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?

An absolutely fabulous thread. I was born in 1958 and remember so much of what's been mentioned.

My mum's was a long one with long sleeves and she even wore it out once

For a while it was the fashion to wear your nightie out to a party. It was when nighties became bonny rather than functional and people would say - oh it's bonny enough to be a frock. The ones that generally looked the nicest because they had some shape were the ones with shirring across the bust, a square neck, and cap sleeves. They all seemed to come from Markies because that generally was the go to shop for your nighties and I can recall most of the ones my familiy had having a tiny flowered pattern on them. But, you also got the ones that buttoned up to the neck and had a wee collar and long sleeves - I think the cut was called a Princess line. They were made of a heavier fabric.

Rissoles
Rag and bone man
Party line on telephone, trying to listen to someone else's conversation without them hearing the giveaway click when you picked up the receiver
Goya, think that was a cosmetics/perfume brand
Ann French for removing make up
Witch hazel for toner
Hair conditioner was called creme rinse
Real carol singers at Christmas
Lots of coats in the winter on top of candlewick bedspread
Bunty and Judy comics, think there was Mandy too
Petticoat magazine when you were a cool teen
For all the 3 day week, miners strike and power cuts I really think life was more authentic and honest in the seventies

I was born in the 70's.
Had a twin tub until the mid 80's.
Pressure cooker.
The green fairy bar - still use it. Whenever people ask how to get stains always suggest it. But ignored and instead crappy vanish is chosen.
Lucozade for illness. Although that was still a thing in the early 90's. Remember going to a maternity appointment for bloods and had to swig a lucozade first.
Curry with raisins in. That was yum. Thinks it might have been cooked in the pressure cooker.
Yup to the chest freezer with the half of several animals. Also gravy jelly in countless plastic cups with lids.
Perm and set every week
Partitions in living rooms to make big rooms
Smaller, but then left with an odd space that was too small for anything.
Artex ceilings. Chipboard wallpaper or the weird velvet flowery wallpaper.
The weird painting of the woman who looked a bit green
Doing the pools
The spot the ball competition
Big daddy and giant haystacks
Watching football on a black and white tv.
People were quiet in the cinema.
Going to the wimpy bar.
The pens from McDonald's and other decent stuff not the shite you get now.
The pop man and returning bottles for money.
The collectors cards in cigarettes embassy iirc.
Green shield
Post office savings account and others where you had a passbook that was hand written. You popped in with your book and that was it. No security hence
Some thriving bastard in my family wiped out mine.
Tinned fruit on a Sunday.
Left overs on a Monday.
Knowing what day of the week because of the food.
No seat belts. Even after the car ploughed into a wall.
The car with the million kids laying in the back. Cars in general over crowded. Remember sitting in the footwell of the passenger side even after the accident.
The shell ashtray
Everyone smoked everywhere
Sitting in the pub corner with a coke and a packet of crisps for hours. Or if no kids allowed in the car park.
Getting a microwave but with a million rules but no reason. Always because
The rancid medicines when ill. Think that's why we weren't really ill, germs where too scared lol.
Headscarfs and red lipstick.
Pinnies worn over clothes at home even when watch tv. Had to have somewhere
To store the cigs and lighter
Getting sent to the shop with a note to buy cigs/booze. Then the feeling when one day you wonder if it will work in any shop and it actually does. For years you thought it was cos the shop people knew everyone
Chips in actual newspaper
Coach trips to the seaside and other locations for the day.
Egg sandwiches for every picnic and day out. The stink on a hot day on a hot coach that you have been on for about 5 hours
Trading with the man on the allotment for veg. He would get my nans flowers.
Going fruit picking for berries, rhubarb and apples. Then finding out actually you shouldn't be doing that when you get sent alone and get chased with the farmer and his shot gun lol. (Maybe that was just my mad nan though).
The Christmas cake that would start to be made in July. Then doused weekly with a bottle of booze. Then still eating the cake in March cos a bite and you would be pissed.
The weird cake that grew. Wtf was that? Started as a chain mail thing. A bit of the cake in a box with the recipe and a letter about passing it on. Had loads of that in the freezer cos the bastard grew.
Going to the bakery to buy fresh yeast.
The egg slicer.
Another gadget that had cylinder attachments for grater and slicing anything and everything.
Milk was delivered.
Postman showed up before 8am and again in the afternoon with your second class post.
Shops closed weekly - full day and half day. After a certain time the rest of the week you would be stuck.
Jackie and the Beano
Dustbin man that came got your bin emptied it and brought it back. Even the extra bags if it was a bit full that week.
Really easy to find a handyman, plumber, electrician, window cleaner.
No central heating just the one fire. Freezing in winter. Having to use the Emerson (sp?) for hot water which was really expensive.
Snow in December. Actual proper snow, Deep white stuff.
Getting the first Atari.
Carpet in kitchens and bathrooms.
Telephone with a lock to stop anyone using it.
Gas/electric meters where you had to put in 50p's. Same with the rental tv.
Pirate radio.
When channel 3 or 4 first came out and they show music videos all night or films (cannot remember the channel). When it was the anniversary of Marilyn or Elvis etc all night
Would be devoted to them.
Friday night and one of the channels used to show erotica this would have been the mid 80's.
Having a couple of channels.
Betamax cos that there vhs would never become popular.
The size of the tv's they were massive.

