list on a saturday,boiled i think to make brawn.

If you can get pig cheeks (they call it pork chap in Linconshire), it is very nice roasted, has a subtle flavour to it, luvverly.

The Brussels mob would have a field day in the kids' play area. How nobody was ever killed is beyond me. That bloody maypole swing where kids would swing around horizontally at 100mph. Standing with 'no hands' on top of the monkey bars. Seeing who could go the highest standing on the swings and coming head first down the chute. All of this on SOLID CONCRETE. Then there was the cinder pitch where the Lauries played. No problem there getting cut to ribbons.

Remember one of the Kierans played for Lawries and another played for Tranmere, both bloody good players, with the big boots and casies that you could use as cannon balls.
The Lawries played in green and white, a la Hibs and there was another team St Annes, played on grass further up the park, they played in red and black stripes. Used to get a good crowd at them matches, 3, 4, 5 deep around the pitch and the collection bucket for pennies going round at half time. The magic sponge and bucket with the trainer, whoopee!

Local (Wallasey) New Potatoes and Local Tomatoes. They were some of the best (tastiest) I've ever had!

John Willie Parker also played for them. He ended up, at inside left, along side Dave Hickson at Everton.

My dad was brought up in Wallasey and always said that the Cheshire potatoes where known as the best in the country.

I believe that the produce from Wallasey's Market Gardens, especially those along Leasowe Road, had a reputation for having a naturally saltier taste (possibly because it was grown so close to the sea). Tomatoes would have been grown in greenhouses, of course, but maybe salt water still got into the soil.

With regards to carbolic soap and dangerous detergents, back in the 1960's we used to have a bloke in Wallasey that went around on a milk-float type of cart selling his homemade bleach and cleaning products. He used to ask you to keep empty milk bottles and pop bottles for him to refill with his concoctions.

Gosh yes, I remember those bottle of bleach. There were bottles for all sorts but off hand can't remember what. Was parafin kept in a bottle?

Did anyone have their mouth washed out with soap? Hopefully not carbolic !!

There was a bleach called something like tontah? Also some kind of red liquid was sold but I haven't a clue what it was. You just didn't drink it.

Quite a lot of kids used to earn money by working at the market gardens, weeding hoeing etc. A lot seem to have disappeared over the years and that is a shame.

My father often came home from the pub with loads of shrimps wrapped in newspaper. Not these tiny tubs they sell now (or do they?). H&S would have a fit if you did that now. Great fun shelling them although you got a bit fed up after a while.

I remember the vivid colour of some of those bleaches. One in particular was the colour of pink medicine (and was twice as thick when you poured it!).

Not sure if he sold parafin as well. Think we got ours from a local hardware shop that also sold bags of 'Trend'.

The bleach guy was a middle-aged bloke with a Clarke Gable moustache, and he always wore what looked like a tatty lab coat. I'm pretty sure he made the stuff himself.

As I remember it, paraffin was kept in a tin can with a spout to make it easy to fill your lamp; held about half a gallon.
These cans were often sold by the ironmongers where you bought the paraffin and had their name on.

Yes, they do still sell them; quite a luxury item now, potted shrimps, very expensive. I sometimes buy them from my local fishmonger in the market here. I think you can still get them at Parkgate. I remember many times at Parkgate, buying shrimps in the shell and peeling and eating them while watching the cricket there.

Whatever happened to the Pop man? You used to get discount if you gave your used bottles back. My faves were sarsaparilla and Dandelion & Burdock. Yum.

I have just congratulated myself for spelling sarsaparilla correctly without using a dickshunnery!! :-)

Yum yum shrimps from parkgate,as you say luxury nowadays trying to find fresh unpeeled.

Talking about shellfish-did anyone hear about the prawn who went to a disco-and pulled a mussel!!

A good source of income for impoverished kids was collecting pop bottles on the shore and taking them back for the deposit. I can't think why we don't still have a deposit on bottles. Would cure a massive litter problem or wouldn't kids be bothered these days? Seems to work okay in other countries and keeps the tramps or hobo's in America going. Their beer cans even have the return value stamped on the lids. Recycling at its best!

I remember the Alpine van doing the rounds in the 70s.

Haha i lived right opposite R Whites depot in Birkenhead,lots of kids used to climb over the large gates and borrow empty pop bottle's and take them round to reanie's shop on cleveland st,10p a bottle, easy pocket money!!

We still get a 'pop man' who knocks, once a week.

Talking about Alpine-has anyone ever seen that van with "Alpine Erections" on it? I think the guy who named his company Alpine Erections (it's a scaffolding company or summat) was either daft or had a great sense of humour (or both!!)

Anyone remember the Provident -I think you borrowed an amount and paid it back by 20 weekly instalments + 1 extra week as their profit
Just got a letter (not asked for) in the post offering cash loans from £50- £500
representative 272.2% APR (Disgusting won't write what I think of them)

We had the Alpine van round our way as well. Quite nice pop, but I always prefered Cresta from the shops
...'It's frothy man'

Funny looking back just how many traders actually used to call on households rather than you go to them. Apart from the likes of the milkman; postman; paperboy; and coal deliveries; there was the Alpine van delivering pop around Wallasey; the bleach guy selling his cleaning stuff; the guy from Vernons Pools; the Rent Collector; the Insurance Man; and the leccy man who used to come round counting out all those shillings from your meter.

Hmmm...come to think of it maybe things are better now, because at least we don't get so many soddin' interruptions when we're trying to watch the telly!

I think that there was a similar system at " Sturlas" near the Old Market, firm round the corner was a large tool shop, opposite the market steps, can't remember the name.

We never had a telly 'til I was about ten. I used to go to my nan's to watch Mr Turnip with Humphrey Lestock, Tinga and Tucker with Auntie Jean, Hank the cowboy and Muffin the bloody Mule levitating three inches above the piano.
God! we were easily pleased.

All those and more Geekus.
The gas man came to empty the meter. Monday was always a shilling in the meter day to do the washing. Ironing Tuesday. The butcher used to deliver as did the greengrocer and the baker ..in fact we didn't really need to wear our shoe leather out.
Although my father was raised in Wallasey he worked in Liverpool so I have come from the 'other side'...... as we grew up there until 35years ago, and I wouldn't go back. My gran used to have 'pop' delivered, the best in the world. It was in bottles with those metal tight seal things on and a rubber stopper. Little fingers quite often got nipped when trying to open and close in secret.
Didn't have plastic bags either. No packaging, everything you bought was either in tissue or paper bags. Vegetable waste was wrapped in the old newspaper and put in the bin, bottles were collected, scraps went to 'Rover' down the road..best fed dogs then, don't know what we did with tins, and then the rag and bone man took any odds and sods. Why is it all so difficult now? What's more even I can remember there was a service which never faultered. Not many had telephones so no one complained, didn't need to.

Back in the 60's and 70's, during the school summer holidays they always used to have an hour or so of kids programmes on telly in the mornings (usually from 10am 'til about 11am). It was great but they used to show repeats of the same old black and white series summer after summer. You always knew that after watching The Banana Splits you'd either get an episode of 'Casey Jones'; 'Champion The Wonder Horse'; or 'Robinson Crusoe' (which was very badly dubbed!).

Great theme music though!

Ahh yes, Tingha & Tucker! But you've left out Willy Wombat

Granny, you forgot that everything that could be was burnt on the fire. Old shoes, lino, bits of timber father found and even potato peelings was burnt.

Television:- Andy Pandy, Rag Tag and Bobtail, Woodentops, Bill and Ben and I think the other one was Picture book? Used to close down at tea time and open again about seven.

You were all so lucky, we weren't allowed a tele in our house until we(the children) had finished taking our o'levels. My sister was five years older so she had just about left home before we got one. By then I was out all the time playing tennis so missed out on all this kids stuff. What a shame, that made us feel underprivelaged at school and therefore we should have had psychological damage ..but we didn't!

You are so right Helles. Memory lapse ....whoooops!

Does anyone remeber those tiny tins of Nescafe? It must have been quite a luxury, they weren't any bigger than a small tin of tuna now.
Tea..proper tea leaves not the dust in bags. Always tea in a china cup never a mug or as we called it then 'a beaker'. Don't know where that came from. If you didn't use a tea stainer the teapot would poor out a load of tea leaves which settled at the ottom of the cup and you had to be smart not to get a mouthful in the last sup.
The aunts would come around for a cuppa and then decide to read the tea leaves.We would all gather around the table and in a childs eyes, this grey whispy veil would descend upon over us. Aunty Edie and Aunty Lilly were the best. "Oh I can see a boot" Edie would say and we'd all move two inches closer trying to peep. "It's a mans boot".... "Can you see that Lilly?" "Yes" she would say. Then as her voice highered an octave in excitement "I can see a hat, look Lilly a hat and it's got a feather in it". "Look, look, LOOK LILLY LOOK"! "Yes I can see a hat with a feather in it" said Lilly. My mother's name was Pam and this was her cup. "Oh", said
Edie, "Pam you have got a lucky cup". They never read my cup and as a child I was seen and not heard usually because I'd have one of those gobstoppers in my mouth. Remember? They used to change colour as you sucked.Keep taking it out to see what colour it was, then shove it back until your jaw ached. Then leave it in a saucer for later,wash the sticky fingers and be marched off to the front room for the dreaded piano practice!
The old ducks were great. They could tell a few good stories too.

Talking about Sturla's there was also Rostance's in Exmouth Street did a similar thing, sold all kinds of materials and clothing, the whole area from Conway Street up the Charing Cross used to be buzzing with shops on either side all the way up and like folks said, financed by cheques from the Provi or Sturlas, can't remember if Rostances did them too. I got my first bike, paid for by myself from my paper round, from a bike shop in Exmouth Street, would be about where Seamus's is now.
Does anyone remember the steam driven lorries queuing for the docks and the horses and carts with the "'osses" on the nose bag as they waited?

you lived well granny with the little tins of nescafe,we got camp,just adapted to the taste,big dripping butties with salt on,yummee.used to get lites and melts off the old market for the dog,butcher always gave me free slice of corned beef for my nan,great days the 50s,no matter what bert says,lol

Cue "The 4 Yorkshiremen!!" lol.

the 4 yorkshiremen,me no understandy !!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eDaSvRO9xA

Corneed beef and Goblin Hamburgers in a tin...they were vile.

