Bring back any memories?


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Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favourite 'fast food' when you were growing up?'

'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him.

'All the food was slow.'

'C'mon, seriously.. Where did you eat?'

'It was a place called 'home,'' I explained. !

'Mum cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.'

By this time, the lad was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.

But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I'd figured his system could have handled it:

Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore jeans, set foot on a golf course, travelled out of the country or had a credit card.

My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow).

We didn't have a television in our house until I was 10.

It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 10 pm, after playing the national anthem and epilogue; it came back on the air at about 6 a.m. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people...

We never had a telephone in the house. When we wanted to make a call it was a trip to the nearest phone box. When we did eventualy get a phone was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line.

Pizzas were not delivered to our home... But milk was.

All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers --My brother delivered a newspaper, seven days a week. He had to get up at 6AM every morning.

Film stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the films. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or almost anything offensive.

If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.

Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES from a friend:

My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it... I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old.

How many do you remember?

Headlight dip-switches on the floor of the car.

Ignition switches on the dashboard.

Trouser leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.

Soldering irons you heated on a gas burner.

Using hand signals for cars without turn indicators.

>

Older Than Dirt Quiz:

Count all the ones that you remember, not the ones you were told about.

Ratings at the bottom.

1. Sweet cigarettes

2. Coffee shops with juke boxes

3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles

4. Party lines on the telephone

5. Newsreels before the movie

6. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning.. (There were only 2 channels - If you were lucky

7.Peashooters(all the boys had them on my street)

8. 78 rpm records

9. 45 RPM records

10. Hi-fi's

11. Metal ice trays with levers

12. Blue flashbulb

13. Cork popguns

14. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-3 = You’re still young

If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older

If you remembered 7-10 = Don't tell your age

If you remembered 11-14 = You're positively ancient!

I must be 'positively ancient' but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

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I am having a lazy couple of hours sitting around browsing the Internet and landed on Picture the Past. I searched my favourite place "Gedling" and there have been so many additions since I last looke

I remember little 'Woolies' at the bottom of Hockley. It had very worn and uneven wooden floor boards and tripped over on them. I cried and had a bit of a tantrum with the pain but mam soon put a stop

Sh!t....i got all of em....was a bit dodgy on the 78s but i did have some.....as for the recall at the top of your post....sounds like you grew up in our house....i dont remember you tho...then i had 5 brothers so you could have been hiding in there somewhere.

..

HiFi decks had 4 speeds.....16..33 and a third..45 ...78

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I often wondered about the 16rpm, never saw or heard anything that played at that speed.

My Grans first "radiogram" purchased in the 1950's had steel needles in the arm! They later had it converted to a magnetic head with a saphire stylus.

You also missed out the bread delivery roundsman Kath!! My Dad did that for a couple of years for Co-Op in an electric float, in all weathers too!

AND, DC power at 250 volts which made it a nightmare to buy appliances.

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I'm ancient too , the only things I don't recall in our house was metal ice trays (Then again we didn't get our first 'fridge till I was about 11, ) and the news real in the flicks.

As for the 16 rpm players , they were for people who had 33rpm "Pinky and Perky" LPs which when played at 16 rpm sounded like normal session musicians singing slowly!!

By the way where did you live to get telly at 6.00am?? the first time it came on at that time round here was "TV AM", "Good Morning Britain" or "Breakfast Television" in around 1984!!!

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Snow so deep it came over the top of our wellingtons on the way to school.

Schools that never shut because of the weather.

Playing football and cricket on the road

String Ticky, Tin Can Lukey.

Playing on frozen canals when you could hear the ice creaking.

Treeclimbing.

Being taught at infant school by embittered spinsters who were left on the shelf after WW1.(I worked that out later)

Carrying torches at night.

Being able to see the stars at night because the street lights were so dim.

Bonfire Night with absolutely no health and safety considerations.

Smog.

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I remember the old B&W TV's, with my eyes these days I'd never be able to see a show, bloody nine inch screens!! Mind back then, around 1955, there wasn't worth much on anyway.

