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 loved the tins of Heinz potato salad!!

I remember lucozade was in large bottles covered in cellophane and was drunk when you were ill.
My mother had a ceramic disc with a cows head painted on it that she added to milk being boiled in a pan. When the disc rattled the milk was warmed.
I remember the first tv we had with a remote control. I thought that nothing could beat that.
I loved how much simpler life was in the 70's

My mum had a chip fire from her chip pan, got an electric one after that. I remember walking back from picking my brother up and for my mum, the penny dropped when the fire engine went past. Lots of smoke damage but not serious, neighbour was a firefighter and put it out before it got serious.

My first student house share had a twin tub, it was a faff but very good.

New potatoes in summer, old potatoes the rest of the year! You couldn't have mash in summer.....

Also still have brasso, sack of spuds (and yep remember the horror of fetching them as a child. Oh those long eyes and the inevitable slimy one. Shudder. Doesn't happen do much now), and remember wall mounted can opener.

Still fry chips in an open saucepan. Remember the chipper thingy - like an egg slice but more vicious. That'd be useful now actually.

Umm.

Knitted leggings for babies, anyone?
And the evil task of pre washing the nappies after they'd festered in napisan for a few days?

Still have washable nappies. Don't need to soak them or hand scrub them these days though, thankfully!

Still using a number of my parents' wedding presents, and some bits and bobs from when they were students. And currently reading to my daughter from the story books my mother used to read as a child.

YY that's how Nan did it Middling. And yes the idea of ready sliced bread would not be entertained.

As soon as she had washed up for Sunday lunch she would be buttering the loaf ready for tea.

My parents were born in the late 50's and still use coal tar soap.

My dad was one of 7 and they used to have dripping sandwiches and eat spaghetti with ketchup (instead of sauce)

I remember as a kid my mum used to boil the tea towels?!?

I remember lucozade was in large bottles covered in cellophane and was drunk when you were ill. - yes! It was a real treat, because being allowed Lucozade meant you were on the mend.

International was our first supermarket followed by Fine Fayre. International was a shop called George Mason before - they used to deliver.

Destinysdayghter I'm a younger woman (I suppose!) born in 83, my granny died in 92, I remember most of these things from her house!!

We used to get the villa pop man on a Friday at granny's, and she had a proper larder with a marble slab. I believe I have her wall mounted tin opener in my garage and I shall look tomorrow!

When my granny died, my mum took over doing her dad's laundry, she tried using the twin tub - to much hilarity from me, and much exasperation from her, that life was too bloody short and if grandad wanted her to do all this he had to buy a new washing machine!

I still keep the butter wrappers! Mum has a lard pot. I bought olive oil from the chemist in 2010 for baby massage class when I had my daughter! I still force feed her milk of magnesia for tummy issues, smother her in Vicks and did use karvol capsules on a tissue near her cot when she was small - haven't seen those for a while....

We've been decorating my mum's today and her paining dust sheets are the old can't striped bed sheets from granny's house!

And I remember things like clippy mats (also called proggy mats) at my great granny's but not much else, just little snippets which is a bit sad - but I suppose I was much younger when I was last in her house.

Ha, yes to the massive metal fire guard. And the Corona man with his Dandelion and Burdock, Cream soda and cherryade with 10p back on the bottle.
We had a chip pan fire too, my nan burnt her arm and the house had to be repainted all the way through as the walls were all black but we were lucky it wasn't worse.
I loved the cellophane Lucozade bottles, made it almost a treat to be ill. You'd also get to stay in bed and be bought a comic! We'd have OXO 'soup' with bread in it if we were poorly. I remember my mum taking my Nan Sanatogen Tonic wine when she was in hospital.

yum yum, pot of dripping.

there's one in the fridge at this very moment.

I dont think I had pasta until the mid 90s. I didnt see a bulb of garlic until 1996 and thought the person who had it was a complete show off. The only vegetables we had were carrots, potatoes, turnip and peas then later, frozen sweetcorn.

The only 'exotic' thing we had was a tin of curry powder that stayed in the kitchen for decades but never seemed to get used.

No phone in the house, the 'shower' was one of those plastic plug into the bath taps things that was useless so never got used anyway.

Toasting bread on an open fire.

All medicines coming in brown glass bottles and looking very tempting to mix up in the bathroom sink as a magic potion (got into big trouble for that one).

Wallpaper in the kitchen and bathroom that would be dripping from all the steam.

Soda stream machines were very exciting but also took the skin off your hands as you pulled the lever down if you weren't careful.

Jelly from the rabbit mould.

Going for a 'drive' in the car to no where in particular for most of the day with a packet of opal fruits to keep you quiet (and maybe in posh peoples cars a tin of travel sweets!!)