Can't remember us having coffee at home in the 50's. I used to go on errands for my aunty to get it from the corner shop. Gosh that was scary! It was Miss Wadsworth's shop and it had a tall counter which I didn't even reach the top of .
She was like a giant and would peer over the top with her white hair whih with was yellow, not blonde..yellow. It was that very strong white hair that sat on her head like a hat.It must have been nicotine as she had matching set of teeth and fingers- and a pair of glasses like bottle ends. Timidly and with knees knocking,I would ask for what I wanted and she would shout down at me "SPEAK UP GIRL, I CAN'T HEAR YOU"... she couldn't see me either! Then she'd slam down the coffee which I stretched to reach. Two more people in the shop by this time and the place was full. Panic to get out of the door and crack my head on it as it opened inwards. In sheer relief at getting out I would start to skip home in those clumping brown lace-up school shoes made by Clarkes...... mission complete but no pennies for going!

Does anyone remember the doctor's waiting rooms in the 50's ? I am sure the patients used to smoke in them and also the doctor's in their practice rooms! It may be a foggy memory, I don't know. They were sinister places!
And the dentist's waiting room........smell the ether! Dentist's..they still fill me full of fear.

One of my doctors used to ask if I smoked and when I admitted to it, he asked for one.

Strangely the system in those days seemed to work. One doctor, no receptionists, nurses etc and you just turned up and waited until it was your go. Can't remember if people smoked in the waiting room though.

Dentists were terrifying places and with good reason. The worst being the school butchers. That bloody awful mask they used to gas us with.

The only time we had coffee was when my mother bought some real stuff i.e. from a place like the coffee roast and she made it with milk in a pan somehow. It was very rare though. My nan always had Camp. Later on we would buy those little Nescafe sachets for about 2d each?

At least in the old doctor waiting rooms you waited an hour and got seen, now you make an appointment and still have to wait an hour to get seen. What's that all about?
In Exmouth St there was another shop O'Kells, got reminded of it last night.
What about getting the stick at school too, hold your hand out straight to the side, "Straighen it and get your thumb out of the way" you were told and then thwack, three on each hand. The thing was not to yell or cry but it didn't half sting. Usually for next to nothing as well.

oh yeah---the clothes pulley,we had one of those in the kitchen,and i have one now! would'nt be without it,gets the clothes dry just as well as a tumble dryer and you don't use up your electric like with a tumble dryer!!
ice on the windows---remember that too! had some lovely patterns didn't we!!! oh and the coal fires! got more heat from them than these gas and electric ones now! i remember the council putting central heating into our house and there was a flue at the back of the fire which mum had to clean out with a brush on a wire, and i seem to remember you had to light the fire to get hot water and for the radiators to get hot!! but we were posh--we had an immersion heater as well!lol----how easy it is now---instant hot water,gas central heating-----still get condensation on the windows tho,but no ice-----how 'did' we manage without??

Talking about local shops and children running errands reminds me how you used to be able to go into your corner shop and buy things "loose", like asking for just one Oxo cube from a box, or just a couple of Woodbines from a pack! Mind you, if you were skint, I seem to remember some cigarettes were sold in packs as small as five in those days anyway. And funny, isn't it, how perfectly happy most shop keepers were to sell things like cigarettes to children. I'm sure that most people would agree that our stricter controls on selling products like cigarettes now, has been a change for the better.

As Helles says, you could also buy individual sachets of coffee but not so many people seemed to drink coffee at home, not like now anyhow.

used to love sundays listening to the wireless, round the horne, the jimmy clitheroe show, the hit parade 'til 7pm then aaaarghhhh
SING SOMETHING SIMPLE

Bet you can still remember many of the songs though!

Like - "My mommy said not to put beans in my ears"

http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/folk-song-lyrics/Beans_in_My_Ears.htm

BBC Radio7 or Radio 4+ I think the names change, tuck in and enjoy or
http://goons.fabcat.org

not wrong there geekus, in fact, listening to rik stone on 7waves radio 92.1 ,sundays between 12 and 3, brings back loads of memories.

nostalgia aint what it used to be

on the subject of been able to buy things loose from the shops. who remember how biscuits where sold loose from large tins. there where always a certain amount of biscuits got broken and you could go into the shop and ask for a bag of broken biscuits which where weighed and sold to you at a lot less that the full price of biscuits.
Then at the chipy as a kid you could ask for any batter and the bits of batter that had come off the fish was put in newspaper and given to you for FREE.

your all making me jealous, my childhood was the 80's i can remember the golden goose, were the mad building is now opposite the chelsea.

i used to also catch weavers out of the old marine lake were only stones remain, there was a little pipe that they used to come out of and we would catch them with crabbing line

Ah, yes, batter bits. Used to get them with my 2d. worth of chips at the chippy on Church Rd. near the top of Downham Rd. on my way back from choir practice at St. Cath's.

Sorry to butt in but we couldn't do this in the 50's and 60's. Just unbelievable really.

http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/Ear...;ew=West&alt=985&img=learth.evif

Now we can go all around the world in our armchairs.

"Continue" as the teachers used to say.

broken biscuits----i remember them in big tins, or did the tins look big cos i was small!! and chips were 6d a portion
back then a chippy tea was a cheap meal, i bought chips yesterday and they were £1.10p! incase the younger ones don't know 6d is 2/1/2p now!
and your chips were wrapped in newspaper, we used to take our old newspapers to the chippy.
who remembers taking the pop bottles back to the shop and getting 3d back on them?
in years to come what will the kids of today reminise about! unemployment,riots,drinking in the parks,hanging around street corners?????

Yep, how is it we all remember that chips were 6d a portion? Because the price stayed the same for donkey's years. Everything stayed the same price, that's why we can quote prices and our parents could manage the housekeeping so well. No wonder the youngsters are suffering from depression these days, they just can't get out of that hole. God love them.

Just had a thought..... Elizabeth is keeping very quiet! Conspicuous by her absence but probably keeping her eye on this thread.
Are you out there Elizabeth.... or are you writing a book or a film?
If so, it's hoped you put all our names in the credit section for contributions. Only joking. How are you ?

talking about pop bottles..

i cleared a shed out for a freind last week and there was a box of old pop bottles with lids showing returns of 2p and 10p, came to the value of £1.24 pence worth. Quite a bit then , wouldnt have minded finding them when i was a kid !

"Cresta" and "Barr" were the makers

Perhaps Elizabeth in her quest to find out if it really was better, ripped up her wall to wall carpeting , ripped out her double glazing and central heating, took to doing her daily ablutions outside in a draughty brick building and has now taken to her sick bed suffering from Polio, small pox and TB, not to worry, she can save up and get the doctor to call.

things like that promoted recycling, not sure if they do stuff like that anymore as all seems to be plastic bottles now!

We used to be able to get a four of chips i.e. 4d. 6d was a much bigger bag and you only got them if flush. As I remember it, 4d was plenty.

Biscuit tins with glass lids so you could see the biscuits inside. Butter being patted in the Maypole. Bacon sliced to order. Cheese coming in massive (can't think what to call them) chunks and cut to size with a cheese wire. Sugar weighed in little blue bags. Fascinating stuff but as Bert says, wouldn't want to go back. I remember polio, TB etc but thankfully steered clear of them.

The overhead wire cash system in the co-op. Money paid goes into a metal pot, onto the carrier and hurtled down the wire to a central cash desk. Came wizzing back with your change and divi ticket.

A couple of stores in Grange Road has the pneumatic tube system. Fascinating as a kid.

Quite forgotten about those thick blue paper bags for the sugar Helles. Thanks.

Lovely! It was all fresh food I think. The bacon wasn't full of water either.

I can also remember those overhead wire cash systems Pinzgauer. They had them in Woolworth's. A real fascination watching the woman in the cash desk high up dealing with it.

I suppose we all remember the 'Bobbies' on the beat. The bike would be leant up against a neighbours hedge whilst he went off on his rounds.No doubt back for a cuppa and homemade cake later. He didn't always go to the same house tho' so maybe different treats in different places!
All of a sudden it seemed that didn't happen anymore and we'd see 'Bobbies' on Vester scooters. I don't know if that was progress, or for the more serious stuff! It all semmed relatively quiet where we lived, it probably was in most places then.

Talking about fish and chips meal being so cheap. I was taken for lunch the other day and I had two pieces of grilled Snapper about the size of the palm of your hand, two pieces of Brocolini(skinny brocoli)three mushroom heads and some olives cut in half. That cost $AUD42.70 which is about GBP27.70. Any sides salad, chips etc were an extra $10.50 about GBP6.83. Glad I wasn't paying. Bring back the good old days

Good grief! I just came back to this thread and saw how many replies there are....I had no idea the question "was it really better" would stir up sooo many memories for folk I wasn't planning on writing a book, but what a good idea Granny, there's certainly enough material to go on here!

hahahaha bert1, no I haven't ripped up the carpet nor central heating in my quest to see if it was better because I remember how it was without them! From what I can gather from the replies I may not be not as 'mature'( I'm trying to be polite here:)) as some folk who responded.
I was born in 1962 at home in Hawthorne Rd Hr Tranmere the last house on the left if you're coming down from Greenway Rd. Our kitchen had a pulley which always had some washing drying on it. There was a coke burning stove in the kitchen which would make the water so hot you could hear it bubbling and gurgling in the pipes, and as someone mentioned before, would make the water browny orange it was so hot, we never seemed to run out of hot water though. Our bedrooms were so cold we'd be able to see our breath.
We had Watch with Mother ( Andy Pandy, the woodentops, camberwick green, trumpton and later on Mary Mungo & Midge etc etc ) all of which were so entertaining and not a politically correct or educational subliminal message amongst them, yet we all knew what was right and wrong because our parents told us and more importantly we did as we were told.
We didn't know about sex as children other than maybe reading some article in your mother's "SHE" magazine which was very tame...in fact I was so naive ( at around age 8) about the whole sex thing that I once wore a pair of my dad's pyjama pants and was terrified I'd become pregnant because all I knew was a mans bottom and a lady's bottom had to touch and that could make a baby Unlike today's kids who can reel off a whole list of such explicit vulgarity it makes your hair curl.
We only had pop at birthday parties which would be bright green cream Soda and fizzy corona orange.
We'd buy fish and chips from Baileys on Borough rd which was the best around, you'd never get many as they were quite stingey with the portions but it was ample.
We'd get a bath once a week on Sunday evening while listening to the Top 20 on the radio and wash our hair with Durbac soap that helped prevent either nits, dandruff or both. There were no hairdryers and we'd sit in front of the fire to help it dry. You'd end up so close that you'd get corned beef legs too!
Walking to school was the norm no matter the weather and when it snowed, the old radiators in the corridors would have ton of steaming socks drying on them, schools didn't close for an inch of snow.

