We had one of those when I was a nipper.

I also remember my Mum's washing machine. A big cylindrical effort with an electric mangle.

Interesting, Mum told me they called theirs Boris. My Grandfather, who was from Hamburg, used to complain it used too much electricity, Mum said. They had names for everything, wierd though that sounds. Their first car was called Hitler because, according to Mum, it made shrieking sounds and they were driving along somewhere once and the exhaust fell off into the road.

We had one of those in the living room that came down in front of the coal fire

The smell of drying clothes filled the house !

We were used to it. Wearing as much to go to bed as you did during the day, the only warm place in the house was in a two foot radius of the coal fire (and that was usually surrounded by damp clothes), scraping ice off your bedroom window every morning frozen milk on the step...

Our central heating broke down yesterday morning and the cold drove me back to bed mid afternoon!

Does anyone remember the Billy Connelly story about the wee boy putting his feet in the arms of the eiderdown? You laughed because you knew it was true!

All this talk of bedding ....... I have sold loads of vintage eiderdowns on EBay. I pick them up in charity shops and sell them for at least £50 often much more depending on the design. Obviously they have to be in pristine condition. I always launder anything I buy.

Likewise cellular blankets sell well, usually get £15 plus for them but they have to be in good colours like pink or cream. They also need to be 100% wool to get best price.

Candle wick bedspreads also fetch a fair bit but I haven't sold any of those. I've bought a few which go on the back seat of my car for the dogs and also to throw on the lawn when my niece comes with her babies in summer.

Most charity shops are now wise to the fact that vintage bedding sells well but you might just get a bargain. I bought a double eiderdown a few months ago for £2.50 and sold it for £65. I started buying them maybe 8 or 9 years ago when all this shabby chic stuff was very popular.

I remember Stan Boardman's similar tale:

It was so cold that the kids had an old army coat on the bed. One night posh Aunty Mary came round and little Tommy shouted downstairs, 'Mam. Our Tony's just pulled the overcoat off me.'

Mam ran upstairs and said, 'Aunty Mary's here so it's an eiderdown, not a coat!'

Next week when posh Aunty Mary visited again, Tony shouted, 'Mam. Out Tommy's just pulled the sleeve off the eiderdown.'

Silly and a bit predictable, but the first time I heard it, II howled with laughter. I'm from Liverpool and knew kids who had a khaki 'eiderdown'!!!

I only went to public baths once (I think they were in Macclesfield) when we were camping nearby, and they were FAB. As someone who grew up with a "four inches of water, and share the water with your brother and sister" rule, the public baths seemed the last word in luxury: a really deep, hot, lovely bath.

Lol. We had a dryer like that that was called the Flatley Dryer. (I assume it was made by a company called Flatley). It was a bit of a health and safety nightmare, with bare electric elements inside and really, really sharp edges that would cut your fingers if you were careless.

I had friends who had a party-line phone that they shared with neighbours. Very good for the inquisitive as they could pick up the phone and listen to all their neighbours' calls.

I grew up in a manse when I was little, and it was the era of 'respectable tramps' (generally demobilized servicement who had failed to settle). They would come and use our outside loo then sit on the kitchen steps drinking tea and eating sandwiches. I can't remember them ever being drunk or obnoxious.

Yes, eiderdowns, that's what we had. We used to just call them "quilts", hence my earlier post in this thread.
Now that I think about it, even in the 70s my mother had the only double bed in the house, a "continental quilt" on her bed and a fire in her bedroom. Not to mention the portable TV, albeit black & white. Cow!

Did anyone else have a Belling Champion convection heater?

At her pre-rayburn-heated farmhouse during the 1980s, my mum made heavy curtains to hang over doors. Just to trap the heat from a fireplace in each room. Great idea, but such a pain to lift and drag the curtain, search blindly for a door latch and open the door only wide enough for you to slip through. Coming in? Heh. Good luck.

My most vivid memories of childhood:

- one half of the room was warmed by a fireplace and the other half of the room was icy cold.
- the dread of getting out of a warm bath into the cold air in bathroom (ours was too big with a high ceiling to contain the steamed warmth of a bath). Too many times, I shivered madly while hurriedly dried myself with a thinned terry towel.
- We shared a bath at an aunt's. When one kid was done with a bath, there would be a shout "I'm out!", then another kid jumped in the bath. When the bath cooled considerably when it was your turn, it was topped up by a boiling kettle because there wasn't any more left in the heating tank.
- the smell and burning sensation of Vick's on my upper lip and my chest. I truly loathed Vick's.
- the tedious task of changing clothes in bed during winter. Helped when done in order, though. Socks, underwear, skirt/trousers, blouse. Out of bed. Jumper. Shoes.
- the burning heat through an old radiator in a classroom.
- the brutal coldness of the old unheated radiator in said classroom.

Yes! And one of these Parrafin and it stank to high heaven. Bet it was toxic!

Yes lots of that is very familiar.

Vick's Vapour Rub! I remember when my wee lass had a bad chest and I used the infant equivqalent on her. She took the pot from me and lay with her nose stuck in and a relieved smile on her face. I was a bit concerned that she only gave it back reluctantly. Later, I 'phoned my older sister to ask should I be worried about this behaviour. 'Why worry?' was her reply. 'You were exactly the same! One way to keep you quiet was to give you an empty, but still smelly Vick jar!'

Nature or nurture??

One of my major gripes from childhood is that the girls of our family (me and my sister) had to do housework for all ten in the household (laundry, ironing, cleaning, dishes, etc etc etc) and our three brothers got to play out. That was a complete cow on sunny days - being 9 years old and having to wash windowsills down and watching my brothers playing football outside. And then we hit winter and I remember my oldest brother's job was to be first up to light the fire - he would only have been about 11 or so when he started that, and he left home at 17.

(We had sundry grandparents, aunties and cousins in our house.)

Yes I did this with Welsh woollen blankets eg Tregwynt carthens.

Used to pick them up for under a tenner at local auctions (house clearance, probate etc) and then flog them on ebay for £60+.
People got wise to it though. They're now going for £60 at auction and selling for about £75 online. It's not worth it once you count in commissions and hassle.

I recall the milk we used to get at Infants/Junior school. Half pint bottles I think they were but, in cold weather, they were blocks of ice!

I don't recall any bottles ever breaking because of the milk freezing though.

I remember that story and it was one of his funniest.

The ice used to push the foil lid off the top which I suppose prevented the bottle cracking.

Our teacher would stand the crate in front of the fire, yes we had open coal fires in our classroom, call Elf n Safety, On one occasion after drinking a bottle of warm milk, I promptly sicked it up all over the teacher.

The teacher putting them on the heater to defrost. In the summer they were disgustingly warm! No wonder I can't drink milk.

I think they were a third of a pint, even in my memory they were small bottles.

We had the paraffin heater in the kitchen too along with the pull down clothes dryer, we called it the pulley.

You can still buy them (new) these days. They are becoming quite fashionable in cottages.

I bet the clothes don't just hang there for a couple of days in a clammy lump while the fire guard comes free to 'air' them these days though

we used to get a third of a pint and a big chocolate covered digestive biscuit, wrapped in red or blue foil.

I'm now 61 years old and remember the days of ice on the inside of the windows, frozen pipes and chilblanes. People are so damned nesh these days. At the risk of repeating myself, I was astonished the other day to find myself behind a customer at the local shop who was complaining that it was 'so horrible, this freezing cold weather' etc. Good grief, it was a nice day! A bit chilly maybe, but sunny with blue skies and certainly nowhere near freezing. As she was wearing something rather like pyjamas I can only assume she had come straight out of her over-heated, centrally-heated home.....