Everything clashed brown carpets (with flowers) with you stripy settee, wallpaper with the velvet flowers, and bright green circles on your curtains. Oh and nets. You had to have nets. Without nets apparently you was a slattern. My nan came
To mine in the 90's. I was netless the outrage.

There's probably more.

Sorry didn't realise it was that long

The best thread ever.

Someone mentioned Liberty Bodices oh my, how I remember them.
One of my treasured possessions is my gran's button box. She used to cut the buttons off everything before they went to the rag man.
They buttons still have the cotton in them. I suppose she saved them as buttons would have been expensive.
Do you remember on the back of girls comics the cut out dressing the girl page where you cut out the clothes and they had tabs to fasten them to the figure.

Was anyone else given cubes of jelly to eat to strengthen their nails?
Fuzzy Felt
Sindy

A treat was a mountain of mashed potato with an upside down fried egg on the top.
Not being allowed to call for my friend next door when it was raining because it was tantamount to inviting myself into their house and not being allowed to phone and invite her to our house because she only lived next door.
Not being allowed to go swimming when it was raining.
Fairy liquid for collars.
Hours spent making home made marmalade.
Dad having a workshop where he would make things, never used.
Punishment being with a belt or hand, always in the spare room without my trousers on.
Being given small red pills in a spoon of jam because they were good for me, no idea what they were but they were crushed and as bitter as anything.

The life size models of children with a money collection box was for "the spastic society" iirc. I believe the girl model had a calliper on her leg.

I was fascinated by our medicine cabinet. Germolene (best smell ever), Milk of Magnesia, Calomine and a weird powder called Alum that you put on mouth ulcers and it made your mouth really water. Loved the taste of that stuff!

We had pyjama cases on our beds. We only had one nightie so that always went in the pyjama case when we got dressed in the morning. Some people had really nice pyjama cases which were like soft toys.

A teasmade by their bed.
Not being allowed meals until it was meal time no matter how hungry you were or weren't.
Staying at the table until every scrap was finished and having it the next day if you refused. The next day it would be fried in the pan and served again with added sprouts.
Visiting business men staying at their house in my parents bed even though we had a spare room

My mother wore black armbands on her coats when her parents died, to show she was in mourning. Must have been about 1959 and 1962. Not altogether a bad thing really, if it made people treat you kindly.
I also Remember everyone closing their curtains when the old lady next door but one died and the funeral director walking g in front of the hearse to the end of the road. Must have been about 1968/9.

Primark are currently selling pyjama cases, couple of teenage girls were shrieking over one the other day "dunno what it is but I want it" said one.

We did penny for the guy where after making Guy Fawkes we wandered far and wide sitting on street corners and by shops begging for money

Did anyone else's school (it might have been Sunday school) sell Sunny Smiles books which contained pictures of babies smiling and people bought a page off you, the money went to help poor children I think.