I honestly don't know if it was better back then, it just seemed so, but no, I don't think I'd like to revert back to no central heating, freezing bedrooms or outside toilets.

It's been wonderful reading all the posts on the thread and I'm glad I started it as it seems everyone who's commented has had a laugh reminiscing about yesteryear

Bottom touching bottom? So that's where I have been going wrong. You're only a sprog Elizabeth. I was out earning money when you were born albeit as child slave labour. Well it felt like that at times. Mother needed the cash though, just like lots of mothers in those dark and dismal (sometimes happy) days.

Oo Elizabeth, youve just given me a flash back of school radiators!-They seemed HUGE to me an were always on full throttle! Red hot used to burn your hand on it -but still do it again!! there was no covering round them to stop you touchin them like now..we used to pray that the boiler would break down so as we would be sent home but it hardly ever did!
which school did you go to?

Bottom touching Bottom, hehe, the things you're told as a kid, one thing that has stuck in my mind as if I heard it yesterday was I cut the fat off a chop and left it, probably the first chop I ever had, my mother said "Your father didn't fight a war for you to leave the fat" WTF, I grew up thinking D-Day, the bombing of Dresden and two Atom bombs was done so I could eat the fat.

No wonder I'm deranged.

Woodchurch Rd Primary from 1967-1971 ish then Devonshire Park until 1974. Secondary school was Prenton High School for girls. Did you go to any of them?

And I'll bet you still eat the fat even now

Not quite correct Bandy. I tried to make a doctors appointment yesterday and out of a pratice of 3 surgeries they could only offer me two options before next Thursday.I may get seen within the hour, but will have waited almost a week. I don't believe them anymore because they are never full when I;m in there. They do of course,have their coffee breaks which I suppose slows things down a bit.

Hi Elizabeth nice to hear from you. Hope you're enjoying all you read. There are some characters on this thread don't you think? What's your weather like?

The weather here in Allentown Pennsylvania ( 50 miles north of Philadelphia) is quite cold and crisp at the moment. The high temp for today was about 34*F (I don't do celcius very well I'm afraid)
There are a lot of colourful characters here yes, especially in the Wirral history section and I'm so glad I came upon this website back in September, it's been an amazing source of both entertainment and information to me. I only wish I'd discovered it sooner. Who'd have thought that a simple google of "Robert & Jobson" Sports shop in Charing Cross would have led me here, but that's the beauty of the internet I suppose

Really enjoying reading this thread,peeps! more! more!

I remember as a child my Mum would cut the toes out of our shoes when we grew out of them. We obviously must have been quite poor but I didn't know it at the time, anyway I loved wearing my 'open toed shoes' and thought I was the bees knees in them. In reality I must have looked a right tw*t with my toes hanging over the front

ELIZABETH,

It is 39.7 here in New Brighton at 0723, 10-12-2011. We have just had a hail storm & it's a bit windy. Not nice at all!

RUDEBOX]Really enjoying reading this thread,peeps! more! more!

Hi Rudebox it's good isn't it? I have become quite addicted and the memories are triggered so many times by what others remember. Unfortunately my brain this week is going into hibernation as Christmas is taking priority and I don't seem to be able to multi-task quite so well.
I do remember that our Christmas tree and always a real tree, was only ever put up after we had gone to bed on Christmas eve up until I was about 8yrs. Coming down on Christmas morning and going into the front room which we didn't use on a daily basis only special occassions (and piano practice).The fire would be glowing and a muffled silence was in the room with the magical Christmas tree standing proud and shining brightly in front of the bay window. The smell of the tree was a strong pine aroma. Presents(not so many as now) grouped around the base and even then, the chocolate coins of which ,we were allowed to have one after breakfast. Wonderful!

Blimey granny, how posh were you?!

We only ever had an artificial tree, and the same one got used year, after year, after year, after year...

It was was only a relatively small tree that could be put up on the livingroom side-board alongside a bowl of fresh fruit and stuff like dates and nuts. It was the only time of year we ever had fresh fruit in the house, apart from apples at Halloween, or on occasions when someone was ill!

Homemade paper-chains were used to decorate the room with, and all the Christmas cards got displayed on strings (looking like hankies on a washing line) stretching across every wall. And programmes like Blue Peter and Magpie would encourage us kids to make our own deccies out of things like wire coat hangers and tinsel.

I'm starting to cry now.

...should have said the only fruit we ever saw was the tangerine we got in our Christmas stocking.

Talk about artificial trees, ours is up again, its probably about 25 years old and every year Mrs Bert says "We must get a new tree", by the time all the crap goes on it, no one can see the bloody tree.

Hi Yes I did, I went to Prenton High School (prenton pram pushers!) before that I went to Well Lane School in tranmere.

We weren't posh I don't think. I tell you why tho'. T'was because my dear father absolutely loved Christmas. He had been born in 1902 and got married late in life(40yrs). He had not experienced Christmas or holidays much as a child as his mum was widowed before my father was born. (a few more tears for Bert).This was a time of year that he felt he could really recapture the spirit and so much wanted us all to enjoy. So a good Christmas and a holiday every summer were what we always had. He was dead tight the rest of the year tho'.
Paperchains yes, . A policeman and a Santa that were made of concertinered( spelling) paper. Their arms and legs sprung out when they were hung up. The tree lights were like little bells with the light inside.

p.s. I hope you eat more fruit now Geekus!

Here you are Geekus, I found this site, it tells you all about donkey-stones and other stuff which could be of interest.
http://washday.ukhomefront.co.uk/3.html

Oh yes, paper decorations I'd forgotten about them! We never seemed to make ours long enough to stretch across the front room ceiling diagonally from each corner so they wouldn't have enough of a swag/droop and would be virtually straight. And how I loved the concertina(ed) decorations too, we had a bell one that had the shape of a boot before it was fanned out to reveal its glory
Such sweet happy memories come flooding back each time I read this thread, and I could cry (with happiness)just thinking about my childhood.

PS Granny, I hope you return here after your self imposed Christmas hibernation!

Hmmm, Betty Turnip... are we the same age I wonder? Maybe we know one another from Prenton High. If you don't want to put your real name on here send me a private message perhaps?
My name back then was Liz Owen, I was, and still am friends with Rachel Herron & Denise Sharman ( I know Denise went to Well Lane school so maybe you know her too? )

Cheers granny, great site.

Here's one of old Birkenhead photo's. Just type in a different town name in the search option and you'll find other old pics of Wirral.

http://www.francisfrith.com/birkenhead/photos/

Hi guys, I just went to the FrancisFirth site and when I saw the photo of the Central Library(1962) it reminded of when I worked for the council. We were sent down there to clear the snow from around the bust stops, we shovelled it into the gutter and it was about 5 feet high. We had to cut doorways in so people could get on/off the buses. Welington boots with newspaper wrapped around your feet.
As a kid with newspaper in your shoes to stop the rain getting in because of the holes in my shoes. Do you still have little Hovis loaves?? What about going and buying a loaf of bread or half a loaf and they would cut it while you waited. Outside toilets with grat holes in the door so the rain and snow could get in, no wonder I had constipation problems. Magic days, maybe for memories but not for living again.

There are some really interesting pics on Francis Frith site. Thanks Geekeus.
He was an amazing man and he did so much travelling all over the world. What a life eh?

Mindplayer, 1962 was that really bad winter for weather and freezing conditions that went on for weeks. Frozen toes in wellington boots, I remember it well.Ones toes would ache for ages after taking the wellingtons off.
We can get similar to those little Hovis loaves,they may be Hovis, I'm not sure, but things are so bad here they have brought back the 'half a loaf' although already sliced.

I was thinking today(quite hard at times),about Sunday dinners. If we had a piece of beef, which we can't afford anymore, it would be spread out to last. Roast on Sunday of which the slices were paper thin, cold on Monday, minced on Tuesday and curried on Wednesday. Chicken was a luxury I think and usually only at Easter.I can't remember the rest of the week but cheese pie appeared quite often and hot pot. There was always loads of homemade soups too. It was like a blinking soup kitchen at times, onion soup, pea soup, cabbage soup any old soup that stunk to high heaven. Would have been fine in a famine. Everythng was homemade then, rice pudding, apple pies, bread and butter pudding, spotted dick, apple charlotte, tapioca pudding, suet pudding,loads and I suppose mostly really bad for us,but the stodge kept us warm.(if that makes sense) I can remember eating tins of
condensed milk which probably gave energy. Can't look at it now!

Sadly we can't afford Bert's lamb chops anymore either, nor the fat. In fact we're going back to the bread and dripping Cathcart spoke about. It sounds as if you are still eating well despite the oost!

It's all so depressing over here now you know. No sunshine summers, no money, no jobs, no food, no heat, no pensions. I'm off and I might not be back!

Sorry to hear about that. I was home about a month ago(after 42 years) and was dissapointed with downtown Birkenhead but everything was how I remember it. My mum was a cook at a girls home in Oxton back in about '58 or so. The girls were from France and I think Belgium displaced by the war so the would have been about 14 or 15 years old. Anyway my mum was allowed some meat from the kitchens so we didn't do too bad.

@granny. Your last sentence sounds a bit grim. I hope it's not intended to be taken as "I'm going outside and I may be some time". Please don't do a Capt.Oats on us !!


This has been one of the better threads on wiki of late. So many contributions trigger memories from way back. OK the rose coloured specs sketch rears it's head I'm sure, but I look back at quality times.

Things ain't that bad now really. I'm in a bit of a dilemma at the moment... do I continue huddling over this candle to try and keep warm, or do I eat it ? Can't do both!

On that happy note.........

Poor Granny, no food, no pension, suffering from hypothermia, holes in her shoes and no arse in her pants recording her Captain Oats moment on a laptop, that's technology for you, whatever happened to saying goodbye on the back of a Woodbine packet.



crying uncontrollably

And her memory is going. It was 1963 the very severe winter. Snow started on Boxing day and went on and on and on. All water pipes froze and we had stand pipes in the street to get water from. We quite enjoyed a lot of it, especially diving into snow drifts which were eight feet deep on the tower hill. That's New Brighton btw.

