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?

[flummoxedlummox]

Calamine lotion getting slathered on my back after day trips to Clacton-on-Sea. And then slapping each other on the back the next day. Gawd that hurt.

[llangennith]

I'm a 50s child and remember the tiny bottle of olive oil.
DM was from a small Welsh village and left home for the bright lights of London (Surrey actually) to work as a telephone operator. She was determined to turn her back on all things Welsh and had to have anything new that came on the market. So by 1960 we had a strange looking front loading automatic washing machine, a potato peeling machine (took longer to clean afterwards than it took to peel the spuds), electric sewing machine (I preferred next door's treadle version) and cupboards full of neglected electrical appliances. And packets of Vesta dried food

[DramaAlpaca]

I remember frost on the inside of the windows, and getting dressed in front of the stove because we had no central heating. Our clothes would hang overnight on the fireguard so they'd be nice & warm when we got dressed.

DM used the block mascara with the little brush, I'd forgotten about that.

I still use an egg slicer Lanaor and I have a tub of Brasso somewhere. I used to have to polish all the brass ornaments in our house for my pocket money.

We used to buy our meat from a butcher with sawdust on the floor. the butcher would give me & my brother a lollipop when we left the shop.

There was a Booth's supermarket in our town. You'd pay for your shopping and then your trolley would be taken off by staff to the packing area where they'd pack it neatly into boxes and we'd call round in the car later on to pick it up.

[Squeegle]

Actually, I remember decilmalisatiin, does anyone else, it was very exciting getting all the new coins! And there was a special feature on Nationwide explaining it all!

[jennielou75]

Caolin and morphine if you had a bad tummy? I know I have spelt both wrong! It was pink in colour and you had to shake the bottle.

[BattleaxeGalactica]

Oooh and a wall mounted tea caddy where you pressed the button on the bottom and it dispensed the correct amount straight into the teapot.

They sell for a fortune on eBay now

[clairethewitch70]

I remember Rise and Shine powdered orange drink. spoonfuls of malt extract, haliborange suckable vitamins.

There was always a pink gritty laundry soap in the kitchen for use on stains before going in the twin tub.

Izal medicated greaseproof toilet paper. I hated that stuff.

[BattleaxeGalactica]

Kaolin and morphine was the devil's soup. Worked though. I think it scared the bugs away

[Reasontobelieve]

I remember:

My granny having a mangle that turned by hand;
Our neighbours or was it my great aunt? having a tiny recess for a kitchen. As there was no room for cupboards, they kept their food on a large piece of wood that covered the bath. They had to remove all he cans when they used the bath!
My mum and relatives used to take their laddered stockings to be repaired by hand.
Public baths
A brand of curry that came in a can divided in half - curry in one part and rice in the other.
Different varieties of vesta meals
Bars of milk tray chocolates....

[DramaAlpaca]

I remember decimalisation too, it was very exciting.

My mum saved the wrappers from packets of butter to grease baking tins with - mine too.

[MarvellousMycroft]

Oh dear, I was born in the seventies but in many ways my parents belonged to an earlier generation. My Mum only got rid of her twintub in the last ten years. It wasn’t plumbed into mains water. Instead it was wheeled into the kitchen on wash day and filled with a hose from the sink. Then the powder was dissolved in the water, the clothes were added and poked down, and the wash went on. After the wash, the clothes were hooked out with the long wooden tongs, rinsed in the sink and then put to soak in buckets of fabric conditioner. While they were soaking, the twintub was drained into the sink and refilled with clean water, then the clothes were put back in and rinsed, then taken out again, wrung out by hand and put in the spin dryer.

Admittedly the twintub was bigger than a conventional front loading washer, and in the 60s it was probably a huge improvement on hand washing, but it was such an unnecessary rigmarole. I had a front loading washer from the mid-90s, but whenever we went to see my parents that was how clothes would be washed, right up until 2007/8. Eventually Mum got a front loader, but she carried on taking out the washing out of the machine and soaking it in fabric conditioner for a few hours, before rinsing it, for a couple of years afterwards, She said the clothes weren't as soft otherwise , but I think also she couldn’t get her head around the concept that doing a wash didn't require a full day's hands-on work and lots of wrangling of wet clothes.