It was only as an adult that I realised we were sent to Sunday school, not for religious reasons, but so that mum and dad could go back to bed

BloodyTeenagers
The cake that grew was a Herman Friendship Cake .
GOOD FOOD

My dad's dripping bowl ... I kept that and his tie he bought for DDs wedding just before he died. . He always wore a shirt and tie even for gardening .

I going to start a Herman Friendship cake for work .. just to irritate them all!

We've a local butchers where you can buy tubs of drilling with like a dark layer of jelly on the top. It is lush on toast.
They also sell potted meat, which takes me back to any family get together and Sunday teas at gran's. As does tinned pink salmon, cucumber and onion in vinegar and fruit cocktail from a tin.

A couple of people mentioned cutting bread, both my mum and gran held the bread sort of under their armpit and cut the slices off horizontally, usually as a huge uneven door stop. Never on the day the bread was bought.
As I am left handed (keggy handed) I was never allowed to cut the bread as I looked awkward and a danger to myself - thinking about it they never showed my how to do it opposite to them!
My mum still winces now if she sees me cutting anything

This thread needs to go in classics. I'm misty eyed with nostalgia!

My parents dripping bowl was enamelled, and it had a strainer at the top, to catch any bits, as well as a lid.

All dripping went in together, whatever the meat. I think it was mostly lamb fat because we were in Australia. (The lamb was a bit older when it was slaughtered and was called "two tooth", and I think it's the same as hogget in the U.K.)

My mother used to make jam, and bottle fruit. We had mostly plum jam and apricot jam, as well as marmalade. Although once she made something ghastly called apple marmalade, which was awful, and no one ever wanted to eat. It all had to be eaten, though. She would seal the jam pots by pouring paraffin wax onto the new jam in the jar, and it would solidify.

The bottled fruit was usually plums, peaches or apricots. I remember having to help prepare the fruit which seemed to take forever. She had a big pan to sterilise the bottles in, and each bottle had a lid with a rubber ring and a clip, which made a seal. It was like tinned fruit. We used to have it for pudding all through the year, sometimes with ice cream or cream or made into crumble and the like.

Nothing was ever wasted!

I'm pinching some of the stuff here for a reminiscence taster I've been asked to do

Athiestmantis, visiting business men??? In your parents' bed??? With your parents??? I don't think this was standard for the day. They sound very 'adventurous'.

The little papier-mâché house Bernardo's collecting box,

Getting the mincer out to mince the roast for home made rissoles.

Making bacon sandwiches for Dad and then pouring the fat into a saucer for me and my brother to dip bits of bread in.

Putting soft brown sugar in a saucer for us to dip a banana in (a popular dessert)

Making everything possible from apples when they were ready on the tree, til we were sick to death of apples. Then being delighted when she put a lemon meringue pie on the table , only to find that stewed apple had been substituted for the lemon.

Holding Tupperware parties

I was born in1973, but we lived with my grandparents so I remember most of the things on here.

We were quite poor, but my nanna had been in service from the age of 14 with a wealthy doctor's family, and the lady of the house was very refined, but also very kind and had taken it upon herself to teach my nanna the "good" ways of doing things. As a result, my nanna had a horror of being thought of as poor or common. Everything had to be done "properly" which to me as a child just seemed bloody time consuming.

She used to sit and have a cup of tea when she got up, and another at about 11 o'clock, and other than that she never bloody stopped.

Washday took all day on a Monday. We had a copper with a fire under it and a huge washing machine with an electric mangle. My grandad was a miner, my aunt who lived with us worked in a shipyard and she also did an uncle's washing who worked in a factory. Everything must've been filthy, and yet it came out pristine. Five adults and a baby in terry nappies to wash for, and she never complained.

She was a fabulous cook, and made everything from scratch. My grandad grew all our veg, and we had some sort of meat, potatoes and veg dinner every day as well as a homemade pudding. Large roasting joint on Sunday, cold meat and bubble n squeak on Monday, pie on Tuesday, last bit of the joint minced on Wednesday for a cottage pie and then we would go to th butcher to buy sausages, bacon, faggots or whatever for the rest of the week.