...you've got a candle? A whole candle?? Well, that's your Christmas sorted.

Is he bloody showing off again...

Reminds me of the old Music Hall song about roast beef.

Hot on Sunday
Cold on Monday
Tuesday and Wednesday too
We eat it up as Irish stew.

What gives the p'liceman
The strength to blow his whistle?
It's the little bit of fat
And the little bit of gristle
Of the roast beef of Old England
That makes us what we are today.

A bit before our time, but...

Christmas in Birkenhead (as reported in the Birkenhead & Cheshire Advertiser, January 1, 1887) : -

'Christmas was observed in the orthodox fashion by the residents of Birkenhead, all the shops being closed and business entirely suspended. The weather was fine, and during the forenoon a good many people took advantage of the opportunity to have a walk in the park and country lanes adjoining the town. In the afternoon several of the local football clubs played matches, and attracted large gatherings of spectators, the proceeds from the gates being devoted to charitable purposes. At the Theatre Royal, Argyle street, a most enjoyable concert in aid of the poor of the borough was given in the evening by members of the English Opera Company, who were to commence a week's engagement on Monday. The programme of the concert consisted of selections from several of the oratorios and other high-class sacred pieces. There was a large audience, and the concert was much appreciated. On Christmas night the streets were remarkably quiet, family and social parties being the prevailing order of things.

Although charity was not carried to the same extent as last year, when more distress existed among the working men of the town, there was nevertheless a great deal done on Christmas Day to provide a good seasonable dinner to a large number of people who might otherwise have failed to receive any good cheer which the festive season is supposed to bring in its train. In addition to the hot-pots and other Christmas treats referred to below, Messrs.Laird Brothers, of the Birkenhead Ironworks, as previously stated in our columns, gave their annual donation of £100 to to be utilized by the clergymen and ministers of the town in producing food or clothing for the poor.

At Mr.Charles Thompson's Mission Hall in Price street, Christmas was never more enjoyed by the large band of willing workers and the little ones under their care. The various rooms of the Mission Hall were profusely decorated with evergreens and a hugh Christmas tree, kindly sent by Mr.Shaw, of Arrowe Hall, was laden on every bough with toys and presents for the boys and girls. Provision was made in the several rooms for about 600 children to receive a substantial dinner of hotpot and plum pudding. Among those who assisted in the large hall, where the elder children were assembled, were Mr. and Mrs.Woodhouse, Mrs.Walker, Mrs.Tinker, Mrs.Whinton, Miss Yeo, Miss Healey, Miss Massey, Miss Hughes, Miss L.Waterhouse, Miss Smith, Mr.May, & c. Another room was set apart for over 300 children under six years of age, who were under the care of Mr.R.K.Aspinall, Mr.Maycock, Mr.Newall, Miss Richardson, Miss Hill, the Misses Reid, Misses L and A.Thompson, and others. In another apartment, a number of big boys were attended to by Mr.J.Walker, and in the lecture-room seventy of the choir girls were under the care of Mrs.Brandreth and others. Mr Thompson himself was here, there, and everywhere, with a kindly smile and an encouraging word, for all with whom he came in contact. After dinner several hymns were sung, and the the children were otherwise entertained. Mr.Thompson well merits the help he solicits to enable him to carry on his good work...

As a result of a concert given on December 10th inst., by the choir of Christ Church, Claughton, 130 hot-pots were on Christmas Day distributed to as many poor families, chiefly resident in the parishes of St.Mary, St.Paul, Holy Trinity, and St.Michael. The distribution of the tickets was entrusted to the incumbents of these churches. The hot-pots were prepared at Berry's Grand Restaurant, in Argyle street, there being sufficient in each to provide a substantial dinner for a family of six persons...

At the Workhouse in Higher Tranmere the customary Christmas dinner of roast beef and plum pudding was given to the inmates, many of whom for the time being forgot their unfortunate circumstances and enjoyed themselves heartily at the festive board. The dining-hall, which was gaily decorated with evergreens and festoons of bright-coloured paper, presented an animated appearance during the progress of the dinner. There were seated in it about 520 adult inmates and 30 children. During dinner a supply of excellent beer, kindly sent by Mr.H.L.Ross, brewer, a member of the Board of Guardians, was served out and keenly relished by those who partook of it; and after dinner there was an allowance of tobacco, snuff and fruit. The children in the workhouse schools, to the number of 236, had dinner of roast beef and plum pudding served in their own dinning-room, which was also decorated...'


The report continues, with details of many other charitable acts, including the feeding of may hundreds of street children at the Queens Hall, in Claughton Road (some 900 boys one evening, and an equal number of girls another night). The extent of poverty in Birkenhead alone, was quite terrible.

Perhaps some things have changed for the better, after all.

Disgusting, all done so the upper echelon could sleep at night for another year.

Thompsons Mission was an all year round thing Bert and I can remember myself and many others going there (Hemingford St) in
the 1950s.(Christmas time all the kids got a box of donated toys)
It is still there but I'm not sure what is done there nowadays
possibly supplying meals for homeless persons?

I know it was an all year round mission and thank god it was and thankfully there was benevolent people like Charles Thompson who devoted their time to help the needy, the majority who thought the poor and needy needed charity at Christmas put them and kept the in that position in the first place.

The only up to date web-site I've found for it labels it as part of 'Liverpool City Mission' but it does give a bit more info about its history and say what they still do now.

The site states that the Birkenhead Mission opened in 1892, but I think that was when they relocated.

http://www.livercm.org.uk/page929.html

Any pictures anyone?

The 1891 census has Charles Thompson residing at 6 Beckwith St with his family and his occupation was Superintendent of Children 's Mission.

loved xmas day girls would be out with prams boys with bikes couldn't wait to read xmas annuals turkey and treats which are everyday now cold meat boxing day and visitors in the parlour no one ever said don't go out to play it was safe and quiet to play in street no cars in the 50s like now kids made thier own fun and all mixed together we need some of the old values back

very true chris i have walked the streets and town loads of jobs in windows and on hoardings good jobs too no questions are you mobile own car have you got landline too old too young didnt exist often started a job there and then started at vauxhalls in my dinner hour they were desperate now 3,000 people for one job sad times people took you on a gut feeling no big forms to fill in on line no 2nd interviews etc etc ha ha

Good job you didn't need a full stop to get a job in those days. I had a go at Vauxhalls too then the 3 day week came in and scarpered because I couldn't get enough dosh to live on with 3 nippers.

Or anything such as sentences or capital letters. (Or indeed any sort of punctuation).

Where has everyone gone to?
I posted a reply to Pinz's post last night, both relating to posts on page 6 but for some reason they were both deleted.
I said I had been looking for Bert's flys, as he said there weren't any anymore. Anyway I didn't find any, but I did meet a friend on route who took me back to the false teeth subject.

The mother of my friend had a friend who bought her daughter a pair of false teeth for her 21st birthday!

I can't think of anything to say about that, it's either hysterial or tragic depending on your thought process.

I saw your post last night about the flies, but now I too see that it has gone, how strange...do moderators remove posts willy nilly I wonder? There was nothing rude you'd written so I wonder why it would have been taken off? Hmmm, very odd

I remember something about teeth. I think up to age 21 you could get false teeth for nothing(NHS) but after that you had to pay. I remember a guy named Donny Shields who used boast about he was getting all his teeth out before he turned 21 and getting a false set.

A memory I have as a child is having a tooth removed and the big rubber mask being placed over my mouth for gassing, then remembering nothing until standing at the bus stop with my mum and me throwing up down a grid. I also seem to remember what would have been some years later being asked on a visit to the dentist would I prefer gas or cocaine before a tooth was extracted.

All this talk of Berts flies is rather intriguing. Zip or buttons Bert?

The dentist of old. Well butcher would be more appropriate especially when talking about the school dentist. I think most kids in those days were traumatised for life by a visit there.

i had novacaine last visit to the dentist
oH my word i was completely out of it.


yep my first memory of dentists is the smell of rubber then the sickly sweet smell of the gas

Welcome back into the tent granny! Don't know where those posts have gone. We were concerned about your comment "I might not be back" etc. Come back in. Just enough fuel left to light the Primus. You can have the last of the pemican and shut that bloody tent flap !!!!

Seconded...I have vivid memories of going to a dentist on
Seabank Rd. I wasn't completely under as he started to pull
a tooth and started to flail. Scared me stiff.

I remember having gas at the dentist put me off for life,couldn't have the gas & air when I was in labour, one midwife tried to put the mask on & I was trying to fight her off.

I'll tell you something, the bloody plaster used to stick on better. Had minor surgery and had butterfly stitches and a plaster put on the wound, told to leave it on for 48 hours and then take it off "gently". Woke up in the morning and the lot had fell off and the sheets were covered in blood. Bring back the old Elastoplast which you had to get off with a chisel I say.

Remember the little rubbery bulbs of lighter fluid? That was good for getting the remains of Elastoplast off.

They remind me of the best lighter I ever had, cotton wool and wick, petrol fueled, it was also for lighting pipes and if held at a certain angle it became a flame thrower.

I bought a Zippo pipe lighter a couple of years back. Utterly reliable. That smell of Ronsonol Lighter Fluid. Those rubbery capsules of lighter fluid made great flame throwers. Pin hole in one end and press the capsule hard over a lit candle !!! (So I'm told!)

Pyromania - a grand hobby !

Thanks Pinz. Nice to be back.
Sorry about the spelling of flies(flys, as I put) a bit misleading.
So far as doing a 'Captain Oats', well conditions are a little better now but I think I'll take your advice and stick it out with the Primus.Ha Ha!
Christmas caught up with me and it brought to mind how our parents did our shopping about 2 days before.
All the shops would be lit after closing time and it was pleasant to go window shopping at any time of the year. None of the sinister looking metal blinds pulled down making a shopping area look like a God forsaken hole. Although we didn't have shopping malls then,only High Street shops.

Some of those old petrol lighters used to take your eyebrows off or singe the nostril hairs. Pretty dangerous. I take it we all used to smoke then? Sobrani Black Russian, Passing Cloud real 60'scigs. My sister smoked those,thought she was meant for a life of grandeur. She didn't do too badly and wore enormous hats as part of the role! A bit like Gigi.

Children finished school now I wonder if they still take their plate and spoon to the Christmas party.

Ah, yes; and Sobranie Imperial Russian, twice as long, but half of it was just a cardboard tube. Passing Clouds I remember, and Three Castles, also Sobranie Balkan Mixture for my pipe.

