Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Was it really better ?

...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!