I remember a trip to Bejam at around age 9. I thought it was the most exciting shop ever the big freezers full of ice creams and lollies. It was like Aladins cave.

I used to love the free toys in cereal packets too.

I thought the height of posh was those huge marble lighters with matching freestanding ashtrays that were practically a piece of furniture.
Really posh to me was matching furniture from MFI

Most of my childhood is in this thread. Yes, we had 'the Corona man' who used to deliver crates of lemonade on a truck - and the coalman came, too. No Ocado vans, but the corner shop sent groceries in cardboard boxes via the delivery boy on his carrier bike.

There was no supermarket in our small village until I was about 12 and then a Safeway appeared, dazzling us with the exotic foods on display. Dm once bought an 'avocado pear' (as they were then known) and we cut it open with great trepidation and agreed that it was horrid - all hard and tasteless. It wasn't until I was about 23 and someone sophisticated gave me some delicious guacamole that I realised we'd choked down a completely unripe avocado

My mum made 'curries'. They were usually mince, curry powder (I think diced carrots) and always sultanas!

Oh and books and books of green shield stamps

Did anyone else's mum produce one of these when you had bronchitis or whooping cough? A coal-tar based oil (Cresoline) was placed in the little bowl at the top and the warmth of the lamp underneath vaporised it. The smell permeated the whole house but it was very soothing to bad chests. I was disappointed that my DM had disposed of it by the time my DSs could have done with its pungeant vapour.

Pungent even.

Just adding, I still have memories of the milk man coming round with a horse and cart. In the winter, it had socks on its feet to help stop it slipping. (It was massive, around 17 hands.)
I can also remember going to the sweet shop and being able to but three sweets for a penny.

When you bought tea you'd get a little card to stick in a book and tried to collect them all. You could do swaps at school. I remember collecting 'inventors and inventions'.

Don't remember that, Tricky, but I do remember us kids being made to inhale the steam from a bowl of hot water and Friar's Balsalm, with a towel over our heads, when we had chesty colds!

Party lines if you had a telephone in the house.

Mums divi number. Recited at every co op purchase.
We'd go to Bread Street co op in Edinburgh for school uniform, vests, shoes, paid out of the divi.

Carnation milk, condensed milk, Angel Delight. Often with tinned peaches or tinned fruit salad ( oh the fights over whose turn it was to get the cherry)

I also remember being sent to the bakers for rolls ( mostly on a Sunday) coming back on a cold winters day clutching a warm fragrant bundle.

New Year ( Hogmanay up here ) i can remeber helping cutting up cubes of cheese then adding picked onion and pineapple on a cocktail stick.
Making meat paste sandwiches.
Cutting tomato " flowers"
Cyboes ( spring or salad onions) trimming then cutting each end, putting in cold water , theyd curl up.
butter was posh if scraped with one of those curly things to be served in bowls of water ( to keep it cool)

We knew of curries, rice and pasta in our house but also Smash, spam, or being sent to the chippy for a poke of chips.
If I can recall correctly it was spam beans and chips for tea at our grandmothers most Saturdays , cousins too, the Dr Who, the spinners or somesuch.
We'd sleep 2 /3to a bed, or on of those fold down beds.
Sharing a bed was cosier in the single glazed, no central heating rooms.

Beds had sheets, blankets and eiderdowns.
Flanelette sheets if you were lucky, those horrible nylon ones if not.

Each spring , when there was a few good days forecast the eiderdown and blankets would each be put into the big washing sink, water and snowflake washing powder added then smallest child set to tramp in it.
Then put through the mangle and carried down to handg in the green ( this was often a shared area between several flats. Leaving washing out was frowned upon but maybe tolerated on blanket wash days.)

No Tricky, but we did put Vicks and hot water in the mixing bowl and inhale it with a towel over our heads and the bowl to keep the steam in. It made your eyes sting a bit but it cleared blocked noses!

Using that manky dripping - on toast. It was mixed with a splash of hot water to soften the fat and a corner off an oxo cube crumbled into it.

Also the small bottle of oil, but she ccalled it castor oil.

Oh my - so many memories! No heating in our house, save the coal fire in the living room. Paraffin heater in the hall to take the chill off. No telly until 1966 and then only BBC1. Milk and butter kept in a bucket of water in the pantry in summer as no fridge. Weekly bath and hair wash, all the kids going in one after the other, same water.
The coal man delivered coal in the winter and sold ice-cream in the summer. Drinking Oxo soup after having a tooth out to help it heal.

And…….being sent to buy my dad's cigarettes, 20 Embassy Red!!!