childhood memories

[Cat]

[quote user="Gastines"]

I thought I'd add a GUILTY memory and it might start a new line in memories.

[/quote]

 

Oh dear, I'm afraid that has reminded me of something I thought I'd forgotten.

I have a younger brother, 3 years younger to be exact.  He had a guilty secret, as a very small child he used to eat the bacon rinds that my mother threw in the garden for the birds. 

I have a worse one!  As a evil big sister I told my brother that he was a disgusting creature to be eating bacon-rinds from the garden, I told him that he might just as well eat the dried up bird sh*t on the gate-post as well.  I dared him, and then I double dared him, and so he did [+o(]

I feel quite badly about it now, really I do, sorry Simon!

 

[Val_2]

[quote user="Russethouse"]Just watching the Olympic skiers and some one mentioned the word 'kunzle' Anyone remember Kunzle Cakes ?[/quote]

Yes. I remember them and tasty they were too! Do you remember the Wall's 3D milk lollies especially the strawberry? Mini Milk are the nearest to them now but only a third of the size.

[Russethouse]

I'm a Mivi girl myself !![Y]

[Gastines]

Yes, I too remember Kunzle cakes and they looked delicious but we were so poor we never actually had any to eat. Could say we admired them from afar, at least through the cellophane! I do remember one treat though. I had an aunt and uncle who were quite well off and they used to take us out occasionally in their Austin Princess car. One evening they took us for a ride to Sandbanks, near Poole, Dorset, where they moored their boat and bought us an ice cream cone. I think it was from a Fortes outlet and it was the best cornet I have ever had. It  was wrapped in a wax outer which you peeled off and popped it into the cone wafer which had a flat base. It was the yellowest, creamiest ice cream and it had little chunks of ice in it, I can almost taste it now. I have never had a better one to this day, what a sad person I must be, languishing over an ice cream cone!!! Mrs Gastines.[:$]

[Gastines]

I can't be upstaged again, so I thought I'd reveal a few more guilty memories. When the Fun Fair was in the Park at Boscombe, to get a few pennies together, I used to walk down to the clifftop, about 2 miles down a very steep road and pick [or pinch not to put too fine a point on it ] a bunch of daffodils or whatever was available. I then used to struggle back up that hill and knock on the door of one of our better off neighbours;I shall always be grateful to Mrs Newland, present her with the bunch and usually get rewarded with sixpence for my kind thought!! I hope no-one from Bournemouth council is reading this!

My younger brother's favourite was to go in the larder and if there was a tin of anything in there, he'd open it from the bottom, eat the contents and put the tin back on the shelf.A bit annoying on a sunday when mother had done the custard and VOILA. Needless to say he never got the blame but my elder brother got a few good hidings.

The best one for me has to be The Pink Wellies. I was fostered out for a while ,to the long suffering Mrs Newland.The only problem was ,she had 2 daughters,slighly older than me.One winter the snow was so bad that Mrs.N. insisted I wear a pair of her daughters wellies PINK, to school, as my shoes were a bit holey. I was so embarassed I used to hide my plimsoles in a hedge half way to school and change on route.!! I'll pass the hat round later when you've dried your eyes.

[Gardian]

Dicksmith - that brought back memories!

The '654's were based at Carshalton garage, not far from where I lived as a lad. They used to turn at Sutton Green ......... but I'm getting nostalgic and anorak-ish.

 

[Mersons]

[quote user="FurryKnickers"]

I don't know if you had "piss the beds" in England?  They were a grand little daisy like wild flower, I have not heard of them since I was a little lad back in County Kildare.  You dare not pick one or you would do what they are named!

 

[/quote]

In scotland my Mum said the same thing about dandelions - "If you pick dandelions, you'll pee the bed."  Then, when I came to France, I found out that dandelions are called "pis en lit" (pee in the bed) here.  Reading this made me think of Rainbow Drops, Lucky Tatties, Soor Plooms and Frying Pan lollies, the sweeties I used to buy with my sixpence on the way to school.  When I was three, there was a milkman who came round on a horse-drawn cart and my Dad used to go out with a shovel to pick up the dung for the garden.  Playing in the tin bath in the back yard in the summer.  A bit later a friend and I used to work all day during the summer holidays at local riding stables for free, just to be able to ride the horses down to the field at the end of the day.  We used to love sitting up on top of the haybales at lunchtime eating our sandwiches.  Happy memories.  