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Gas street lighting, once a week a feller on a pushbike balancing a short ladder on his shoulder would clean the glass, wind the clock up and check the mantles. They produced an eerie glow in the fog.

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I didn't think I was that old, but I remember almost everything mentioned in katyjay's original post.

In fact I'm beginning to wonder if she might be an unknown invisible sister I never knew I had. That list is so accurate about my childhood, it's like someone was watching every move I ever made.

Just one addition. "Mum cooked every day"

She certainly did....and she went to the shops every day to buy the stuff for us to eat. Today most families do a big shopping trip once a week to the supermarket and get everything in one go. Back then my mum used to do the five minute walk to the local shops every day, whatever the weather, whatever else she had to do, and even if she didn't feel very well.

And she still managed to stop and gossip for a few minutes to everyone she met on the trip to the shops and back

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Yes, I too remember everything mentioned, plus a cast iron oven built into the fireplace at home. Never tasted bread as good as that baked in it, and one of the oven shelves wrapped in a towel was a great bed warmer. Coal brought through the house and dumped in the coal place, or sometimes on the road outside. Man from the electric emptying the meter of pennies, yes pennies, and returning some after wrapping others into paper cylinders. Poorer days but happier, I think when old clothes could get you a gold fish or a windmill from the rag and bone man with his horse and cart - plus manure for the garden, if you were lucky, or unlucky if you had to shovel it up!

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I didn't write the above posting, but just about everything applies to me, including not getting a telly till age 10 or 11. I don't remember the telly coming on in the morning either, not till lunchtime I reckon for things like Andy Pandy etc. I do remember the Pathe News before the film started, and 2 films, A and B, and sitting in the cinema all night if you wanted, but mostly till your 'bit' of the film came round again. We didn't think anything of coming in half way through a film, so seeing the 2nd half first, then the first half second! And of course you never seated yourself, the usherette did that with her torch.

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We got our first telly in 1965 , first programme watched ????????? "The White Heather Club" with "Robin Hall" and"Jimmy McGregor"!!

The last film I remember going to see that was shown with an A and B movie was "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" The B movie being (In my opinion) better than Close Encounters!! It was called "7" (A bit of a gangster thriller)

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So many memories and according to the score I am, indeed ancient, but that's o-k.

Funnily enough it was just the other morning I was driving up to the store thinking about childhood in Netherfield.

No supermarkets then. The co-op had a large block of stores. One sold butter, cheese, bacon etc. Next one was a fish market, then a separate chemist's store. Further along a green-grocers. (They didn't know what I was talking about here in the USA when I mentioned that one)

Further up the street was a baker's shop, then a butcher's. You get the idea.

My mom shopped most days in the morning before working part time at Boots. We had no 'frig so couldn't keep much perishable stuff for long. On hot days the bottle of milk went into a bucket of cold water.

No TV until I turned 11 though my grandmother had it before that. Never missed it.

Only wish I'd taken more pictures but film and printing was relatively expensive in those days.

Somehow, though less convenient, it all seemed more human and friendly. Shopkeepers knew us. I doubt that they got rich but there was a closeness that kept us going back.

Much less variety of food then but we seemed to stay healthy on it and I never lost my love for chips and beans !hungr!

Certainly remember 78s first record player I ever got would only play at 78 rpm.

Things felt better somehow. Nobody on Prozac or somesuch. I guess the pubs helped there. Today I feel like I am on the Titanic and we've already re-arranged the deckchairs ten times. Just waiting for the band to play "Nearer My God to Thee" as we disappear beneath the waves of history. might sound poetic but it 'ain't funny.

Great topic for new year BTW.

Wishing all at Nottstalgia a happy new year.