No mine just take a paper plate with there favourite food. I remember we had to take a plate and a spoon with your name stuck on with sellotape

Re: Geekus and workhouses.

Apparently in the 1860's Liverpool Workhouse was the largest in Europe so Birkenhead may have been due to overspill. William Rathbone was responsible for putting in a proper nursing system as he was so appalled by the conditions which existed within.

Times are hard now for many but thankfully I don't think we would ever return to the workhouse. Times certainly weren't better then. Unbelievable suffering, poor souls.

Even though the workhouses seemed and were horrific, they were the first source of social welfare which many were thankful of.Will they come back, hopefully not, but with homelessness on the increase they just might in a different form.

Bert, I think you could be right.

O my god. All the doom and gloom. Come on your cups are still have full, not half empty.

Our cups are half full but I'm sure there are many with half empty this CHristmas.

I'm sure Cameron is already drawing up the plans...

I don't mind if my glass is half full or half empty, just as long as it's a whiskey

From your little picture it looks like you've had a few already! What are you trying to catch?

Its blatantly obvious its better now if Geekus can afford a full glass of whiskey.

It's a computer 'pointer' flickering across the screen.

I'll probably have changed it again in a day or two granny and no one will have the foggiest idea what you're on about!

I take your point though about poverty in both the present day and the past.

Half a glass bert, half a glass...

...and, not a 'Single Malt' one either. Even the workhouse inmates got free beer at Christmas!

you're right there! they were butchers! i remember going to the school dentist when i was in primary school, and i remember there were two women dentist, i had to have a filling 'and no cocaine!!'well these two women were talking about what they did the night before while one of them was drilling my tooth--'and remember no cocaine!' she went round and round and round with this drill,thought she was never going to stop i was in agony!!
another time had to have a tooth out with gas, and that rubber mask was horrible,i remember the dream i had----a tigger chased me up a tree.
i've never forgotten the school dentist,put me off for life!!!!

that should be 'a tiger chased me up a tree'!lol

If it had been a tigger he'd have caught you. Good at bouncing those tiggers...

Cute move Geekus and yea they'll all think I am the daft one!

Getting back to the Christmas spirit.

Father had his tot of Navy Rum, mother had her glass of Advocaat and the children had a glass of Peardrax or Cidrax. That was it. No wine then or beer.Well they didn't drink anyway. That meant mother was out of it after one!

Was it a straight Advocaat, or a 'Snowball'? I reckon people only ever drink 'Snowballs' at Christmas!

And what about you granny, when you were going out in the Sixties? Bet you were more of a 'Babycham' kind of girl. There seemed to be far less choice for lady drinkers back then. Could be wrong but apart from Babycham the only other ones I can remember were 'Cherry B', and 'Pony'.

Real women, those with hairy chests and funny hats only drank stout. There's a definite shortage of Battleaxe's.

Bring back the Battleaxe.

Come back Ena Sharples. All is forgiven. Oh for a sniff of her hairnet !

You fantasizing again about Enid Sharples and Minnie Caldwell with their bottles of Milk Stout, bert?!

Oh Dear, you've left out the centrefold, Martha Longhurst.

Get a grip man, get a grip.

...would that be a 'Kirby Grip' to go with my hair net?


http://www.poultry.sanday.org.uk/2010/08/13/

All these names and talk of hairnets.....

You have to admire women who can kill with a stare.

It's funny to me nowadays when I see a stylish young hair cut in front of me, coupled with young birds fashion clothing and when they turn round they either look like Ena Sharples, Margaret Rutherford or Minnie Caldwell. What's that all about?

I'm just waiting for Hilda Ogden's pinny to come up for auction.

Yep, straight Advocaat with a cherry on a stick. I don't think they'd heard of snowballs-- as a drink.

Rum and black in the very late 60's. So sweet it took the taste of the rum away but we had to look cool didn't we? Then things deteriorated for a little while after that, tried everything!

Going back to what Bandy was saying, When my granny came a calling, our Fido a prototype pitt bull would hide under the sideboard, the cuckoo refused to come out of his clock and the milk turned sour a day earlier, these were formidable women unlike the dolly bird grandmothers that children run rings round today.

...I feel a Les Dawson joke coming on!

Jokes, Funny Pics Video's and One Liners can be posted here clicky

Quite right kimpri.

Although you have to admit that many of bert's one liners do belong in the history section.

That's one thing that really was better, jokes were jokes, short and sweet and not essay's that by the time you got to the end of it you lost the will to live. Does alternative comedian just mean crap.

and some of derek's

It was a Monty Python sketch about hardship in the early days. Very funny. :-)

Shock horror, babycham and cherry B on sale in Savers Liscard. Wife bought some of the latter today. Didn't think it was made any more! What next, party sevens?

At this point of time in the 1960's, the Christmas cake was baked and decorated, the plumb pudding ready and waiting containing tiny treasures, a small bottle of rum to make the rum sauce. The turkey had just come in from the cold (in some cases being plucked), the sack of potatoes that kept for what seemed like months, was in the outside shed or washhouse (untouched by mice,rats or slugs). The mince pies were being made on the day, sometimes with homemade mincemeat and the children were behaving! Where would we be today without Tesco, Savers, Asda, Sainsbury's, Waitrose to name some and of course the tv, dvd's and game systems to keep the children occupied? As I write I hear the mother of four next door having a blow-out at her children.Incidently, the children are having a blow-back at her. That NEVER happened!
Happy Christmas and enjoy your Cherry B, for old times sake if nothing else.

Cherry B, wow, that takes me back. I remember it as being unpleasantly reminiscent of Antussin cough mixture...

Yes it was better, we didn't eat so much !!!!!
In bed recovering.

Just reading through some of these posts again. You know it was pretty cruel in school then. I went to a mixed school in the sixties and the head had no problem with giving the cane. The boys who were given it had to stand on the stage in front of the whole school after assembly and be whacked in front of us all. Pretty damaging(mentally) I should think, to all of us. It was awful seeing it happen and made me
feel sick.The head always looked vicious, angry and red faced when he performed this act.The most bizzar of all was we had just said all the prayers etc. and supposedly learnt a lesson of goodness and kindness --followed by nasty punishment. Not much sense in those days.
The girls were given the rope! by a lady teacher. Some lady! Although the girls were not put on display.
Amazing but true!

I'm thinking back to 1981 and sitting in the school hall doing my chemistry O-level paper. Curtains closed on the stage, but the unmistakeable sound of the deputy head yelling at a boy and then a couple of whacks of the cane. Nowadays students would have grounds for appeal if there was any 'disruption' like that while they were taking an exam!

The cane is something to be debated. A horrible way to deal with child's minor misbehaviour, but my daughter is a teacher and I do understand that in the present day the teachers cannot find a suitable way for effective disiplne. Did you pass your exam?

I did pass -!- however, the argument today would be that I might have done better without distractions... (I'm not saying I agree with that, btw!)

I'm inclined to agree with you - or at least I think now we have gone so far in the opposite direction that there is no effective deterrent and teachers' hands are effectively tied. I saw, heard, and heard of plenty of unnecessary, sadistic behaviour, and some spur-of-the-moment violence (a teacher driven to slap a pupil's face, for example) and wouldn't want that to return but the knots that teachers, schools and education authorities are now tied in create a whole new set of problems.

I remember one teacher used to hit you with a plimsoll. I am convinced to this day that he got his jollies by doing it.

Personally I brought my children up properly and if any teacher had hit one of mine, they would have been hit right back by me and sod the consequences. Which ever way you look at it, it is violence and has no place in modern society.

I know it has been repeated many times but one only has to look at old school punishment logs to see that the same names kept cropping up thus proving it wasn't a deterent.

I truly pity teachers these days but it all boils down to parents in the end.

Sorry, this just made me laugh so much.


In my school I'm sure we HAD a cane, there was even a lot of talk of people GETTING the cane, but I can't actually remember ANYONE being hit with it, and I'm reasonably sure I would have been once, possibly twice, or more.

Sometimes it is not so much the actual cane itself but the deterrent effect it has, which is why, for some, it would never work and they received it again and again, but others conformed because of this.

Was anyone else on here "taught" by that sadistic bitch Sister Rita (nun) in Saint Annes junior school in Rock
Ferry?

Hmmm! Perhaps I could have put that a bit better. Doh!

remember being caught running in the corridor at Trinity Street school, downstairs so it would have been in the juniors, by the headmistress. She thwacked on the legs with a ruler, which left red marks on my legs. Went home at tea time and my Nana went absolutely ballistic and dragged me to the school. Don't think she chinned the head but I didn't get bothered with her again. My mum was at work down at the rops at the time.

i remember in primary school being smacked across the head by a teacher! if he asked me question and i did'nt know the answer i would say 'don't know sir' SMACK! right across the head!and this was in the infants! i never told my mum or dad cos i thought it was part of school life---well i was only little!!! it was years and years later i told mum and she said 'well you never told me!'
she said she would of gone up to the school if she had known. he was a horrible sadistic teacher.

I got caned for copying in a school exam once. It was my own fault. On Q7, the guy next to me put "I don't know!" I put "Neither do I!"

All the modern thinking do gooders. we have more violence on the streets today than we did in the late 40s and 50s. SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE CHILD.

That sir is utter ballcocks. As stated previously my children never caused a problem for anyone because they were brought up correctly without being abused by anyone. The opposite of dogooder is a dobadder. With apologies to the proper English brigade!

Then how do you explain the deterioration of moral standards as compared with the 1940's/50's?

Unless I'm very much mistaken or have been reading the wrong comics, wasn't there just a little bit of violence in the 40s.

A little question for those who still think that its fit and proper to beat up children and cane them as a way of discipline. At what age should this begin?

One word Chris, Television. I could try and write a five thousand page essay on why I think that but consider most on here are intelligent enough to work it out for themselves.

One other small point about the fifties. Teddy boys!

Television, I believe has had a huge impact on life in general. It has shown how to discard respect and human values. I consider Phil Redmond's 'Grange Hill' to have been a big contributer. My children were not allowed to watch it and it ran for an iconic thrity years! If the children had understood there was a message in it and watched every episode maybe it would hae been slightly more tollerable but kids watch bits of things and pick up the wrong messages. Even the BBC told him to tone it down a bit at one point. I have no time for the man or any of his programmes. He likes to portray us all as clones.