[Dick Smith]

Ian - how close to Carshalton Garage?  I lived in Colston Avenue until I was about 14.

[sturrdave]

Ah!  Kunzle cakes.......Biting into that thick outer layer of chocolate, and then sucking that lovely squishy inner cream into my mouth.... 

Older memories still :  ....The milkman arriving on his little horse and cart, with several churns of milk, and visiting every house in the street with a wooden yoke over his shoulders, with two churns suspended from it, and carrying a metal 1 pint measuring jug, which was used to fill a jug/jugs at each house.

....The day sweets came off ration after the war, and with sixpence I bought a Mars bar, jelly babies, some toffees and some liquorice sticks, and ate them greedily - with the result that  an hour or two later I was very sick.

....Streets almost empty of traffic, apart from the occasional horse and cart making a delivery.  The only cars in the town belonged to the Doctor, the Vicar, the coal merchant and the local squire.  The occasional steam-powered lorry passing through.

Those were the days !

[Gardian]

Dick ...............

Colston Ave rings a bell, but can't place it now. I lived in Benfleet Close, which (I think) was off Benhill Rd and which led to All Saints Road and thence to Sutton Green. Lived there from the age of 5 ('52) till I got married in ........ oh, sometime in the early 70's!   

I used to walk to the trolley stop and take it to ??? (by St Philomena's School) thence on to school at Wallington CGS.

The 654's were a short wheelbase job weren't they - something to do with a hill somewhere en route, but goodness knows why another 6' or so of length would make that much difference. All the stops in those days were named after the adjoining pub - 'The Grapes', 'The Cock' (long after it had disappeared in Sutton), 'The Greyhound' (always affectionately known as 'The Dog')

As an obvious 'bus anorak', do you remember the 'RTL's'? Think that's what they were designated. Low bridge, 4 seats to the left upstairs. Went from Morden-ish to Raynes Pk or further. Memory fading.   

 

 

 

[Weedon]

My very earliest memory was when these crazy blokes with long blond hair used to row down our river and we would throw rocks at them trying to hit the pointy horns sticking out of the sides of their silly hats.  We would shout "Pillage ..Pillage not in our *@*@ village. They would hurl bacon at us before Viking off.

weedon

[Dick Smith]

Ian -- I know Benfleet Close - and you are an Old Walcountian too?

I think RTL stood for an RT made by Leyland, we used to see them if we went up to Putney, and they had a different radiator.

My old neighbour used to remember the trams, and apparently they were quite exciting on Ringstead Road. The stop by St Phil's is the Windsor Castle. I still drink in the Dog, have done since I was 15, but it's a hotel as well, these days...

[Christine Animal]

[quote user="Weedon"]

My very earliest memory was when these crazy blokes with long blond hair used to row down our river and we would throw rocks at them trying to hit the pointy horns sticking out of the sides of their silly hats.  We would shout "Pillage ..Pillage not in our *@*@ village. They would hurl bacon at us before Viking off.

weedon

[/quote]

Those were the days weren't they Weedon.  When we lived by the Thames we used to love watching them too.  Sometimes we used to gallop along the river bank following them and once the cox shouted at us through his horn "Where did you get those coconuts?!"

Dick, I remember the trams too and Windsor Castle with the doll's house.  After Shepperton we lived at Wraysbury right opposite the Bells of Ouseley.  Anyone know it?

   Floods at Wraysbury!

[Russethouse]

I think the Bells of Ousley is a Beefeater now [:(][:(]

We used to go to Maidenhead Bridge to see the Sally Army play on a Sunday, my best friends father played the trumpet. When she was with us once my father bought her an ice cream and she wasn't allowed it because it was Sunday!

