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?

Molly & EastMids we too had an enormous rubber plant and I had to clean its leaves with cotton wool, milk & water. Apparently it made the leaves nice & shiny.

I remember being given a pomegranate & a pin by my grandmother. It felt very exotic.

My brother & I used to watch Doctor Who from behind the sofa

And Phenergan for a really bad cough, which was lovely and red and sticky and alcoholic I remember this, you had to sign from it at the pharmacy to stop you buying too much. It tasted delicious & knocked you out completely.

We also had a massive rubber plant until Dad thew it across the room in fit of temper. Mum also has a huge bottle garden and I was the only one with hands small enough to plant stuff in it.

I remember my Dad being a nutter with the fireworks too.

When I tell younger people about my upbringing and how fucking COLD it was in the house in Winter and the meat once a week, one bath a week etc I don't think they believe me!

My Gran's cheese plant started growing in to the walls and carpets!

No inside loo or central heating til I was 13
No phone
No car either til about the same age
Bath once a week on a Saturday night usually
My kids don't know they are born! 😀

I remember the weekly baths and washing your hair in the bath, we had an old Morphy Richards hairdryer in the 60s iirc.

We didn't get a home phone until the late 70's, I had to use the one down the road to ring my friends

We had a little 3 wheeler car in the 60's, I don't know how we all fitted with the suitcases or camping stuff, it was tiny and me and my brother sat in the back, no seat belts then at all. I remember we had to avoid steep hills or else it would get stuck

Bazooka Joe bubblegum

Old English Spangles

Fruit Salad and Blackjacks four a 1d

Proper Mars bars, not the 80's and onwards revamp

Gobstoppers

1s. a week pocket money. I could spend 6d and had to save 6d. I can still remember the wonder of exchanging my savings for my first ten bob note and laying on the floor just looking at it

Spending entire playtimes trading bubblegum cards. I had a complete set of Land Of The Giants, quite a few Batman and Tarzan ones and was obsessed with some fairly inappropriately bloodthirsty WWII cards. Sold them and the LOG's on eBay a while back for quite a few ££s

slippermum we had Zena by the same artist on our wall. She lives in my attic now.

My aunt had a beautiful painting of a woman on her wall . I've searched for an image but can't find it. As a young child I was actually jealous of the painting because they loved it so much

I question for you all.
Was involved in a what games did we play session at our local memory cafe this week (this thread has been invaluable -thank you all)
We talked about Jacks and even had 3 sets to play with. But then someone said we didn't have Jacks they were too expensive, we had Snobs which didn't need the ball'
Does anyone know of Snobs? Or are they a local to here thing? Nottinghamshire
Cannot find a set to buy on internet

Hi, EMGPS, I am local to there now and think have heard of these but I didn't grow up here. A quick google brings up this link though which is lovely as explains not only 'jacks' and 'snobs' but also 'fivestones' which is what my mum used to call it....she had a London childhood.

www.theforgottentoyshop.co.uk/blogs/news/11628301-so-who-knows-what-snobs-is

I was born mid 60's though and considered jacks a bit 'old hat'. More my mum's era....1940's childhood. As I recall, our favourite playground toys of the early 70's were...the ball on a string connected to a plastic hoop that you twirled round your ankle and jumped over the ball. Anyone know what they were called? Conkers and marbles of course. French skipping or 'elastics' (could fill sn entire lunchtime with very intricate rounds of increasing difficulty...until the boys ran through and tried to wreck it by pinging off! Throwing tennis balls against the wall and catching.....dancing type games like "The big ship sailed up the alley, alley o' or 'In and out the bonny blue blue bells' or 'Oranges and Lemons'. Even at middle school a few songs were probably left over from the war... remember one about Hitler (eek!) and another about Sunnyside up and showing your knickers to the football team! Sorry to digress from thread!

