Let's "geeze!"

[deborah jane]

I've just scrubbed this message........

because I seem to have posted it twice!

[deborah jane]

English childhood

I have so enjoyed reading this thread.
I too remember my childhood as a time when summers were always sunny & winters were always snowy. I was a sort of country girl, living in a village near a not very big steel town near the midlands of the UK. We lived near the Fens, Constable country, very, very flat, very very rich earth so lots of farming. Every year we had a village show, a three-day or weekend event with riding competitions, cake-baking, jam-making, flower-arranging, vegetables etc. I remember my dog lifting his leg on a woman's leg while we were waiting to go into the ring for the dog show. Needless to say he didn't win.........but my sister & I won a prize for the best garden on a plate.
Like the other people on this thread nobody ever worried where you went so long as you were back in time for tea or supper. And we biked everywhere too! A sort of universal truth!
I went to school at about age 3, first to a sort of kindergarten & then to a dame school in the village. Later I went to a convent school (we had to wear uniforms of course) in a town a few miles away & a school bus picked us up from outside the supermarket (of which more later) in the village. The bus was about the size of a Renault Espace but that didn't stop about 15 of us squashing in there as it chugged round the villages & outlying farms. The driver was called Arthur & if you asked nicely you could sit on the hot bit at the front to warm up your backside on cold mornings.
For a long time we didn't have a supermarket. We had Stoppers Super Stores which was a sort of very large corner shop but you weren't served, you walked round & put things in a basket. It became the Super Stores when I was about 7, before that you were served. I had to go to get things for my mother & she had a bill there so I didn't have to do money but if she did have any change I could buy a little bar of chocolate for a penny or a packet of Love Hearts, or Spangles, or toffees (but I don't remember their name).
We lived in quite a big house (how I would like to see it again, I suppose it is really tiny!) & had a cleaner who came in - Mrs Darlow, & a gardener who I didn't like. For a while we had a maid - Glynis - who must have been about 16, had a big blonde beehive hairdo & wore stilettos. She could kick up sparks off our tiled kitchen floor with those stilettos. She taught us "Wooden Heart" by Adam Faith & Cliff Richard songs too. Sometimes she went out with her friend Maggie who also worked in the village. Once we went home with her to her house. Her father was stationmaster on a little station a few miles away - Appleby. It was closed when Beeching closed so many of the branch lines in the 60s. She was such fun! She must have looked after us when my brother was born in 1960.
We grew most of our own fruit & vegetables. There was an old pig sty in the end of the garden under the pear tree. We used the pig sty as a play house. The pear tree only gave cooking pears which my mother used to bottle, together with beans which she salted & bottled. I wonder if she still remembers how to do it since I have 2 apple trees which are so heavy with fruit this year that their branches are breaking & it seems a shame to waste the fruit.
In UK we had a lot of US tv shows - I remember being allowed to stay up "late" - till about 8pm! to see Bewitched - in black & white of course. We had Lone Ranger, Bonanza and the Amazing Mr Ed the Talking Horse "A horse is a horse of course of course and nobody can talk to a horse of course except of course if that horse is - the Amazing Mr Ed" - do any of you remember that?
For Brits you might remember things like Watch with Mother, Listen with Mother (before your afternoon nap) and Muffin the Mule.
My father refused to get a TV set bigger than a postage stamp (something he still holds to today) and we didn't get colour TV until after all my friends, I suppose around 1966 tho I don't really recall. By 67 I was at boarding school where there wasn't any TV at all!
My mother didn't work when we were all small but she did do the Womens Royal Voluntary Service. She had a green uniform & did Meals on Wheels, a service now taken over by the social services I think. This involved taking reception of huge urns containing meat stew, potatoes etc, and pudding, usually something with custard, & going out in your car & giving meals to old & invalid people on the WVS list. My father worked on Saturdays certainly until I was 10 & perhaps after that.
Like some other people on the thread I remember bringing the milk in off the step & it had frozen & squeezed its way out of the top of the bottle. Sometimes the birds would peck holes in the shiny silver tops.
My sister used to get in trouble because she used to open all the bottles & use the creamy top of the milk on her cereal in the morning. That was if we didn't have a cooked breakfast - usually it was eggs & bacon or something else hot. We all ate together (something I do with my family today if I can), at table, not on our knees (except for that treat time for Bewitched).
We didn't get a lot of sweets - once a week we spent our pocket money on a quarter pound of pear drops, wine gums, chocolate mis-shapes, fairy drops.. and then a lot of trading went on & everything got shared out.
Oh - and our phone number was 416!
Oh - and my mother made our clothes for a long while too.
And she always wore a hat when she went out.

I could go on for ever but I won't.