[Weedon]

In them days Mrs Animal did you ever see that mad women we used to call "Mad Boadi" she used to come tearing through our village on a horse and cart and you had to dodge the knives sticking out from the wheels.  Whatever became of her... two stories going round our village was that she took up with a bloke called Julius and the other one was that she played football with Celtic. But you know how rumours start.  There is probably bits of truth in there somewhere, for, as Joan once said on a day out in Rouen "there is no smoke without fire" 

Seems like only yesterday.

weedon

 

[Christine Animal]

No, I've never heard of the Mad Boadi woman.  But I remember Camberley Kate who didn't have a cart, but used to go around with a pram full of dogs, with others tied to it.  Someone once said to me "you'll end up like Camberley Kate".  they weren't far wrong...

 

[Weedon]

[quote user="Christine Animal"]

No, I've never heard of the Mad Boadi woman.  But I remember Camberley Kate who didn't have a cart, but used to go around with a pram full of dogs, with others tied to it.  Someone once said to me "you'll end up like Camberley Kate".  they weren't far wrong...

 

[/quote]

Ask Iceni about Mad Boadi, Iceni knows.   Mad Boadi used to shout out "this lady's not for turning" as she tore through the village hurling groats and hammered coins at the little children, or am I getting her mixed up with the old woman who used to walk up Exhibition Road in South Kensington with 2 bags stuffed with newspapers, this old lady was short and looked very fat but it was only that she wore all of her clothes.  With her own transport Camberley Kate sounds like a posher version of my old lady.

weedon

[Christine Animal]

I just received this and it seemed suitable for this thread :

Subject: Feeling Old

According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans. When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just flip flops and fluorescent 'spokey dokey's' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or airbags - riding in the passenger seat was a treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and it tasted the same. We ate chips, bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no-one actually died from this. We would spend hours building go-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learnt to solve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us and no one minded.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms. We had friends we went outside and found them. We played elastics and street rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no law suits. We had full on fist fights but no prosecution followed from other parents. We played knock and run and were afraid of the owners catching us. We walked to friend's homes. We also, believe it or not, WALKED to school; we didn't rely on mummy or daddy to drive us to school, which was just round the corner. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law.

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learnt how to deal with it all..

And you're one of them. Congratulations!

This my friends, is surprisingly frightening......and it might put a smile on your face: The majority of students in universities today were born in 1983........They are called youth. They have never heard of We are the World, We are the children, and the Uptown Girl they know is by Westlife not Billy Joel. They have never heard of Rick Astley, Bananarama, Nena or Belinda Carlisle.

For them, there has always been only one Germany and one Vietnam.

AIDS has existed since they were born. CD's have existed since they were born. Michael Jackson has always been white.

To them John Travolta has always been round in shape and they can't imagine how this fat guy could be a god of dance. They believe that Charlie's Angels and Mission Impossible are Films from last year.

They can never imagine life before computers. They'll never have petended to be the A Team, RedHand Gang or the Famous Five. They'll never have applied to be on Jim'll Fix It or Why Don't You.

They can't believe a black and white television ever existed and don't even know how to switch on a TV without a remote control.

And they will never understand how we could leave the house without a mobile

phone. Now let's check if we're getting old...

1. You understand what was written above and you smile.

2. You need to sleep more, usually until the afternoon, after a night out.

3. Your friends are getting married/already married.

4. You are always surprised to see small children playing comfortably with computers.

5. When you see teenagers with mobile phones, you shake your head.

6. You remember watching Dirty Den in EastEnders the first time around.

7. You meet your friends from time to time, talking about the good old days,

repeating again all the funny you have experienced together.

8. Having read this mail, you are thinking of forwarding it to some other friends because you think they will like it too...

Yes, you're getting older!!!!

 

[Viv]

Have you seen the BBC website where  you can vote  for your favourite public information film from the 70s,  " learn to swim young man" was my favourite but I can remember being scared by the Donald Pleasance - Dark water clip, and can somebody please tell me exactly why I should close the windows in the case of a nuclear attack!!!![^o)]

[Pixietoadstool]

Dandelions are called piss en lits because they actually do have a diuretic action (i.e. make you pass water) - there you go!  ... but I think you have to EAT them first!

By the way - I was told the same story by my granny - from North Yorkshire.

Valerie