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[thefishfryer]

When I hear pigeons cooing it sometimes takes me back to lying in my pram on a warm sunny day listening to the sound of their calls. I couldn't have been more than a year or so old.

 

[Titsandclits]

it's not like i can look back and choose to find a memory from those times, they're more just imprints and no amount of searching for others has ever rendered fruit

the teething one, i know i was standing in a cot with black painted frame (probably lead paint, lol) and can re-experience that sense of some particular visuals but more the sensation of how good it felt on hot, itching gums to be gnawing on those bars! and the feel of the mattress underfoot and gripping onto the bars... but mostly the mouth thing. And the light was yellowish, afternoon sun through drawn curtains, no one else in the room as far as i know but maybe there was. Woke up from a naptime, i guess.

the earliest though, is that summer time one... i'm in my pram, mum in a mini dress chatting with a friend... friend's hair piled up high. No sense of sound or words or meaning. I'm laying face up in my pram (i loved that pram), bare legs and feet waving in the air (felt lovely) green inner canopy of a broiderie anglais-covered sun shade, then being fixated on the broiderie anglais edging: the blue sky through it.. then the expanse of blue as i must have changed my viewpoint: such a deep, intense, pure blue. Not a cloud, just this sensation of falling, upwards, into the blue, feeling such a part of it, and i know it's very weird but the strongest feeling of love/contentment that few moments have ever matched!

When I hear pigeons cooing it sometimes takes me back to lying in my pram on a warm sunny day listening to the sound of their calls. I couldn't have been more than a year or so old.

I know what the pram looked like cos I saw my sisters in it but I don’t have any recollection of being it. Anyway after two years my first sister came along and that was the end of my occupation of it.

 

[oggbashan]

Pram? My mother had a secondhand 1930s deep pram designed with a removable board so that as the child grew a board could be removed and the child could sit up as if in a pushchair.

My first memory of it was of the cold winter of 1948 when I was pushed in that pram to the coal depot. I and the boards were removed and the lower part of the pram was filled with coal. I had to sit cross-legged for the trip back home.

Illicit Radio

In the 1950s I attended a boarding school in Essex. The students were forbidden from having radios. Even portable ones at the time were the size of small suitcases and heavy.

But one of my friends made a crystal radio set in the holidays. It was the size of a small cigar box. We ran the aerial around the picture rail. To use it someone had to stand on a bed and pull the end of the aerial down. It used ex-army headphones and only one person could listen at once. We had a rota. I can remember waiting for my turn at 2 am to listen to Radio Luxembourg with hisses, whistles and fading.

 

[thefishfryer]

Pram? My mother had a secondhand 1930s deep pram designed with a removable board so that as the child grew a board could be removed and the child could sit up as if in a pushchair.

My pram was like that. I imagine it had been used for my older siblings. As I recall you could open the well and a child could sit at each end.

 

[oggbashan]

My pram was like that. I imagine it had been used for my older siblings. As I recall you could open the well and a child could sit at each end.

In theory, you could sit a child at either end and there were two hoods to keep the children dry.

But my siblings were older and too large. If the lower part was full of coal, even one child was uncomfortable.

 

[thefishfryer]

In theory, you could sit a child at either end and there were two hoods to keep the children dry.

But my siblings were older and too large. If the lower part was full of coal, even one child was uncomfortable.

I don't think we ever had coal in the pram, maybe a sack of potatoes. Our coal was delivered by horse and cart, they'd pour a sack or two down our coal-hole into our cellar. My mother would take a shovel and collect the horse droppings for the garden.

I remember the year we dug up all the potatoes in the garden and seeded it with grass for the first time. I'm not sure what year it was, but I don't think I was old enough to be any real help. So probably about 1948/50.

 

[KinoKe]

One of my younger sister's earliest memories is of me 'rocking' her in the pram. Apparently, I got a bit over-enthusiastic and sent her flying through the air. But, before she had a chance to sustain any damage, I fell over backwards, and my sister landed on top of me. And early example of 'taking one for the team'.

 

[butters]

My pram was like that. I imagine it had been used for my older siblings. As I recall you could open the well and a child could sit at each end.

that's how i remember this one, though that actual memory comes more from seeing it used for my younger brothers, so outside, not in... of course, when we were walking and they were in the pram, i was always good and held onto the side of the handle.