Agree entirely with your comments about Phil. Redmond, granny. He single-handedly created anarchy in schools and made teacher's jobs untenable. As an example, I can cite my own experience as a pupil of Rock Ferry High School in the sixties (when it was a proper school). There was a famous teacher called Roy "Wogger" Williams who taught maths. sports and PE. I broke my wrist playing rugby. When the plaster came off, Wogger got me in the gym and told me to do a handstand. (I was a good gymnast-later winning medals). Thinking my wrist would break again (I was 11) I refused. Wogger asked me again. To cut a long story short, after the third ask he produced a wall bar (Thick wooden rung from the gym wall ladders) and said to me "Boy-if you don't do a handstand this minute, I'm going to hit you with this!" Faced with these two options, I did my handstand. To my amazement, my arm didn't collapse! Wogger smiled at me and said "Alright, boy. Get back to the others." What I was too young to appreciate at the time was that Wogger was playing mind games with me. He knew that my arm would be ok-as long as I got over the first psychological hurdle of testing it. Nowadays, he'd've been in jail for abusing me and I might not have become a gymnastic champion. Poor Wogger has passed away now, God rest his soul-but if he was alive and walked into a room I was in, I'd stand up and call him "Sir!"

I had him as my form teacher for 2 years in the late 60's. He was a tough but very fair teacher.

Hi Fireman,I had the "pleasure"of having Wogga as my teacher in the sixties.I remember being in the bar of the Little theatre in Birkenhead in abour 1980 with my current girlfriend and I was having a cigarette,feeling very sophisticated ,when in walked Wogga and I hid the cigarette behind my back,pathetic or what?

That figures, Lud!! I could tell other stories about Wogger. He had a huge influence on me as a youth. Also Arthur Beadles. I didn't always appreciate their toughness at the time-but the world is a worse place without them both, for sure!! :-)

My current apprentice asserts that he was taught by an Arthur Beadles at Wallasey school,if this is so why would Arthur leave Rocky High?

As far as I am aware the Rock Ferry High Arthur Beadles passed away some years ago. I fortunately only had to suffer his sports lessons.

Bob.

Yes, Bob. I am wondering if he had a son called Arthur who taught. I am thinking this because, Lud's apprentice can't be that old. (No wonder I'm good at Cluedo!!) :-)

Other notable teachers during my time there were:-
"Froggy" Carter-French
"Spud" Murphy-Spanish
Elwyn Jenkins-Biology
Bob Knapman-English and PE
Dai Parry-Latin ("Go-2L!!")
Harry Dowd-Convict. Caught up to no good in one of Derek's old loos (!)
Joe Egg-Music
Sam Jones-Geography
And a geography teacher who took over from Sam and was very mild-mannered and whose name escapes me. (I suppose you only remember the stern ones, don't you!! :-) (I think his first name may've been Cecil).

Cecil Mann - He was my first year form teacher 1964 / 1965
Also Iggy Topp was a Geography teacher at the same time.

Bob.

Do any of you ladies remember Carmen Wigs. Very upmarket late 1960's They could be brushed, cut styled etc.
At the time my hair was long and almost black but we are never pleased with what we have, so I saved up and bought a short blonde streaked wig. Absolutely loved it and wore it most of the time.
One evening I went on a blind date to make a foursome up. Great evening, had a couple of drinks as you do.At the end of the night we all got a taxi to take us two girls home. Very gentlemanly in those days. Anyway to cut a long story short, I knocked my head on the door lintel of the taxi as I was getting in. That was the end of the wig! The poor chap didn't utter another word he was speechless and I never heard from him again! He wasn't much anyway!

Is it true that in world war 2 that the women used to draw a line up the back of there legs so it looked like they were wearing stockings!

yes using eyeliner

did you do it then

Didn't they use gravey browing too ash too?

only for tanning i think

Yes they did, but they also used to darn their stockings with silk thread. My mum carried on doing that for years afterwards. Patience is a virtue.

what did they use to draw the line Granny?

Must admit granny saw some pics and loved the fashion and haistyles also red lippy was in then same as today.
love the pencil skirts and box jackets

They used to stain their legs with tea and draw a line with pencil. I imagine that would have been a very soft pencil or even an eye liner pencil, but I'm not sure. The clothes were great. They all seemed to have very trim figures but no doubt lived on a very low fat diet at that time and the fashions made them look so smart. They even managed their hair really well too, they didn't go to hairdressers. I still have my mothers coat which she went on her honeymoon in. It's 70 plus years old and lovely. Cream fake fur with padded shoulders,a small stand up collar, cuffs on the sleeves, one hook to fasten mid way and the bottom draped around to the back from midthigh level.All fully lined. I could never give it away as she had kept it all those years. Lovely designs then.

Off topic posts removed.

The title of this thread is "Was it really better?" please try and stay on topic.

This is the original post for you guidance:

Thanks, uptoncx, I was about do that myself, but I had to go out.

We were drinking rum & black early/mid 60s.

????

Well Spellbinder, either you're loads older than I am, or I was a good girl!!!

Or you were a naughty girl!!

You are very slow. Already said whoops or words to that effect. Read the full thread please!

Sorry about that. But I have a (less than) perfect excuse. Through my own lack of attention to detail I managed to blow up the motherboard on my PC on Christmas Eve. My new PC was installed, set up & commissioned only yesterday. So when I called into this site some of the threads (like this one) were quite long and I didn't notice the follow-up to your faux pas.

I have mixed feelings about use of the cane in schools. Yes - it is barbaric but maybe it serves some purpose. I was caned only once - when I was 10 (or maybe just 11). I deserved it. But I told my parents I was a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

To answer the last part of Elizabeth's question about what today's children will think about how their life was in the 2000's.

S..t! is the answer.

My son has informed me today, that our generation are responsible for making life a misery for his generation.
We had parties on beaches
We could listen to pirate radio
We could smoke in pubs and other public places
We had raves (well some of us did maybe)
We could afford holidays
We could walk freely
We had no-hastle bank accounts
We weren't bothered by finance companies (earning their millions)

The list goes on. All our fault!
Although I think he is trying to get across that present younger generation are virtually house-trapped now, apart from going to the gym etc. Every way that we enjoyed ourselves has been clearly clamped down on, including the music we listen to being controlled by the BBC and others.
I do agree with him a bit. So maybe it was better then

Just go back a generation then Granny. Bombs, TB, Polio, no antibiotics to speak of, slum housing, smog and other pollutions from fossil fuels, no NHS, means testing for very little benefits plus much much more.

So it is our parents fault that we now have a health service, cleaner air, a better chance if we get infections, welfare benefits that shouldn't let you starve. Central heating and inside toilets (plus baths), but best of all once we learn to use it is the ability to challenge authority and say no this is not right and we will not accept it.

Talking about baths, I remember having to go third in the metal bath after my two sisters had been in. I was wallowing in soapy ...!! How the hell I ever got clean I'll never know!! But I was lucky!! (Cue 4 Yorkshiremen!!) lol.

I agree with you Helles. Unfortunately the younger people see the wartime years as something from the dark ages and don't realise how much suffering and sad times there were before all the mod-cons came along. I've put that incorrectly because they do understand, as they all did topics on WWII in school, but it probably seems very much longer ago to them than it does to us.

Does anyone remember the the ice cream that came in rolls? It was maybe 2" high and wrapped in cardbdoard. The shop keeper would take the cardboard off and pop it into an ice cream cone. The best ice cream that I remember.
Yummy.

The other thing was liquourice sticks. Not as in 'black liquourice sweets' but pieces of wood. We used to chew on those for ever.

History repeats itself...

https://www.wikiwirral.co.uk/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/469813/2.html

"Sticky Lice" used to buy it from a small shop at the bottom of St. Johns Rd. Wallasey Village.

I remember the ice-creame 'bricks' that came in cardboard. The small ones were individual about 2" x 3.5" x 0.75", and went between a pair of Askeys wafers. The bigger bricks were still the 2 x 3.5 size, but were longer - maybe even three sizes of about 4, 6 or 8 inches for the family sized ones. You cut your own thickness - buy the wafers if you wanted or just pop a slice on your jelly.
Apart from vanilla, there was also a Devon cream. Also three flavours in one brick - strawberry, vanilla and chocolate alongside each other. Later on they brought out the ripple type. All were quite hard, quite unlike todays tubs of soft-scoop.

Like I said, History repeats itself...

https://www.wikiwirral.co.uk/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/469813/8.html

To be fair, there are a lot of good quality ice-creams available nowadays, much better quality and choice than there used to be. The ones the ice-cream vans used to sell, like 99's, tasted of very little. No wonder they used to smother them with raspberry syrup!

(Wonder why ice-cream vans always played the same chimes? Always seemed to be either 'Greensleeves', or 'Popeye the Sailor Man').

Thanks for that - I'd not spotted it for some reason.

Ice Cream vans by us also played 'The Harry Lime Theme' from 'The Third Man'.

Ah, yes! I remember that one too. Pretty limited repetoir though, all the same.

Maybe it was something to do with copyright laws. Perhaps they only used old tunes?

Remember some kids used to have a "tide mark" round the face or the neck, depended what sort of wipe with a flannel they had before going to school. Ears with spuds and feet like Hobbits. I don't think hygene was top the list for some people, they were lucky to get a feed.

At the risk of going too far OT... The Third Man theme, played by the great Anton Karas. A recording that has some noise over it, but of the many recordings, I think it shows his amazing finger work at its best. Take a close look. Talent or what ???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8jN1treRKQ&feature=related

Its when you think of 4 to 6 kids been bathed in the same water in the tin bath you know why the saying DONT THROW THE BABY OUT WITH THE BATH WATER MOTHER has a true ring to it.

Bet you used to fancy Shirley Abicair as well!!

Now you come to mention it .....................

Remember that my mam used to send me to the Co-op on Price Street with 2/6d and I used to come back home with 5lb spuds, bacon, cheese, milk, sugar, veg and 2 bob change.. You can't do it in a shop these days, bloody security cameras all over the place.

So it was YOU!

Just had a look at 'Will history repeat itself' which brought to mind 'Pay Day' in early years. We used to get paid cash in an envelope on a Friday. That's when wages were small. Working in Liverpool city centre we'd go off to spend some before we went home.
Couldn't get it in an envelope now. I don't think many ordinary folk had bank accounts then, they didn't need them.
No one forcing people to pay by direct debit or standing order or to get a good deal, must pay by direct debit and have a two year contract.
I think this little gimmic often used by phone companies, amounts to blackmmail. If they can give cheap calls etc with a binding contract, why not without?

