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I find Xmas shopping a breeze.. merely enter Woolworths, Wilko's or Boots with eyes closed, and right arm extended.. once the hand latches onto an object merely tighten the grasp and head for the checkout.. the item will thus be placed in a bag, you will be charged accordingly, and smartly on your way.. now repeat the same procedure at various other retail establishments, until the amount of presents you require reaches the total you have planned, and then stop!

take home said items, and wrap them up, place a fancy label and bow on the top, and the exercise is then complete.. all that remains now is to decide who gets what!

and the algorithm is thus: children get the large ones.. and the oldies get the small ones!

and in general this usually works out ok.. BUT

there was one occasion last year whereby by aunt Bertha got the Spiderman outfit and little Johnny got the facial scrub, but it didn't matter, as the main object of the exercise had been a success, inasmuch eveybody got a present, and I was totally skint...

and now it was time to open that bottle of whisky and imibibe at leisure!

.......post-25-1135067615.gif.......

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So many not wearing face masks and observing distancing. Some people just don't understand how the virus spreads.

Another example of the general public needing protection from itself.  All this will mean we stay in tier 3 for longer and simply make the situation worse than it need be.

They’re not in a prominent position and nothing like as big as the ‘under the square’ ones were. There isn’t sufficient toilet accommodation to cater for large gatherings. The Council should have anti

;) Yet again ilko you have solved the age old problem of Crimbo shopping, come to think of it shopping in general..I wish it was as easy as that, if i had applied that logic to my weekly shop i would have a cupboard full of wharever asda had that week a surplus of..... pieinface;)

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The fact of the matter is, whatever present you get kids nowadays they'll play with it for around thirty nanoseconds before losing total interest and moving onto something else.. basically they're all spoilt with their X boxes and ps2's, they expect only the best, and no expense is spared by the parents in placating their little darlings!

It was different in our day, we were happy with the plastic soldiers, tin toys and kaleidoscope, not to mention the smokers outfit, sugar pig, and Roy Rogers cap gun..

and the only thing that came anywhere close to being a video game was staring at a stickleback in a jamjar!

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;) How right you are ilko yet again, but you must admit that these days kids and perants are under so much preasure from the advertising media that if they don't get what little johnny wants they are placing themself and their little angels in the front line of ridicule, from their spoilt friends and mentors...Having four grand children i see every Birthday and Crimbo the amount of presents these youngsters get, it's amazing what grandperants do buy them, things that you and i could only dream of in our day. As you say it only takes a nanosecond and they have lost interest and moved onto the next useless piece of coloured plastic. It's getting that bad in my daughters house that in the summer she will gather up all the toys that her children have lost interest in and sell them at a car boot market raising a substancial amount that it goes towards their holiday spending money, thereby saving them the expence of giving them pocket money for the fortnight away every year.. unionflag

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Christmas eve was always an extra special time in our house.. mummy would leave Santa a mince pie and a glass of port, she would also unlock all the doors in case he needed to use the outside loo, and we would retire to our beds early in anticipation of his visit...

waking up on Christmas morning to see our stocking filled to the brim was pure magic, we would hurridly run downstairs to check out what Santa had brought us during the night.. I remember on one occasion it contained an orange, a bag of chocolate money and a piece of string..

we were indeed very lucky that year, as Santa had done us proud!

but there was disappointment too! .. as boys we always hoped Santa would bring us a leather football, but for us it never transpired.. thus playing out on the street and seeing all the other boys opening their leather footballs, plucking out the brightly coloured lace and tieing it around their forehead would leave us a tad disappointed - but we knew we couldn't have everything!

post-25-1135067615.gif ... Ah, those good old Christmase days of yor! ... post-25-1135067615.gif

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;) What memories you conjure up ilko my mouth waters at the thought of an orange and chocolate money, ha the good old day's...Am i mistaken, but is this site called Nottstalgia radfordred, MATE... not to sure about the outside loo thou... never was that poor ilko... the lace came in handy for keeping me shorts up..!rotfl!

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For years we lived with the outside toilets and thought nothing of it, it was natural to go outdoors and do one's business, they weren't as hienous as what they make them out..

the only drawback was the middle of the night excursions, especially during winter, but we even had this sussed, with portable devices called a guzunda or a po.. it was kept under the bed, and designed for this very purpose..

occasionally there would be fumes rising from these devices, and another slight drawback was alighting from one's bed in the morning and accidently placing a foot into the contents of the same.. it wasn't too bad if it was warm, but if it was stone cold it could could give one an almighty shock!

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;) Your vivid memories of the past ilko are making me think that i have missed out on something that would have shaped my future and profoundly altered the course of my life.

My perants did live in a house before the war and a little after which did have a outside loo but i have no recollection of it, and right up to 1970 my dads brother lived in his perants house just of carlton road which at that time still had the outside loo.... thumbsdown

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i must be very fortunate because I have never known an outside loo. I was born on Aspley Lane and it had all the mod cons of a new house, inside loo and running hot and cold water.

My mother user to live in Radford where they had a stand pipe in the middle of the yard and a block of toilets at one end of the yard. I wonder what it could have been like for the families at that time. When you think about it the kids were healthier and they made their own amusement even if it was a poverty stricken time.

Aaaah, the good old days...

A ;)

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Don't forget the chats with the neighbour when on the loo!! And the little squares of newspaper we used as toilet paper.. Bloody ink these days comes off on everything, we'd all have black arses if we used todays enviro friendly newspapers smile2

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i must be very fortunate because I have never known an outside loo. I was born on Aspley Lane and it had all the mod cons of a new house, inside loo and running hot and cold water.