And now i've a very faint memory of the pram being full, me being tired riding prone, belly-down, in the enameled metal shopping carrier underneath, fascinated by the rush of pavement beneath as seen through the meshed bars.

 

[daystate]

We used to use the pram wheels to make go carts

 

[thefishfryer]

We used to use the pram wheels to make go carts

Absolutely, every child over the age of about five seemed to know how to make a go-cart out of a few bits of wood, pram wheels, and a piece of rope. There seemed to be an endless supply of old pram wheels available.

 

[daystate]

Dutch arrows and winter warmers?

 

[butters]

Dutch arrows and winter warmers?

dutch arrows???

i recall bloody horrible balaclavas but they served a purpose

 

[thefishfryer]

Dutch arrows and winter warmers?

Were they sweets? I remember winter mixture.

 

[daystate]

Dutch arrows...18" long piece of garden cane split in four for last 2" and two playing card folded to make flights.Then a piece of string used to throw it.We used to throw them over our houses to each other.
Winter warmer...paint pot with small holes knocked in the botton and a wire handle.Get a fire going in it and swing it around to get tge fire roaring.Lethal.

 

[oggbashan]

Decimal Currency.

On 15 February 1971, the UK changed from old coins - pennies, halfpennies, shillings, to the new Decimal currency.

But what many people don't remember is that some coins were issued before then. In 1968 10 pence and five pence coins were made available equating to the old two shillings and one shilling.

I went to a bank at lunchtime and got some. That evening I went to a pub in Chelsea and bought a pint of beer with new 10p and 5p coins. That brought the pub to a halt as all the customers and staff had to see the new coins.

That weekend I cycled down to Brighton, went into a back street pub that I knew well and bought a pint of their local brewer's bitter with a 10 p coin - and got two pennies in change. The pint cost one shilling and ten pennies. Happy days!

 

[thefishfryer]

When I got my first car I could buy 4 gallons of petrol for a £1 and get some change.

For young folks that's 18.2 litres.

 

[oggbashan]

That was the same for my first car - an Imperial gallon for half a crown - 2 shillings and sixpence or 12.5 new pence later.

Much later I had a large, fast, fuel-thirsty car. It had twin petrol tanks totalling 30 Imperial gallons. But it was the time of quadruple Green Shield stamps. Every time I filled the car, I also filled at least one Green Shield stamp book.

 

[thefishfryer]

I'd forgotten the Green Shield Stamps.

Remember the National Savings Stamps that we were encouraged to buy at school in the 1950's

 

[oggbashan]

I'd forgotten the Green Shield Stamps.

Remember the National Savings Stamps that we were encouraged to buy at school in the 1950's

Yes. I bought one sixpenny stamp a week and deposited a full book in my Post Office savings account which I later used when Youth Hostelling.

 

[butters]

green shield stamps... i remember mum's books of them. I used to enjoy sticking them in the book for her

 

[thefishfryer]

Yes. I bought one sixpenny stamp a week and deposited a full book in my Post Office savings account which I later used when Youth Hostelling.

I did a google on them and NS&I are prepared to redeem them at face value. Very big of them as their market value is around £5

 

[Btq97]

I remember co op stamps.
Blue I to think
Used to go every Friday on bike with my mum then bring back the shopping in Co op bags on the handle bars.

 

[daystate]

Do you remember when groceries were packed into boxes at the end of the tills.
Your surname and address was written on it and they delivered it for free.
Funny thing was the boxes were left at the store for hours and bugger all was nicked.

 

[oggbashan]

Does anyone remember when all money was handled in the cashier's box in a store? The shop assistant would put the handwritten bill and your money in a screw-topped container, attach it to a wire, pull a handle to send it flying across teh ceiling and the receipted bill and any change would be sent back.

Later, some stores changed that to pneumatic tubes. The shop assistants were not considered trusted enough to handle money or to do the mental arithmetic necessary.

 

[thefishfryer]

Does anyone remember when all money was handled in the cashier's box in a store? The shop assistant would put the handwritten bill and your money in a screw-topped container, attach it to a wire, pull a handle to send it flying across teh ceiling and the receipted bill and any change would be sent back.

Later, some stores changed that to pneumatic tubes. The shop assistants were not considered trusted enough to handle money or to do the mental arithmetic necessary.

I remember Gamages had that system. My friend and I used to get the trolley bus during the holidays to visit their toy department and see the famous model train display.