Odd things - do you remember your mum doing these in the 60s?

[Waltons]

Putting a drop of water on a tin can before opening it, because if an air bubble came up through the water, the can might be blown? (I think that was the reason?)

The only bottle of olive oil in the house was absolutely TINY, and labelled "Olive Oil. BP". I think it cost a fortune, and was kept in the first aid cupboard. For earaches, perhaps?

These were the days when the bin men actually came round the back of the house, and carried your metal bin to the wagon. They deserved a tip then.

Hardly anyone owned a telly. They were usually rented from radio rentals or Granada.

Wheeltappers and Shunters on the telly. The Golden Shot. The village shop warmed by and smelling of paraffin stoves. Lots of Mums recipes were wartime ones. Blancmange and jelly made in a rabbit shaped mould with a whipped cream tail. Christmas decorations handmade from the flattened pretty foil saved from the Easter eggs earlier in the year (we were poor). Ice on the inside of the windows. Feather bed only getting a shake up once a year. Blankets and sheets on the bed with candlewick bedspreads. Trying to light a fire with wet coal. Grannie with studs in her shoes making holes in the lino. Lino everywhere in the house, even the bedrooms with just a bedside mat to stand on to get undressed for bed. Hot water bottles. Going off with older kids all day on the cross bar of their bike and not coming back until dusk and parents not showing an ounce of concern. Camping in the back garden and having a camp fire meal of bacon eggs and sausages. Dads Austin A30 smelling of petrol so bad we were always sick. Brother in the ATC flying a Sopwith Camel over the house when he was only 16 (accompanied of course but all the same!) No fridge so meat in a meatsafe with an aluminium mesh front and standing on a slab of marble in the larder to keep it 'cold'. Meat deliveries every three days. Bread every other day. Fruit and veg twice a week and a man with a small van from a shop in a town 12 miles away selling clothes and shoes and household items on tick. He was tiny with a trilby and lemonade bottle glasses. The smell of the books in the travelling library van that came fortnightly. My sister and I being put on a coach to spend a week with an aunt an uncle a 100 miles away at the age of 7 and 9 considered normal. We used our school satchels to carry some of our luggage. Learning about old money and just getting used to it and then having to learn about New Pence at decimalisation. Swimming costumes that were homemade from nylon and shirring elastic. Brown leather Clarks sandals. The cat being castrated by the local horse vet by being shoved in a leather bag with just his arse hanging out! Dad plucking pheasants and using lit rolled up newspaper to burn off the final few hairs and feathers over the ceramic sink. Dad skinning and gutting a rabbit and Mum making a pie with it and a few onions and an egg cup upside down to hold the pastry up. Dad boiling a pigs head to make brawn and me and my sister having to pick the teeth and bones out when it was cool enough for little fingers. Mum in floral dresses, cardigans (home made but beautifully made and patterned) and white leather sandals. Headscarves and winter coats and short wellies in the winter. The winter of 62/63 Dad had to dig to make a tunnel to the front door. Always having scabby hands, feet and noses in the winter.

MrsMozart, thankyou.

TrickyD, yes!! Not exactly that model - one of the ones in the photo - but it did exactly the same thing. The black liquid (evil stuff!) was poured into a porous stone and vapourised by a tealight.

Also remember Mum carefully wiping used cooking foil clean, folding it and storing it in the drawer at the bottom of the cooker.

And I could build a mean coal fire from scratch from the age of about 7 - I could probably still do it now! Screwed up newspaper; then spills made by rolling newspaper tightly round a knitting needle and tying it in a knot, then kindling, then the coal, and you started it off by lighting the paper. And you'd "bank" the fire with coal dust if you were going out.

Crispbutty, yes. Bury market is the best. I was born there.

Olive oil - my mum used it for sunbathing! She used to mix it with vinegar as it was supposed to help you go brown or something. She used to smell awful!

She also used to buy chammomile flowers from the chemist and boil them then rinse her hair with the water.

black canvas pictures with patterns made out of string that seemed really modern at the time!

I made one at school. I think it might've been in the early 80s, though.