Ah, the pay packet. Then the banks went about persuading everyone to go to banking, because it was free and all the services were free and it made sense because the bank did everything for you, for free and a free banking system was the way to go. Now they're taking money off you to access your own money so what was that all about?

I'm sure that nice MISTER Fred Goodwin will explain the benefits of our wonderful banking system to you Bandy.

The local children would play pretend games in the street such as
Cowboys and Indians with bows and arrows.
Pirates and we would have to walk the plank and jump off the end (about 2ft high)
Girls would play with their prams and dollies
We made dens and we could climb trees and shoot peas from pea shooters.
Dad would make go-carts out of old prams or such and when it snowed we could tobogan anywhere with a slope, without all the permission, or health and safety rulings.

The children don't seem to play out now and their imaginations must be stifled.

So true, Granny.

I think you'll find they do still play out pretending to be real-life gangsters...

Is that what they call re-enactment?

Can't think of a better place to put this Elizabeth. 1940 right through to 1999.

It can be moved along by clicking the arrow on juke box. Hope it works o.k.


http://upchucky.org/JukeCity/1960/OldJukes/player.htm

There were two "children" out playing yesterday, sitting in the middle of the roundabout at the junction of Warren Drive & Grove road, pretending to shoot at cars passing. How cute!

Really cute!

The water rates have just arrived with yet another increase. In 1985 council tax and water rates combine £238.00 per annum. That was when the roads were clean, the drains were cleared before the leaves blocked them up. The trees were pruned or lopped regularly, the parks and gardens were kept in order. etc.etc.etc.... At that time my husband earned the same amount that I am getting today, with the same bills now totalling almost 10 times the amount!

My friend called yesterday who only uses a quarter of the water I use. Not only are we paying for the clean water used, but the amount used also impacts on the amount of sewerage charge part of which increases every time you flush the toilet.

I will use my bathwater now to use as loo flushing water.Visitors will probably still flush direct.Will see how long I can do this without getting fedup, and to see my bill reduce. I am seriously thinking it is wrong to waste water when so many in other countries spend most of their day collecting water and have to live with impure water and it's health consequences.

My friend is devising a way to link his outside water butt to fill the toilet system and so will not be billed for flushing water. We don't need purified water to flush.

You do not get a reduction on water bill for collecting rain water. it's how you use this water to reduce your overall consumption that counts.

Any kettles with unused boiled water I put this in flask to use again which saves on electric.

I have a downstairs toilet that I use for No. 1's only. It is outdoors & a lot of people call it a grid!

Errr. Come on Tatey, be fair and stop showing off. It's not quite so easy for the female of the species,particularly in the snow and frost!

Going back to Paxv. post and saving water. The drought of 1976 was a task. We lived in Kent then and for some reason all the natural wells which had once been used were no longer (they must still be there now, somewhere) So we did our water saving bit for the country, although keeping the vedgetables going (which husband had planted) was a major task. Every bath full of water was saved and I would attach a bucket to a rope on ground level, race upstairs and haul it up through the bathroom window. Fill up the bucket and lower it again to the back garden. Rush down and take it to poor over the vedge (which didn't wet the surface much). Then, do the same thing over and over again until the bath was empty. Husband away at sea and on his return said 'those leeks have done well, haven't they..do you like leeks? I replied 'not much' to which he replied 'neither do I'
Not being on a water meter, which is certainly a consideration now, would put paid to growing any vedge as I most definitely can't visualize a repeat performance in an effort to reduce water usage. Got no spring and bounce left!

Well, granny, if you're not on a meter you should consider it. The water company will fit it free. I think the rule of thumb is that if there are more bedrooms than people in the house, you're better off with a meter. I'm metered and I pay £11.50 a month.

On the meter as well, much cheaper but only until they put the prices up once everyone switches to meters, can't have the profits falling can we. Droughts promised for this summer again. Remember the 76 one, just joined the RAF and had to sit in a field tending a pump which took water from the river,all over the fields to RAF Bawtry fishpond, using the RAF fire hoses. Got a nice tan anyway and it was a good little number for a couple of weeks and saved the fishes.

LOL, bandy; I was just up the road from you, but 20 years earlier. I was at RAF Lindholme; it's a prison now: not much change there then.

Small world then and the RAF is about to get smaller still. I was only there 6 weeks , waiting for my security clearance and then moved to Digby after a course at N Luffenham. Bawtry was literally like a holiday camp though, a la carte menus, lovely little NAAFI club, Billy Butlin must have got the idea from there I think. Private fishing lake, orchards and private grounds. It was 2 Group HQ if I remember rightly, I used to do the comms with the Shackletons and Nimrods.

Lindholme was Bomber Command Bombing School, flying Lancasters, Varsities and Hastings. I was a radar fitter there. I was also the camp cinema projectionist a couple of evenings a week.

You're right about the RAF getting smaller; my son, who's a navigator, is about to leave and join the Canadian Air Force

My nephew is a Canadian Air Force Nav, getting Afghan tours in and all that guff, they're good lads. You nevery know he might have come our comms class at Cranwell, I was in the comms school there from 2000 to 2007, worked on the comms simulator as a controller, broadcaster and comms link, loved it. At a bit of a loose end now, bummer.
I assume I'm still on topic as things were definitely really better then.

My lad went to Cranwell in 1984. He's actually re-training to fly in AWACS in Nova Scotia.

Te AWACS will be good, more work in the back of the kite than the average, big crew as well so the socials are good. Wish him all the best Chris.
1984 I was in W. Berlin, another good posting.

Great post, abolutely agree with all you have written.

Back in the fifties I remember me and our kid sat on the steps of the Rio in Price Street, of a Saturday afternoon hoping that the doorman would take pity on us and let us in for the last half of the kid's matinee for free. He always did. We had nothing but we were happy.

Ah, the Rio. Must remember the wooden seats then. Bunking in through the side fire door, getting caught and thrown out. The Saturday matinee, playig cowies on the way home with your coat round your neck on one button like a cape so you could be Zorro. Good big gangs of kids then all bombing it down the hill of Price Street we had rock all.

My auntie used to work in the crisp factory across the road. Me and our kid used to go around the side and give her a shout...she'd come to the open doors (it was obviously very warm inside) and she'd shout: 'You two buggers will get me shot.' But she always threw us a couple of packets.

Crisps? Reminds me that when our dad used to take us to the Rio on Sunday nights to the one night showing only show. He hated the start of the main feature because people had bought crisps off the usherette during the interval. As soon as the credits went up, people started shaking their little packets of salt onto their crisps and then they'd start shaking their packets to spread the salt on them. They would be shaking them for ages.

It's a wonder too we could see the screen for the fog of ciggy smoke, because nearly all adults smoked.

I think the Rio must have closed its doors for the last time in the early sixties.

You are right Bandy, we did have "rock all" as you say. But we were all in the same boat.

Blimey yeah, the crisp factory. We used to be able to get bags of brokies as well, we'd scoff anything and the cheaper the better. I aint changed much. You must remember Abba and Tony then, they were always in the Rio, poor fellahs.

Sometimes, things spring to mind.

It used to be better before all the men became peacocks and strutted the John Travolta walk down the High Streets. They all walked the same and near enough in a line, probably comparing each others ability to get it right. Boing, boing, boing, all the way.
Put your hand up if you were one of them.

granny how are you? i was married to a boss poser like that, strutting in every shop window he could, hence, was married to him. i boing boinged him off. oh and dont get me going about dancing he was always first on the dance floor, but should have been glued to his seat. max

Did he wear these Max?

if let, i think he would have. now was it better? hmmmmm, not sure about peacocky men, just some one nice full stop . please max

He probably did the 'Hand Jive' back then.

Dancing in the 60's seemed to see the 'rock'n roll' and 'jive' disappear and in came the 'twist', 'locomotion' and 'hully gully', that I remember.Once Tamla Mowtown arrived,we all started to do dance routines in unison like 'The Four Tops' and 'Supremes'. Blimey, we were fit then! No stopping us, we didn't sit down all night long and no enhancements. Constantly aware of who might be watching, as the boys stood around the edge of the dance floor, eyeing up the talent for later.
Our eyes darting all over the place and pretending to be amazingly happy. If the truth be known, we would hope we might get a date for the next week instead of, once again going home without so much as a glance from any of those stunning males.
Got a date one night, with someone who had a great sense of humour. He eventually became a very famous comedian! Does that tell me something?

you cant leave that story like that..... who was he? oh will be back too you soon baby has just woke max

It does, it wasn't Jimmy Tarbuck.

granny, so sorry baby hasn't been the best all night, hoping its a 24hour thing. now come on tell us? max

Sorry about baby, hope all's well now.

And not telling.

granny you dont kiss and tell eh? iam proud of you. i had it down for stan boardman. he is really funny i think. had the worse night ever and morning with baby, slept most of the afternoon and looking better now. max

lol

I only joined this site today and I've laughed until i've cried reading all your various posts of the memories you have ....sooo funny...I'm off to bed now, but i'll definitely be back tomorrow ,

Just looked at the "male peacock" posting, blimey it's changed a bit now. Was at the Mathew Street Festival at the weekend and they're more like parrots now, including the cockatoo crest. I may be an old git but I do wonder if they look in the mirror before they come out. Do their dads say anything I wonder? As for the lasses, I think they just wear modesty pelmets now and they don't hide much, the mystery has gone. I remember being a bus conductor in the early 70's and that was bad enough, having to follow young girls up the stairs to collect their fares and them having everything on display and all, better than a biology lesson.

So thats the reason your going blind

Gosh, I just looked back to see when I started this thread and can't believe it was back in November! It's good to know that so many people replied and have kept on doing so, and I hope it's provided many a good laugh for everyone too I know it has for me.

Some of the posts are very funny and bring back many memories

Good to hear MDS53! Laughter is what keeps us all young. hmmm!

I just wish that we had the old tele's back. An on/off button,
3 channels, and a darkness/brightness knob. Oh for simplicity. By the time I find my way around today's model,dinner is burnt and the programme has finished!

Oh the joys of twiddling with the horizontal hold, vertical hold, contrast etc. Not forgetting that little white dot slowly fade after you've switched off. Mary Malcolm, Sylvia Peters and MacDonald Hobley(?). The interludes. Then the scourge of new fangled "commercial television" with ADVERTS !! Enough.

you have forgot about the joy of watching the snooker before colour came in.