We also had a pressure cooker. Evil thing, prone to shooting its weight up to the ceiling with a great jet of steam. All the vegetables were put on to cook at the same time, which meant the peas were cooked for as long as the potatoes. It wasn’t until I moved out that I realised green beans didn’t have to be a sodden khaki mush. Unlike the twin tub, the pressure cooker is still in operation, but I'm afraid I veto its use when we visit.

Can’t get too nostalgic for either of those 60s contraptions, I’m afraid – the memories are too recent!

[BattleaxeGalactica]

Tomatoes cut into flower shapes for a party. WTAF?

[Reasontobelieve]

Just remembered Dr Collis Brown medicine for stomach ache

[AshesandDust]

When we had our hair cut my sister and I had our orders to tell the hairdresser to cut it short - so we got our 'money's worth.'.

[BattleaxeGalactica]

My mum tells me nappies were routinely boiled in a saucepan on the stove to sterilise them.

[2cats2many]

Syrup of Figs

All we had to do was hint at possibly complaining of a sore tummy and we'd be dosed up with the foul stuff.

Also Milk of Magnesia.

I might have to go for a lie down...

[OhMrDarcy]

There was only two sorts of dog food - Pal and Pedigree Chum. Someone persuaded my mother to try a new dog food called Vitalin that was basically Alpen for dogs, all bird food like and oaty. Even the Labrador wouldn't eat it.

Yy to the fridge full of teacups of dripping and saved butter wrappers. Freezer full of lambs and half a pig. Sack of filthy potatoes next to it under the marble shelf that served as a halfway house between the kitchen and fridge.

I'm pretty sure that when Ski yoghurt first arrived in our house we ate it with sugar sprinkled on top as we found it sour. Nobody else admits to this in our family.

[seb1]

I remember in the days before itemised phone bills (so my mum couldn't find out how much I used it ) there was a number you could dial that made the phone ring, I would do that, pretend to answer it then quickly ring my friends back and sit and chat for hours with mum thinking they were paying.

[BalloonSlayer]

My Granny had a tea leaf dispenser on the wall. One push of the button gave one teaspoon, supposesly. I think it was a bit generous as once you'd done "one per person and one for the pot" you ended up with fabulously stong tea. By heck I wish I had one.

[PossumInAPearTree]

Ski yoghurt was a luxury too far in our house in the early 70s.

Dad made our yoghurts. Every week there were 24 little pots of yoghurt on the bathroom floor, culturing or fermenting or whatever yoghurts do.

One pot was the "mother pot" used to start the batch for the following week. Seem to remember that one was white and the others were pink. Tasted disgusting.

[BattleaxeGalactica]

I can remember being taken to Tupperware parties. Oh, the glamour.

[CointreauVersial]

DM used to go shopping wearing a headscarf and carrying a wicker basket. Haven't seen either item for years.

[latedecember1963]

Reading this is like reliving my childhood! I'm sure in years to come when I come to sort out mum's house I'll find lots of the things mentioned, including her block of mascara.
I remember decimalisation of money and my Granny being convinced it wouldn't catch on. For years after she always worked out the price of things she thought expensive in old money to prove how it was a plot to diddle her out of her pension!

[SilenceOfThePrams]

Hmm.

Still have/do a number of these.

Water by the heater so the air doesn't get too dry.
Dripping/lard in the 'fridge.
Butter wrappers to grease tins/goes a treat on top of baked stuffing in the oven.
Egg slicer.
Darning tights and socks.
Buying meat from the butcher with dead pigs and pheasant hanging in the window.
Brawn and haslet.

Remember but can't sadly still buy kaolin and morphine. But yep, that was in the medicine cabinet with the olive oil for ear wax, the corvona evil cough syrup you put a tablespoon of in hot water, and the calamine lotion.
Also remember frost patterns in the windows - fun to make holes in them to look out through.
Carbolic soap, weekly baths, fairy liquid for everything, and racing to do the washing if the weather forecast was good.

And I wasn't a child of the 60s. And I don't think we were particularly old fashioned. Although as apparently half of me is still there, what do I know?

[TrickyD]

This was our phone when I was young, late 1940s - end of 50s. No dial, when you took the listening part off its hook, you were connected to the ladies sitting in the room over the Post Office, and were aware that they might be listening in when you were speaking into the sticking out tube. Local calls were not timed, but if you went on too long, either the ladies or Mum told you to get off the line.
Our number was (Town) 112, our Doctor was (Town) 4.