black rotary dial phone in the hall with a brown braided cable and a drawer underneath for phone numbers.
local exchanges, so to dial the village my aunt lived in you dialled the two digit village code, and the 4 digit phone number.
sweet cigarettes or making toy cigarettes from rolled up paper, cotton wool and talc.
the witches hat in the playpark, over concrete. the big slide with a cage on top that the big kids sat on top. the concrete drainage pipe as the only piece of play equipment in the local park.
school climbing frame set up over the concrete slabs., the That's life campaign for safety surfaces, dropping a watermelon on the two surfaces.
the inflammable nighties. (also a campaign on that's life) (oh and the interesting shaped vegetables)
hot summers and droughts. (1976)
power cuts and eating tea by candle light.
not being allowed to do technical drawing in school both primary and secondary. (wrong sex apparently)
kids got the ruler at school. or the board rubber thrown at them.
desks with lifting lids and ink wells (not in use but still that design)
ice on the inside of windows in winter, making it snow inside by pulling the net curtians off the ice. beautiful patterns in the frost.
half day closing on Wednesday and Saturday and closed all day sunday.
taking the pop bottle back to the shop for the deposit.
milk in glass bottles in school, being milk monitor and stabbing the tops of the bottles with a straw.
air raid shelters and outside loos still in the playground at one school and one local field.
wandering in fields and water meadows that are now housing estates.
going out all day and going across a 70 mph road to the next village. playing in culverts and streams and on the disused dump. (also now a housing estate)
slag heaps and winding gear coal fires and chimney sweeps, going outside to look for the brush popping out the top of the chimney. the coal lorry delivering sack of coal round the back to the coal shed.
clean air act making coal fires illegal and the change to gas and demolishing the coal shed.
when it was the NUM in Mansfield not the UDM
knowing where the Falklands wwere befor the war.
greenshield stamps and coop stamps, to be licked and put in the book.
first class stamps were 7p
my cousin only had an outside loo. you had to go out the one door at the back, past another cotttage, up the end of the terrace, and across the road to the loo.
the test card in the middle of the day.
the massive brown school radio, plugged into a socket in the wall for schools programmes.
going to watch live tv schools programmes in the corridor on the one school TV.
the nit nurse.
the invention of persil automatic, for automatic machines and not top load twin tubs.
playing elastic.