[carolyn]

Thanks for the great memories. I can remember mama got us cracker jacks lol and the kids were so thankful.We have 10 in the family(6 girls, 2 boys and mama and daddy) I remember one of my sisters watching us while mama went to town. My sister had made us mad about something and mama had a tomato on the window sill and my brother threw it at my sister and splatered it on her. lol My sister had a date that night and was all dressed up,the best she could. I lived in Blytheville,Arkansas and it had like 34,000 people then and now maybe 2,000.lol I also went to a school across the street and my sisters and I would run home for lunch and mama had a show on called Hazel.We loved to get home after school and watch cartoons. I to remember Captain Kangaroo. Sodies(cokes) were only 5 cents and when they went to a dime or quarter mama said,thats it, I won't pay that much for a sodie.lol Needless to say she craved them even more.haha Yes we used to have to GET UP to change the channels on the tv.haha Haven't we got lazy? lol My first bike (and second) was used, and we repainted it. Mama paid, I think 2.00 or 4.00 for it. I was so proud to get it though.I think I was 12 or maybe older when I saw my first movie at a theatre (BAMBIE) haha We never got to stay overnight with friends but, friends could stay with us.WE had so much fun back then.No comp. but we had a lot of love for each other.

[deborah jane]

Oh yes - no remote!

And what an effort it is now to change channels with your FINGER! One of my kids has perfected the toe-change manoeuver when the remote goes AWOL down the back of the sofa. Is that inventiveness or being too lazy to take all the cushions off?

[Lady_Hawke]

I HAVE metal ice cube trays with levers. Got 'em at a yard sale a few years back for 25 cents each. Six singles and a double. Take my money but don't touch my ice cube trays. The grandkids think they're pretty strange since all they've ever seen are the plastic.

TV had 3 channels and was on for about 4 hours a day.

Did anyone play "statue?" One person picked a category (funny, serious, etc.), then took one of the other players by the arm, spun them around until they couldn't stand any more, then let them go. The released player had to strike a pose in the category the spinner chose and stay that way until the game was over. This continued thru all the other players. Then the spinner got to pick the pose they liked best and that person became the next spinner.

I remember the metal ice cube trays!!! and "STATUE"! Wow, I haven't read everyone's post yet, but what I have sure has brought back some happy memories! (can I post mine here even though I am 40?)

[Chris]

(can I post mine here even though I am 40?)

We'd love it!

[Chris]

Deborah Jane, I really enjoyed reading your post. What an interesting contrast between your childhood in England and ours, here in the the States. Yet, there was obviously so much in common, as well.

Do I remember Mr. Ed? They show the old reruns here (along with lots of other old shows) on the TVLand channel. And I watch them!

Carolyn, you don't have your location in your profile, but I'm so curious as to where you grew up that you called bottled soft drinks "sodies." I don't think I've ever heard that before.

[Guitarman]

I grew up in 50's in Brooklyn, New York. I rememeber the good old candy stores with penny candy, such as that long white strip of paper with colered buttons glued on and you peeled them off and ate them.
I can't remember what they were called. And who could forget the best Egg Creams in the world.

Then there were Sundays at Nathan's in Coney Island. Wow, I remember the speed of the clerks making the hot dogs. Incredible.

Then there were ball games at Ebbetts field watching the Brooklyn Dodgers play with Jackie Robinson, Duke Snyder etc.
We used to play ball in the streets and the sewers were used as bases.
Games were skelly, Johny on the Pony and stick ball of course play with a Spaulding ball.

The candy store sold what were known as loosies. There would be a jar on the counter of various brands of cigarretes and they sold them at 2 for a nickel.

Pizza at the Little Venice on Utica Ave was 15 cents a slice.

One friends house was always the hanging out place. On the "Stoop" of course.

Oh many fine memories

[Guitarman]

Oh I forgot a few TV shows such as:

Captain Video and his Video Rangers, I Remember Mama and of course Howdy Doody with Flub-a-Dub and Princess Summer Fall Winter Spring.

And in Junior High School I was a regular on the American Bandstand Program

[Chris]

Wow, Guitarman, other than the TV shows, your childhood was a total contrast to mine. I guess that's the difference between being from NY City and being from a small southern town. We ate hot dogs, of course, but they sure weren't Nathan's at Coney Island (in the South we eat hotdogs with mustard, onions, chili and coleslaw -- which I'm sure must sound virtually sacriligious to a New Yorker!).

I've never heard of the peel-off candy, nor even dreamed of going to a live professional baseball game. Our games, except baseball, were different, as well. We often played on someone's front (or back) porch, but we didn't even know what a stoop was, much less anyone who had one.

I didn't know what an egg cream was until I was an adult (and was surprised to learn that it had neither egg nor cream) and I had my first slice of pizza when I was in high school (and didn't taste lasagne until I was in college!).

No doubt, though, that your memories and mine are equally warm!

[MotherNature]

Chris...

I think those little colored candies were called Dots. Do you remember when they showed the western movies at the theater on Saturday mornings? Sunset Carson, Johnny Mack Brown, Tex Ritter, The Durango Kid, etc., etc. All the parents usually dropped us off at around 9:00 AM and came back to pick us up at noon. Shoot-em-ups and cartoons for 3 whole hours! We were in heaven! And popcorn, Jujubes, Bit-o-Honey, Junior Mints and all the candy at the snack bar! We came out of that theater at noon, stuffed with junk and totally happy! And got to do it all over again the next Saturday!

Cathy