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?

I was born in in 1963 and I think my parents were in the minority as they didn't smoke

Hooray This is going into Classics. Thank you MN.

It's such a lovely thread and almost every post has me nodding my head and thinking "Yes, us too."

Sparklingbrook I've just scrolled back through the thread and seen your picture of the tea leaf rocket. Thank you so much Ours was exactly like that, a yellow one.

Gatekeeper we used to listen to Sing Something Simple - was it the Adams singers ?

Also used to watch the wrestling with Mick McManus on my Nan's tv .

We had a green phone installed in the passage, it was a shared party line, when you picked up the receiver you could sometimes hear the other persons conversation. Our family only made calls to Auntie Bet because we didn't know anyone else with a phone.
Phone boxes where you pressed button A put the coins in then button B when someone answered.
Bag Wash was a white thick cotton pillow case with the door number written on in black ink. It would be dropped off at the laundry to be washed, & picked up either wet or dry. I delivered the washing on my brothers pushchair every Friday evening. It was easier if dry but so heavy when wet.I was 13.

The wall-mounted tea-leaf caddy was something that everyone except us had, and I wanted one so much because they were the height of modern living. Mum used ... a teaspoon.

My mum used to put my hair in rollers for the school photo and then stick one of these on me to dry it !

CondensedMilkSarnies We had one of those, it was so sophisticated. In fact, we had two hair driers, the other one was a hand held one which weighed a ton. My sister and I would vye to wash our hair first on a Sunday night so that we could bagsy the posh one. I seem to remember it had a strap to go over your shoulder but you couldn't walk far with it because it was plugged in.

There were far more shops selling fabric, yarns and all the bits to go with them, because lots of people made their own curtains etc (don't think my parents ever bought them ready made). We used to go quite often to this rather dark little shop with rows and rows of cotton reels in every colour, and tall wooden chairs at the counter (I think it was so you could sit and browse thru all the sewing patterns before choosing one..). From when I was about 3 my mum would lift me into one of the chairs while she looked around, and for some reason that was the best thing ever :-).

Oh yes !! The haberdashery shop. Ours was called Burrows and I loved going with my mum to choose buttons (usually ladybirds) for the latest cardi she'd knitted me.

Middling my sister and I used to fight over it because the alternative was sticking you head in front of one of these

Condensed yes it was the Adams singers

Aw that's made me cry ! Remembering innocent times gone by.

I recall the pop man coming round on a saturday morning....Abbott and Costello films on the telly and Saturday Swap Shop. Me mam would be out getting the shopping and bringing home my comic 'Whizzer and Chips"

We used to listen to the radio a lot. I remember "Sing Something Simple" too, and Charlie Chester; and comedy programmes like Hello Cheeky, H-H-Hancock's Half Hour, and the Goon Show. My Dad loved the Goons, and so did me and my DB, but my Mum didn't get it at all - DB and I would spend long car journeys quoting entire scripts, sharing the different characters, with Dad chortling away in the drivers seat and Mum sadly shaking her head.

There was also some kind of dark green leafy vegetable that Mum used to boil to an absolute pulp, and we'd eat it with a roast dinner with vinegar on it . The meat was usually beef, and always cooked until it was the same uniform grey colour all the way through; dessert would be treacle or ginger pudding, or a rice pudding with a nutmeg skin on top, or a steamed suet pudding with raisins in it, or jam, always served with custard which my Dad had to have the skin off of - the rest of us couldn't stand it! Now and again there'd be a plain suet pud that we'd eat with brown sugar and slices of butter...

Niggit sounds exactly like our dinners ! Dad always had the skin off the rice pud.

Sing Something Simple meant one thing in the early 60s, it will soon be time for bed and school in the morning. Oh happy days!

"skin off the rice pud"

the best bit.

It seems to me that modern fan ovens don't do such good skin.

Gosh the scents take you back don't they?
My mum wore laimant by Coty and opium by YSL
My dads sister wore Estée by Estée Lauder and wore yardley lipsticks with the green marble effect case
I remember a yellow spherical Kiku powder puff
And forest fern by bronnley

Goodness Condensed that's quite a gadget, isn't it?

I loved the haberdashers.

They would get out the pattern my mum was making, and pin it to the cloth to make sure she bought the right amount.

In the meantime, my sister and I would look at all the buttons in the tubes, and all the other wonderful stuff they had.

I was in Salisbury just after Christmas, and they have a proper haberdashers there.

I Australia, if you couldn't afford to buy something in a shop, you could get it "on layby". They would take a deposit, and you would go back and pay off what you could until you'd paid it all, then you could take it.

Also, you could sometimes buy clothes "on appro" where you could take them home, to decide if you really liked them.

Oh god the Sing Something Simple music. I used to listen to Terry Wogan in the car with my dad. I reckon in 30 years DS will be saying I remember listening to R2 with my mam because I have it on from Chris to Simon every day.

Oh God! Sing Something Simple, sung by The Cliff Adams Singers, accompanied by Jack Emblow. It was on in the early evening and my Dad listened to it right up until it finished in 2001.

It was the desolate, forlorn sound of the end of the weekend and it meant I had to start my homework. Even now, that the sound of that opening track fills me with existentialist angst.

Little White Bull by Tommy Steele and Sparky, a piano ... both songs that scared the life out of me when they came on the radio on Saturday mornings.

Always thought the names of places were so exotic on 3 way family favourites.

Also can remember when the programme on the radio would be interrupted with that announcement 'this is an urgent message for Mr Smith believed to be travelling in a green Ford Perfect in the Cotswolds area ...'
No need now we all have phones. My aunt used to send postcards with her news on them .. odd it now seems as she lived in Lichfield and the postcards had pictures of the place on them.
So we'd get random things like Bert's leeks looking good, he wants best in show

Condensedmilk we had one of those! My mum would put my hair in curlers when I was in my early teens so my pageboy cut would curl under properly.

Also remember, with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, Sing Something Simple.

I remember when I was a little girl my parents sunbathing in the back garden listening to The Navy Lark when I really wanted them to play with me!

I was born in 1963 btw.