My mother user to live in Radford where they had a stand pipe in the middle of the yard and a block of toilets at one end of the yard. I wonder what it could have been like for the families at that time. When you think about it the kids were healthier and they made their own amusement even if it was a poverty stricken time.

Aaaah, the good old days...

A ;)

Bloody hell Anne, what was hot running water B)

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Ayupmeducks Posted on Dec 21 2005, 06:00 PM

  Don't forget the chats with the neighbour when on the loo!! And the little squares of newspaper we used as toilet paper.. Bloody ink these days comes off on everything, we'd all have black arses if we used todays enviro friendly newspapers 

;) News paper ayup ! we had to make do with the leafs of next doors privit hedge.. !rotfl!

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QUOTE (Tutanic @ Dec 21 2005, 03:33 PM)

i must be very fortunate because I have never known an outside loo. I was born on Aspley Lane and it had all the mod cons of a new house, inside loo and running hot and cold water.

My mother user to live in Radford where they had a stand pipe in the middle of the yard and a block of toilets at one end of the yard. I wonder what it could have been like for the families at that time. When you think about it the kids were healthier and they made their own amusement even if it was a poverty stricken time.

Aaaah, the good old days...

Bloody hell Anne, what was hot running water 

My Dad was a miner so we had a coal allocation, we had a Yorkist fireplace with a back boiler. All very fine till my dad lit the fire with parraffin and the fireplace left the wall by about 2 inches. Another time the hot water tank imploded with the heat.

We had that much coal we used to keep the street going in winter. It was a great time and I wouldn't change anything. My dad died when I was 16 through working down the pit but I don't think he would have changed anything either.

I loved Christmas and still do.

A bighug

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Which pit did he work down Anne??

I served my apprenticeship down Clifton, though he would have been earlier than me.

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Ayupmeducks Posted on Dec 21 2005, 06:00 PM

  Don't forget the chats with the neighbour when on the loo!! And the little squares of newspaper we used as toilet paper.. Bloody ink these days comes off on everything, we'd all have black arses if we used todays enviro friendly newspapers 

;) News paper ayup ! we had to make do with the leafs of next doors privit hedge.. !rotfl!

You were lucky then Den, I didn't know what privet was until I moved to Clifton Estate when they wanted to demolish the Medders!.

No gardens in terraced houses :Fool:

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i must be very fortunate because I have never known an outside loo. I was born on Aspley Lane and it had all the mod cons of a new house, inside loo and running hot and cold water.

Aaaah, the good old days...

A ;)

I've always sensed there were those on here with Aristocratic breeding!

It wasn't till the early seventies that I experienced the delights of an inside convenience and hot running water, those that did must have been very lucky.. at one point when we lived at Kimberley there wasn't even electricity, the whole house was run solely on gas, with a mantle on the ceiling for the main lighting, and a seperate washroom outside with a gas boiler.. the back window faced onto an open field where a horse called Beauty was kept, and quite often her head would be hung through into the living room waiting to be fed.. the milkman delivered by horse and cart, as did the coalman, and I recall still having to produce rationing coupons at the shop for certain items.. although all this might sound like the forties era, it was in fact the early to mid fifties.

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The only rationing I recall was the end of sugar rationing, sometime in very early 50's.

When I was a nipper growing up in Kings Lynn Terrace, there was one house up the terrace with an old lady in it, it still had it's gas lights! The terrace as probably the whole of the old St Anns area was on DC, so Mum would have to buy "universal" appliances when she did buy them.

I do remember vividly, Turner Street had gas street lights, and recall the feller on his bike with a short ladder, winding the mechanical clock up on them once a week, changing mantles and testing them.

I was born in 1947, to give you some idea of the time era.

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Yes I recall the old gas street lamps, and I also recall the change over from DC to AC mains, all the electrical appliances had to be left outside the front door and were collected and returned after they had been converted.. re the rationing, you are probably correct with it being regard to sugar, because if I remember rightly it was for sweets etc that the coupns had to be produced..

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In reply to Ayup, my Dad worked at Cinderhill and then Babbington pit. He was 49 when he died in 1961.

My husband waorked down Babbington for a year before he went in the Army. They thought he had got it all wrong because it was usually work down the pit as opposed to going in the army, he was always back to front.

The more I look at my childhood, the more I realise that what I had was better than most, no running up and down a yard to the loo, no tin bath and a holiday every year. As I have said before, why is youth wasted on the young?

A ;)

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Your comment brings back recollections of my youth, when we, like you, were very poor.. firstly our house had no form of heating whatsover, the only comfort we got was when daddy ate a mustard sandwich.. he would call us over and we would sit on his knee whereby he would hang out his tongue and my brother and I would warm our hands on the glowing mass..

it may not seem much but it was all we had, and a thankful respite at the time.

secondly, our house was that old, it had been built before toilets were invented, they never envisaged these things would ever be needed.. our only means of relief was a large dustbin sized container that sat in the front room, we would empty it roughly once a month or whenever it started to overflow.. it did raise hygiene issues, but these were overcome as daddy in his wisdom erected a curtain around the container.. it had the benefit of shielding our eyes from the undulating mound of festering content whilst having the knock on effect of providing us with a little privacy.

yes, times were hard but we were deliriously happy!

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  • 14 years later...

I see common sense has prevailed and they’ve ‘temporarily’ closed down Nottingham Christmas Market. They didn’t expect so many people apparently! What a bunch of fools is this Council.

Also people were were using shop doorways as toilets as they were no public facilities available and they were unable to contain themselves.

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