Ah, yes: Quote one commentator "for those of you watching in black and white, the yellow is the ball behind the blue".

Ah! The joy of it all. The luxury of 625 lines and 3 channels.

But what about those lovely summers we had? You know the ones - when the cricket or tennis was on, along would come some French TV station or Russian radio station, and start interfering with the sound and picture. Then you knew good weather had arrived..

Does anyone else remember the arial? I was quite old(16yrs) when we, as a family got our first television but I seem to remember the arial being a stick.We used to move about, all over the place until the picture became relativley visible. Never seemed to be the same two days on the trot.

yeah, i remember that granny, isn't it funny you forget things like that till someone jogs your memory,then all sorts come flooding back, lol.

When I was on the boats our aerial was a coat hanger on a broom stick, bound on with black masking tape, with a rather long length of cable to the box. We had to stick the said antenna out of the torpedo loading hatch and if the picture went wonky had to have a chain of blokes shouting up to the trot sentry to turn the aerial and tell him when to stop. What the heck, it worked and we would've had nowt without it. Good fun and like you said, only two channels to worry about.
That's one of the said boats on my icon by the way.

Coat Hanger Bandy? Luxury! When we were kids, our aerial was a piece of wet string that we had to hold up over our heads for hours at a time.

Wet String ?? Sheer luxury !! When we were kids, we had to stand on top of the roof with wet toilet paper wrapped round our heads as an aerial, pointing to Holme Moss for hours on end !!!

Hey Pinz, what happened when the wind blew? Did you spin around like a weather vane ?

Must say the 'wet string' seems more fun.

you were all lucky,we didnt have electric,used to go to grange road waching telly in the shop window.remember watching man utd playing after munich in the pouring rain,me and about 30 others !!! the thing is though i loved listening to the wireless with me nan and granddad and still do ,life was a lot more simple then.now youve got to look around if you get your mobile out in case some yob tries to have it away.

How old are Nan and Grandad now Cathcart? Once you got leccy, did you plug them in?

They probably got wildly invigorated - for a short time !
Sorry - no offence intended cathcart. Just couldn't resist that comment of granny's ! She has a way with words.

must admit i didnt word it very well,no offence taken,but i also have a way with words,should have said 1958 like most females granny doesnt know her footy !!

Nope, she doesn't Cathcart!! How do you know I'm a female?

ALthough ,I do remember there was an aircrash involving supporters at some point in relation to Man. United and Munich. Would that have been the time?

that is correct,oh,the reason icalled you a female is that all the grannys i know are!

remember when we had slot tv from Telebank, the credit would always run out at the worst possible time. what a joy.

When my Grandparents got their first colour TV (my Granddad resisted getting one for years, he thought B&W was enough for anyone) I was given their old set for my bedroom (quite a luxury then).

The set was a little bit old, and the phrase "it just needs to warm up" was never more aptly used. The tubes were really on their last legs, and today it would have been straight down the dump with it, but to me turning it on and then going for the evening family meal before a picture had appeared was just part of its charm (although very frustrating).

I couldn't really watch it after bedtime either, despite the heat being given off from the back warming the room nicely, if I was caught with it on it would be turned off, and the National Anthem would have been playing before it showed a picture again.

"Tubes" ? surely we had valves in those days. We hadn't gone American then!

Think the tube was what we would now call a monitor, could be wrong though.

The tube was the CRT or cathode ray tube. The valves were what the Yanks called tubes, short for vacuum tubes.

By "tubes" I did indeed mean the vacuum tubes, or valves.

So Dr., when the lady down the road said she was having her tubes tied??

how on earth did we manage without playstations and mobile phones and the like?

anybody else play 'ivanhoe' wearing a balaclava and using the prop for a lance and a binlid for a shield.......

Yes Ivanhoe with balaclava and the bin lid, can't do that now. Rob Roy with a kilt,Robin Hood of course with bows and arrows made from privet hedges.Great stuff.

I guess you would have been watching this then Ivanhoe on YouTube If you didn't have a telly, you could always go round to one of your mates houses. You could always spot the ones with a TV, because they had a big X or H shaped ariel on the roof - each element was nearly five foot long!
Then there was the Lone Ranger, for which I had an outfit and a teepee. I think these, like so many toys then, were by Triang. Then we had the likes of Meccanno and Hornby to keep us happy (well, if we could pursuade someone to buy them for us) plus Dinky and Corgi toys, and not forgetting the boats from the Star Yacht company in Birkenhead. It kept us amused, even educated, and kept a lot of British workers in a job.
Failing that a rope, a ball or a box could be good fun. If we wanted to talk to our mates we used two paper cups and a piece of string.
Now, what did I do with my spud gun..? Ah! Its over on the shelf, by the empty tins of National Dried milk.

2 tin cans and a length of string were our mobile phones.

listening to the jimmy clitheroe show and the 'hit parade' on sunday until the dreaded......
'sing something simple' started

We called that sing something sinful.
When I worked as a barman,some years back there was an old dear who came in only on Sunday nights with her family and insisted that we had that programme on.

well said norton,i collect dinkys.and i have a few star yachts,i used to live facing the factory .both great toys and both locally made,brilliant.

was it really better? ,what cracking nostalgic thread and so funny, and for me, maybe for all the wrong reasons it WAS better everything was more apreiciated, and lets face it after being scrubbed with carbolic soap, gassed at the dentist,living on offal, and sleeping with a parrafin time bomb in the house were all still here to tell the tale

We used to go to playgrounds where they had proper swings, with hard plastic seats so you could jump off them, not the rubber ones that are meant to keep you there and stop you from swinging it at your friends head.
We had the "witches hat", we saw it as a clunking spinning climbing frame, not dangerous and to be feared.
Our slides were little (for babies) and The BIG Slide, which was huge, and under it was grass, our biggest fear was someone peeing on it on the way down.
We had the spiders web, which you spun really fast to try and make the one on the outside sick, no one flew off it, because you held on.
The Monkey Bars, boring.
The roundabout, hanging out with your head thrown back.
Everything designed to make you dizzy or sick, only as an adult did you look at it as a way to injure.

It is great to read all these happy memories prior to elfin safety.I remember falling into what my sisters told me was a lime pit (where they were building the new(1950s) Leasowe estate)which would strip all my skin off me.All I was worried about was losing my new pumps in the dreaded pit. I survived as we all did.

Wasn't it fun throwing bricks into a lime pit! Made a lovely noise.

These are the swings (just before demolition)where we used to play (between Oliver Street and Grange road)
There were contests on who could swing the highest then let go and see who would jump the furthest, also cricket and football and the central point for start of "kick the can" and "alley alley O?" (I can't remember the difference between them) both variations of "hide and seek"

wearing 'hand me downs'
wearing your older siblings clothes until your 15 wasnt much fun in our house, I HAD 3 SISTERS

Amazing to think that beneath all that equipment was just concrete. Elf and safety would have a duck egg these days.

not wrong there mate, although there's nothing like a bloody big lump on your head from the concrete to teach you to be careful

Elizabeth has just made a post elsewhere on the forum about Timpson's shoe shop. This brought to mind the viewer that Clarks shoe shops had, back in the day. Do you remember, we put our feet in, and we could look down through the viewer at the top to see skeleton feet in a green light. That would show the shoe fitter if the shoes were too big or too small.
Unfortunately, it didn't tell anyone how in this day and age, we wouldn't be allowed quite so close.

Copied..

The nation's 10,000 shoe store fluoroscopes were notoriously poorly regulated during their heyday in the 40s and 50s. The U.S. Public Health Service said the average device emitted between 7 and 14 roentgens per dose, but one study found that some machines emitted as much as 116 roentgens. (For comparison, a person standing within 1500 meters of ground zero at Hiroshima got hit with more than 300 roentgens--admittedly throughout their entire bodies, not just their feet.) There is a predictable relationship between X ray exposure and excess cancer deaths. So we can safely say that some people died ahead of their time due to what was basically a sales gimmick.

Derek were these swings by Grange rd Birkenhead behind Woolworths and what year did they get removed,Thank you for all the information you supply to Wiki History

Terrific thread.

Thanks everyone for sharing.

There's an anti smoking day, how about an anti mobile phone day?

Maybe people will go out more for the day, you never know

Further down Grange Road. I'd say roughly between what used to be the Co-op and Allansons. If you know that area from 1950s/60s
it would have been behind the block of shops Woodsons was part of.
click

Are we better off than in the 'good old days'?
Had a few thoughts last night when thinking about 'dinners' and what is cheap now. Took me back to the good old days, when I was young. Mum would buy for a family of four, a piece of beef large enough to have Sunday roast, cold on Monday, minced on Tuesday, either mince pie or curried on Wednesday. I don't think that was too unusal for families then. Last piece of beef cost me £30 for rib!! It only lasted a day and a few sandwiches on the Monday.
Also, remembered before the council tax came in. In the eighties we had 'general rates' . Husband then on a salary of about £5000 , general rates(which included water rates) were £235 per year.!!!! Now, my pension is about as much as that and I'm paying £1,200 c.tax and about £300 water rates. I wish pensions had increased by the same percentage.
Although famlies didn't have much in the way of technology etc. in 60's we did at least, have proper nourishing dinners. Oh yes, and the dog was fed 'shin beef'. That's a delicacy for us now!
Anyone else got any comparisons?

Love this thread
Thanks for pointing it out to me granny

What the common response of 'Was it really better?' seems to be that it was better when we were young a carefree with not much of a care in the world
I think if you ask a youngster of today the same question when they are older the general response would be the same

I remember 'The Love Boat' on Sunday before bath time in the 70's
The immersion heater button was switched on before the program started which heated up the copper water tank in the bedroom cupboard. When the tank was too hot to touch it was ready to fill the bath (well, half fill it anyway )
Then it would be taken in turns to get bathed. Hated going last when the water would be brown and tepid

Hard times yes, but nostalgia will always make you remember times gone by with fondness
So I am saying yes it was better, I loved my childhood then we grew up

The Love boat, haha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmUlKPthrag

When you would walk the shops with a pram or pushchair taking the laundary to the luanderette. You would shop at a butchers a bakers a greengrocers a fishmongers a general store. Pubs had off sales.6 week holidays seemed an eternity of sunshine and happiness. Fireworks could be bought singularly.
What do we have today.....a 50% increase in young children attempting suicide. Something was obviously better.