Summer Lasted Forever (Childhood Memories)

Member Name: milmol

Product:	Childhood Memories
Date:	27/08/02 (114 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: No bills to pay., No responsabilities., Close friends and neighbours.

Disadvantages: I realise now how badly some women were treated., No central heating., Too many secrets.

Planning this op has been a trip down memory lane, to a time when I believed in Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, Goblins and Ghosts. I was the youngest of 7 and the earliest photographs of me are at about 2 years of age, I guess after that many children baby photos are not as important. There was 14 months between me and one of my sisters and hence we were always dressed identically, even to the hairstyle, side parting and a big bow in the front. New bikes were unheard of and we had 2 between us, last one out walked or was ‘cogged’. Summer holidays seemed to last forever and always seemed hot and fun filled. We fished for 'Tiddlers' with the end of a pair of tights on a bamboo cane and a jam jar to carry them home in.

It was a time when a full tin of coke was too much for a little person to drink and a bag of chips was a feast. Blackjacks and sherbet dips were out favourite sweets and no one drank coffee in our house, only tea.

Keeping Warm ~ Central heating was unheard of in council houses back then and mum would get up early every morning to light the coal fire in the living room, until it was roaring we had a two bar electric fire on. We all had electric blankets to keep away the cold and despite warnings I often would leave mine on, just for a little while and then fall asleep. Mum used to threaten me that the bed would catch on fire but I think she worried about the Leccy bill really. If you tried to read a book in bed you would have one hand under the covers and the other holding the book, the book hand would eventually be freezing and we would change hands, putting the cold one under the other armpit to warm it through. Some mornings the windows had ice patterns on the inside and we would blow our breath out and pretend to ‘smoke’. Dad used to put a small paraffin heater in the bathroom before we bathed and warm the towels on the ‘tank’.

Dad ~ used to breed rabbits for us to eat and as a
child I thought nothing about it, in fact we loved rabbit stew. I couldn’t raise animals and eat them now but that’s what we did then. Every meal was accompanied by a loaf of bread and we all used to have to ask to leave the table when we’d eaten. Dad made rabbit hutches from other peoples cast offs such as old-fashioned sideboards and we nicknamed him Daddy Womble because he collected things that others threw away. One year, a friend of his who worked for the council gave him loads of green paint, hence our shed; dog kennel, rabbit hutches, door and gate were all painted green.

Washing ~ Mum had an electric washing machine with 2 rollers that the clothes went through and into the sink to remove most of the water. They then went into a small ‘spinner’ and we used to take it in turns to sit on the top of it, enjoying the vibrations, nothing sexual at the time I promise but I still laugh at that memory now of, ‘Mum, tell her, its my turn to sit on the spinner’. The washing then used to hang from this wooden rack that lowered from the kitchen ceiling or on a clotheshorse at the side of the fire.

Christmas ~ we always had a pillow case for a stocking and received a big present between us, something like a record player or one year one of those square tape recorders that were the ‘in thing’. We always got an apple, orange and nuts in the sack and colouring books, crayons and new clothes. I remember we always had new shoes for starting school in September and then again at Easter.

Games ~ We played wip and top, block (hide and seek), British Bulldog and a game called Puss Puss. This involved one person being ‘on’ and everyone else stood on a grate, if someone said ‘Puss Puss’ to you this meant you had to swap them grates, if the person who was on got there before you then you became ‘it’. Sounds silly now but we loved it. We also played ‘2 ball̵
7; against the wall of our houses, that is until the parents could no longer stand the constant banging Hopscotch was played with an old tin of shoe polish filled with soil instead of a stone and we skipped for hours. We sang skipping songs like ‘Up to Mississippi if you miss a beat your out’ and ‘When I was in the kitchen, doing a bit of stitching, in came a bogey man and PUSHED ME OUT), at this point a friend would skip in and you would skip out.

Neighbours ~ were close and visited each other’s houses, often knocking and just walking in with a shout for a greeting. Everyone knew everyone’s business in our street and Mum would stand behind the nets and say, ‘Ooh, doctors going to Nelly again’, 2 minutes later mum would find a reason to go to Nelly’s for a chat.

Dogs ~ Every one owned a dog in our street and all the dogs had the family name, i.e. Butch White belong to the White family, Whiskey Sprakes, Candy Jones etc. The dogs played in the street with all the kids and no one picked up dog poo back then, come to mention it, dog poo was always white when I was a child, sorry but it just occurred to me, what ever happened to white dog poo.

Colour Telly ~ I still remember the first programme I saw in colour, it was ‘Tom and Jerry’, our neighbour was the first to buy a colour telly but of course everyone soon followed. We used to watch Wacky Races, The Banana Bunch, Shang a Lang and Pipkins. No one was allowed to talk while Coronation Street was on and every Sunday after dinner we all watched the Sunday Film, usually Oklahoma or some other such musical. We never ate meat on Fridays and I had the job of putting the crosses on the top of Brussels Sprouts, for years I thought it was the cross of Jesus to protect them from pain while they boiled and it never occurred to me that the carrots were left unprotected.

Families ~ Mum knew everyone’s business and had frequent
visitors, but our family had a code that ‘You don’t do your dirty washing in public’, i.e. know everything about them but don’t tell them your family secrets. Sex wasn’t spoken about in front of children and I remember a programme called ‘Bouquet of Barbed Wire’, it looked very interesting but Mum called it B----y Smut and turned it off. Older sisters told us about periods and Dr Whites were purchased in brown paper bags along with a belt . These were then burnt on the fire but only when Dad was out as he wasn’t to know of these things. Women didn’t have gynae problems they had trouble downstairs and babies arrived as if by magic. Some people arranged weddings rather quickly and then had ‘premature babies’ and the women would huddle in corners and ‘natter’. No one in our street came from a single parent family and women often walked into doors, particularly on Sundays when men came home smelling of booze, fortunately that didn’t happen in our house but mum often used to say ‘Mrs. White got a new coat last week, she must have walked into a door again’.

The good old days, well some were, some weren’t

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