I remember sitting on the hearth with the toasting fork from a very young age, making toast for tea. We used to go to my other grandma's for tea on a Sunday, and she was definitely "common" 😉. She had thin sliced white bread, tinned salmon or shrimps or ham, powdered orange juice and biscuits from a packet. It felt so decadent.

Neither of my grandmothers ever washed their own hair, but went for a shampoo and set once a week and then wore a hairnet to keep it in place.

We had no gadgets or labour saving devices. Everything was such bloody hard work.

We didn't get a telly till 1980, and we didn't have a telephone at home till I was 16.

Every home I visited had a picture of the crying boy,was meant to be bad luck so they say

Some of the things mentioned upthread I saw in the 80's, my grandparents were children of the 1910s:

Huge wide stereogram - at my grandparents' house, with four speeds: 16, 33, 45, 78. They didn't understand cassettes!

Illuminated globe, which changed from one kind of map to another when switched on. It's occurred to me you rarely see globes in people's houses these days, but I remember several people having them in my youth.

The Spastic Society collection boxes - I remember those.

Charity boxes in people's houses; my grandparents had one which said "to be a Christian is to be a missionary". My parents had one for Action Aid. My mum said it was where she would put any pocket money she found lying around.

My grandmother had a black Bakelite phone, with separate bell.

She also had a very heavy mechanical device which embossed your address and phone number (alphanumeric of course) on a letter, and a hand-held blotter. I didn't know what it was for until I saw someone use one on TV.

And a twin tub, which lasted 35 years. They made appliances to last in those days!

Rented TV: you could turn it off with the remote control, but not on again: no "standby". She kept it so long she paid more than the value of the set in rent. She'd be turning in her grave at how stuff is so disposable these days.

My dad used a pen which had to be filled from a bottle. He favoured brown ink especially.

Proper wooden hairbrushes - not the plastic tat that falls apart within a year. (To my grandparents, these were objects to be feared, when applied to the bottom.)

My grandmother's house had an assortment of electric sockets - some two-pin, some round three-pin, and only one or two modern sockets for plugs with fuses! She wouldn't hear of having the house rewired. She had various adaptors for them which she'd wired together herself; when we bought her any modern devices with a sealed plug, we had to cut the plug off, and find a suitable on in her electrics box.

Before shaver sockets were seen in bathrooms, my dad had a device which meant he could plug it into a table lamp, if he took out the bulb. He never wet shaved.

And the old-fashioned dustbins: the chaps carried them over their shoulders, and they took furniture too; all they had to do was throw it in the back of the dustcart, and it would be ground up before your very eyes.

We had a rag and bone man with a horse and cart, and a bell.

Giving us a spoonful of 'Virol' before we left for school in the winter.

I was born in 1951 in the north of Scotland . The house we lived in had gas lights downstairs and candles for bed. Lino on the stairs that my mum polished and my dad went down very fast in his socks ! Head ,bum and back of head on every step he said !

When my parents separated in the late 50s , not connected to the above incident ( I don't think ) we were very poor and there are a few things I swore I would never do when I grew up.

Mixed fruit jam , no butter, on cheap bread.

Sheets turned side to middle when they wore thin ..you would cut the sheet up the centre and then join the sides to each other in the centre so you always slept on a lumpy seam.

Flock pillows and mattress ... what was that all about ? So lumpy .

Tinned pilchards in tomato sauce with boiled potatoes.

My mum cycling 6 miles with a rucksack on her back to a cheaper supermarket and her crying when she dropped a small jar of coffee and it broke.

And she saved up for a new stair carpet and then spent it all on a trip to Spain alone , one of the first package holidays . My mum rocked !

My Grandma did that middling - put loaf on its end, buttered it then sliced it horizontally.

She also did our entire tea in a single frying pan - fish fingers, chips (real) and peas - which we then ate off smoky glass plates. Then, in summer, a stick of rhubarb from the garden with a cup of sugar to dip it in