All these things and we have all lived to tell the tales, a miracle !!!!

reasonstobemoderatelyhappy
Oh yes the little bottles of warm milk. I was milk monitor at school and had to pop the blue straws in each bottle. One girl got to have 2 straws because she was a slow drinker!!

Mine, was you born at Bealeys? :)

Yes I remember the liberty bodice with bone buttons. Mum unpicking old jumpers to knit something else.The paraffin heater in the bathroom, smelt the place out but the bathroom was like an igloo otherwise. Going out in the morning with sandwiches and a bottle of water and not coming home until teatime after playing with your mates all day, nobody having any idea where we were. I had a lovely childhood.

Yes to the chip fat/dripping. It would go in a glass Pyrex bowl and then put in the fridge. I do remember it being left out in the kitchen once (luckily it was cold) and the dog ate the lot. The effect on the dog's insides are remembered to this day 💩😂 But other than that he was fine.

I've only just thrown my pressure cooker out. Hadn't used it for years and I'd lost the weights.

There's another thread going asking for recommendations for good baking recipe books - the one that keeps being mentioned is the BeRo book, which I learned to bake from. Mum had her mother's copy and it must have been a relic of the 40’s, I should think. Still a cracking good cookbook, though.

Yes, isn't it funny, seb1, despite not having iPhones, computers, apps, iTunes, PayPal, Snapchat, IPlayer, lavish pocket money, Uber accounts etc etc etc......we've not done too badly

Bloody hell, a thread I'm to young for! (born October '69, the reason i don't remember the 60s wasn;t me being too stoned (unless it was on gravy)!)

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I'd forgotten Pippa Dee. Must have been a 'big thing' because we all had stripy nighties (me, Sis and Mum) and they were always called our 'Pippa Dee nighties'. My mum's was a long one with long sleeves and she even wore it out once to a party!

Crispbutty, I remember the rented televisions! And the advertising jingle -

"The service you get, renting your TV set from Granada...
A better TV, that's why millions agree - rent Granada!"

(feels old)

the Bra's
my poor mum with her playtex ones.... I went through teenagedom thinking she was MASSIVE

We didn't have masses of toys (Dad used to make us stuff like go-karts and]stilts, and a seesaw out of a plank and a giant cable reel ) but I did have a beautiful doll's pushchair which was a scale replica Silver Cross one. Mum used to send me down the shops with it if we ran out of anything. My sister and I sold all our toys when Dad said we could have a pony if we raised half the money, but I wish now that I'd hung on to that pushchair.

Bread poultice for everything. It must have worked, I have no recollection of myself or my siblings ever visiting the Doctor.
Both sets of grandparents had outside loos in their houses. Bath on a Saturday evening, water shared! Queues outside telephone boxes.

A spoonful of Sailors' toffee every day. I remember the first colour magazines in the Sunday papers and wishing I could be sophisticated like the people in the adverts, with mahogany drinks tables. The very risque advert on tv - Denim aftershave. Waiting to see Top of the Pops. Eating Nutty bars. The lounge in semi darkness on Saturdays while my dad watched the racing.

HeWoreAGirlsCardigan I wasn't going to mention making brawn out of the pig's head. I figured it was TMI. All that squishing the meat between your fingers and picking the teeth out. (Much worse when one or two of the teeth got left in and made it into a sandwich though!) I suppose you might just call it 'paté' now.

We had a copy of the BeRo book. It was great.

Born late 50's so remember most things people have mentioned.
My DM discovered Brentford Nylons and "continental quilts" some time in 60's, I loved my bright orange brushed nylon sheets and matching paisley quilt cover.
Does anyone remember getting things free from the milkman? Recipes and a little ring binder with ideas for things to do?
Who remembers the Betterware man coming door to door with a suitcase full of samples? I remember being given tiny tins (like lip balm) of lavender furniture polish.
So many memories.

Another TMI one -- finding slugs in the milk because the birds had pecked the top off (on the doorstep) and a slug had got in and drowned. The worst thing was you usually didn't know until most of the bottle was used up. Eugh.

"All these things and we have all lived to tell the tales, a miracle !!!! "

Survivor bias