Dave

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Yes, I too remember everything mentioned, plus a cast iron oven built into the fireplace at home. Never tasted bread as good as that baked in it, and one of the oven shelves wrapped in a towel was a great bed warmer. Coal brought through the house and dumped in the coal place, or sometimes on the road outside. Man from the electric emptying the meter of pennies, yes pennies, and returning some after wrapping others into paper cylinders. Poorer days but happier, I think when old clothes could get you a gold fish or a windmill from the rag and bone man with his horse and cart - plus manure for the garden, if you were lucky, or unlucky if you had to shovel it up!

To reply to my own post, having been reminded of bands in a following post, I also remember a band playing on the pitch at half time at the City Ground; often the Salvation Army and once the bass drum being blown away in a gale!

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remember when only 1 tv channel (BBC) and seeing only one programme a year, the cup final,. either at grandma,s or a workmate of my dad's house. Far as I recall though (born 1946), there was always film "ratings" (can't spell catagories lol) U A and X, a talking point amongst us kids were ones said to be rated "H" for horror though I don't know if a myth? certainly never saw any advertised thus. used to go to futurist once sometimes twice a week with mum, mond/tues/wed it was one film etc thurs/fri/sat another, whilst sunday tended to have an x film, usually some arty continental thing "ASHLEY come away from that poster!!!" sometimes if a "good" film it would be on mon to sat, remember that being the case with the dambusters. In later years also recall seeing "Summer Holiday" twice in a week, and having to pretend to girl I was with second viewing I hadn't seen it! good job it was crap and nothing memorable in it,lol

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If I remember rightly, the B film was always black and white, the A film could be either, but mostly colour I think. And you paid more the better the seat. I think that's why they seated you to make sure you sat where you'd paid. I think folks moved around once the usherette had gone back to the doorway!

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As it's New Years Day, remember when it wasn't a holiday and you had to work it??? Brings back memories of an afternoon shift when I was about 19. I was still an apprentice but was sent to cover a coalface due to two of the afters elecs not turning up for work one new years day.

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Yes, recall working new years day as normal, also if christmas day/boxing day were on tues/wed or wed/thurs you'd be expected in the day(s) before and after. Once worked a christmas day early shift at Stanton, think double time plus another day off, might even have been treble? ÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁ! As regards films some famous A films were B/W, Longest Day, also Dambusters was and even had a colour B film, The Red Balloon, can't recall others off hand, couple I recall seeing were The Good Die Young, Hell Below Zero, Fire Down Below, and usual Norman Wisdom films etc

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The rules were work the day before and after or lose the two days pay for Xmas and Boxing days.

I hated it when Boxing Day fell on a Thursday or Christmas Day a Tuesday.

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New Years Day was made a bank holiday under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act of 1971, meaning that January 1st 1972 was the first New Years Day bank holiday. I remember it well as I was working at Royle and Whitehorn Architects in Castle Place and the bosses decided to lump the holidays together so we had a week off, but had to go in on New Years Day. It was a disaster, I recall standing at the bus stop on Trowell Road, still pissed from a few hours previously and the B2 never came, well it did eventually, at 11:00am. What a waste of time, no builders about and everyone feeling miserable with hangovers and not wanting to work anyway, the exercise was not repeated the following year.

Incidentally, while sorting out my mum and dads house a few months ago, we found the original receipt for dads first telly dated January 1952, I know he wanted to get one in for the Coronation, but even I don't remember watching that, the set lasted until circa 1965 when 405 lines were starting to be replaced by 625, all down to BBC2 being introduced to a world not exactly looking forward to programmes supposedly based on 'Kulture', anyone remember that.

Happy belated Xmas and New Year to everyone by the way.

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I couldn't recall the year Firbeck, I'd have been working at Wilson Ford when that came in then.

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At the EMEB in the early 60s we got New Year`s Day off - apparently because the Board Chairman was a Scot! !cheers!

Hi Eileeen.

I worked for the EMEB in the mid 60s. Started out at Talbot street. Later moved out to Bilboro. Were you at either place?

Anyone else on here ex EMEB? Once heard my buddy at the time telling a customer it stood for "Eight men, Eighty bosses." or Eat More Eggs and Bacon. Whichever you preferred.

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