Back on topic,....did anyone else's mum have boots that were just the leg part? Kind of like a vinyl sleeve but shaped for the leg...elasticated top and bottom. These went on to transform shoes into boots! I can't remember whether the shoes matched and were bought as a set, or just put on wth any old shoes and hoped for the best! I thimk she had a white pair, a red pair and an electric yellow pair ....groovy!

OMG my best friend had a white pair of those. We thought she was the bees knees

Yes! I had a white pair. Someone should bring them back.

Yes to Jacks. I had a very superior set which were heavier than most. They performed better. I gave tried to interest DSs and DGCs but no luck. On the other hand, the DGCs love Spillikins; there was a craze for those when I was at school. We have four sets, two standard long thin wooden ones, plastic ones in different shapes such as saws, ladders and pitchforks and antique ivory or bone ones. No wonder our house needs de-cluttering.

Clothes dryers that were about the size of a small fridge where you lifted the lid and there were wooden slats to hang your washing over whilst the heat circulated.

Famel syrup
The Alpine fizzy drinks man
The coal truck
Egg slicer
"Cold cupboard" in my grandmother's house..for storing butter etc
No shower, so hair washed by scooping water and we had an odd doughnut
shaped thing to go round our heads, to stop the shampoo getting in our eyes
(it didn't)
My grandpa using the jelly from tinned meat, as a spread
My grandma getting a lamb's heart from the butcher for the dog,me being allowed to cut it up
Cremola Foam
The "pig" -a kind of ceramic hot water bottle that would be wrapped in a sock
My mum used to iron her hair

Lucozade from the chemist when you were poorly!
And, also from the chemist those "Vitamin C" lollies if you'd been good. Basically just a lovely boiled sweet on a stick!

On a Saturday morning, my DM would sit with a bowl of water, a comb, some setting lotion and her hair curlers. Section by section she would comb the setting lotion through and put her curlers in as she went. Then the whole lot would be topped off with a chiffon headscarf, ready for a Saturday night out with my DF.
After tea, she would apply her make up in the hallway mirror. She always used loose face powder applied with a large soft powder puff. She would always dab a bit on mine too.
Then she would remove the curlers and shake out a mass of curls. I used to be fascinated.
When my younger brother was born, she decided to have a professional photo done of us kids. I was 5 years old.
For some reason, she decided to apply the curlers to my long hair the night before. I felt like I was sleeping on a hedgehog!
The next morning, she removed the curlers and shook the curls.
I looked like a giant poodle had been put through a car wash and then parked on my fucking bonce!
Much to my shame, that bloody photo ( which is around 20 inch x 15 inch ) still has pride of place on her lounge wall.

Yes to the olive oil for ears

My mum and dad had the kitchen decorated - some very loud printed wallpaper - and within a few days our lunatic dog had pulled a strip of wallpaper off. My brother and I tried to stick the wallpaper back by using the olive oil

Top tip - it doesn't work plus it leaches into the rest of the still stuck down wall paper 😀

I can still remember the first time eating olive oil on holiday and expecting it to taste of medicine

Also remember the first duvet we had - always referred to as the continental quilt 😀😀. We still had top sheets though until my dad was advised that we were 'trapping the heat between the sheet'

And being scared stiff of crying boy pictures - my aunt had one and it was a common myth that they were cursed. Apparently houses would burn down and the only thing left in the smouldering ruins would be the crying boy picture.

Still freaks me now!

the ball on a string connected to a plastic hoop that you twirled round your ankle and jumped over the ball. Anyone know what they were called?

It was what we called a Twixa-Skip or maybe a Twixy Skip? Ours had a plastic bell-shaped dome on the end of the string (or rather plastic cord), not a ball. Have just wasted ages Googling different spelling variations, but can't find any mention of them called this - they are referred to as ankle skippers or ankle hula-hoops. Definitely the must-have playground toy for girls in 1970. Mine was in 1970s on-trend brown and orange of course! And the hoop wouldn't fit over your shoes, so hours were spent taking shoes on and off and doing up and undoing laces every playtime.