Things that you just don't see now!

[darra]

As A kid we just used to say "Get yer spuds in"

[Timbuck]

Talking of "spuds" My "other half/Our Lass" remembers putting potato peelings on the fire to help out on the fuel bills...We were into recycling in those days more than we are now...Now't got wasted, not even the bath water..one tubfull was used on the whole family..and then watered the veggies in the back garden.

[crookes]

Good stuff indeed

 

I was born in Jessops in 1962, emigrated to Lincolnshire in the mid 1980s.

 

I don't know a name other than One potato etc.

 

Found this British Film Institute (BFI) film on the channel4 website entitled "One potato, two potato" although I suspect broadband will be required to view it, but worth a try:

 

http://www.channel4.com/fourdocs/archive/one_potato.html

 

Thanks for that, I was able to view it. I remember now that the rhyme went on. One potato, two potato, three potato, four.

Five potato, six potato, seven potato more.

...but that is almost as far as i can get. There was some fist banging together and the rhyme ended with out goes he/she.

 

Dave

[crookes]

…and a few more: -

 

The dreaded TV vertical hold and the dodgy TV aerial that would only work if you stood on the sideboard on one leg and behind the television set. Or something like that.

Roads without white/yellow lines.

Blocks of green fairy soap to wash absolutely anything.

Acdo power and Rinso.

Portable gas boilers that you stuck a rubber hose onto the gas tap and hoped you didn’t blow the house up.

My mother had a gas fridge when I was young and the small flame blew out. There was a small porthole where you could poke a lighted taper through to relight it, which I did. The fridge cleared the floor by about 6 inches and the blast burnt the socks I was wearing.

Bakelite electric switches and plugs.

Lead water and gas pipes.

Green paint or white distemper on the walls with sometimes brown paint below the dado rail and thick brown sticky varnish on the doors.

Black and white tiles.

Blue bag whitener, or as I knew it a dolly bag. It was used to makes ‘white’ whiter.

Liquorice Imps.

Gaudy Perspex door handles with a hint of glitter embedded.

Fibre glass curtains.

Lincrusta wallpaper.

Dadelon wall and table covering. I may have spelt that incorrectly.

Stair rods on the stair carpets.

Cremona, Sago or Semolina pudding.

Sealing wax to seal the knots on string tied around parcels.

Dandelion and Burdock.

Ostermilk Baby Food Formula

Rolled up and knotted newspaper used as firelighters.

Sandwich board men that carried a board in front of and behind them to advertise either a shop, Jesus Saves, or The End Is Nigh.

Peg rugs made from old stockings or rags.

Toasting forks.

Men taking snuff.

Signwriting with water based white paint, which was done on shop windows by the proprietor to advertise the goods they sold e.g. Chops 2/6d a lb. (My words not his.) The game was to rub it off without him seeing and make rude words by eliminating the odd one or two, if you could.

 

Cheers, Dave

[crookes]

...I've just remembered I've missed seeing - the steam powered brewery wagon that delivered ale to the Ball Inn at Crookes when I was a lad. On several occasions I also saw a lorry with its bodywork in the shape of a brown bottle. The cab was in the base of this bottle of course. Can someone please tell me who owned this vehicle?

 

Some will recall the Sheffield Transport Department 'Tea Wagon'. I don't know if it was an ex-coach, a cut-down d/deck or a purpose built vehicle. The race was on to get to Middlewood Terminus before it left and have a cuppa and a dripping sandwich. (ex-conductor/driver 1963-66/1966-73). My father did 42 years as tram driver/bus driver poor devil.

Did anyone else make concertinas with the tram tickets by the way?

There was another strange vehicle around that was regularly used to service the tram wires. It was I think converted from a d/deck bus and it had a sort of telescopic tower with a platform on top to work from.

Steamrollers were a familiar sight, employed to firm the tarmacadam when cobbled streets were replaced.

I went down Riverlyn Valley one day and saw two traction engines dredging the silt out of the dams. I think it was on the 8th Oct 1966; so only 39 and a bit years ago!

Why do I recall that date? Well I picked up a small twig that one of the engines had brushed off an oak tree and planted it and it sprouted into 39 and a bit year old tree.

Smog. Now there is something I don't miss

 

Dave

[Texas]

I'd thought about Ostermilk myself, but you can still get it! What about ordinary milk delivered by horse and cart? In fact anything delivered by horse and cart.

As I recollect that 'one potato, two potato' routine was a way of sorting out who was going to be the 'it' person in any game that required one. Like the keeper in kickcan, or who was 'on' in hide and seek, etc, etc. Also,whosoever pulled his or her fist away during the said routine, was going to be the poor sucker anyhow.

[crookes]

The Potato routine - Thanks for the info Texas, I had an idea it was that, but was never sure enough to say. I never remember milk or anything else being delivered by horse and cart in Sheffield, Hucknall and Linby yes. I remember the rag & bone man with his.

 

I didn't know Ostermilk was still being sold. At the same time we fetched that from where it was being distributed in Broomhill, my mother also collected Malt and Cod liver oil (and orange juice I think).

 

Dave

[Timbuck]

Curly Flypapers.

"DaK" (green sticky stuff to catch rats and mice).

The "cold slab in the pantry".

Matchstick guns (made from hair grips and rubber rings off Tizer bottle stoppers).

My Sister with "rags in her hair"??.

Knickers/Bloomers with a pocket in the leg.

Spirella Corsets.

The "Permanent Wave".

Setting lotion

Gas curling irons.

"Drain pipe" trousers.

Buttoned Flys.

Loops on underpants (to hook onto your braces when elastic was scarce).

Rubber buttons (on my Sisters liberty Bodice).

Wax "Tapers" and "Spells" on the mantelpiece.

Clip on "Candle holders" for the Xmas tree.

The Coal bunker by the fireside.

Bedsteads held together with wire and springs.

And piles of Horse Muck in the road..(Ok for The Rhubarb).

Goldfish and Baloons from the Rag Man.

[Guest]

...My Sister with "rags in her hair"??...

When I was little, I had really long hair, which my mum sometimes used to set in rags (tore up bits of a flanelette sheet, as I recall). I used to end up with lovely ringlets.

 

I distinctly remember aged about six or seven, being perched on a stool in the livingroom in front of the TV. If it was a Sunday evening, I'd be watching Hart to Hart while my mum worked on my hair .

[Texas]

Ostermilk was a welfare thing during the war, I think you could buy it in Chemists but it was expensive, so anybody that needed it got it from the welfare. They also doled out that orange concoction with the consistency of treacle, which you diluted with water to get orange juice. The real 'hard' kids got the basic stuff by the spoonfull, Lord knows what it did to their digestive tracts.

When I was based in Southampton in the early 60's I was suprised to see that milk was still delivered on horse and cart. Southern Dairies I think it was, now you know where Benny Hill got his inspiration from, him being an ex-milkman.