Our navy blue knickers were mandatory for PE. They came with a little pocket for a hankie

I never wore navy blue bloomers, luckily I was allergic to the dye in them (go figure). I remember in my senior school I forgot my PE kit and the teacher wanted me to play netball, in my knickers, outside in the front playground with all the boys hanging out of windows yelling and cheering (a weekly occurrence at our school), when I informed her that I was not wearing the regulation navy harvest festivals (all is safely gathered in), but French knickers, they weren't but my friend told me to say that. She bellowed across the playground French knickers, French knickers?? The embarressment of that stayed with me until I left school to go to work.

I don't seem to have a lot of luck with underwear somehow!

The Wonderloaf factory was just up the road to me .........I used to walk past it on the way to school everyday.

Nice one Cyril

Was it made in newcastle penny? I have vague memories of it.

Well it may have been made there too but my Wonderloaf factory was at Spurgeons Bridge in Croydon.

I remember ice on the windows, ice in the sink soap ridges too.

Jeane
I'm tired of walking these streets
To a room with a cupboard bare

Jeane
There's ice on the sink where we bathe
So how can you call this a home
When you know it's a grave ?

Jeane
I'm not sure what happiness means
But I look in your eyes
And I know
That it isn't there

The Smiths

My mum was fanatical about drying/airing clothes - we had no airing cupboard so everything was dried in front of the fire (in winter) - once the item was thoroughly scorched we knew it was dry/aired and safe enough to wear without contracting pneumonia.

You had to sit right near the fire - any excursions to the kitchen etc had to be done rather sharpish especially in the terribly cold winters.

We also wore a lot of wool and undergarments, ate hearty homemade soups and stews.

We went to bed to dive under the blankets and stay there - the lino used to be very cold too.

I remember playing outside in the dark under the lamps making a snowman or having snowball fights - near the house and in the very last road in the town so lots of open space - no gloves - I think we were a bit more hardy then.

It wasn't just my mum, then! I posted earlier in the thread about my nice white, skinny-rib jumper with the scorch marks in the pattern of the fire guard down one side.

that's very evocative !

playing out at night.......especially in fog !

we used to play hide and seek.........of course there were no street lights in the side alleys and back streets.......so it was pitch black

then you'd emerge into the street and pools of light around the lamps

wonderful !

I'm quite lucky in that I've found quite a lot of photos of my street and the surrounding area on a couple of websites.......photos from the 1950s I was born !

I keep going back and looking at them and they bring back tons of memories......

Didn't everybody stink back then? I remember "larger" ladies wearing Crimplene dresses in the summer were pungent enough, but all these thick winter layers of man-made fibres for months on end during the winter, with barely a strip-wash at the sink most week days makes you wonder if our olfactory senses weren't as sharp! Perhaps it was all the cigarette smoke that disguised it?

Tis all true. In the fifties you could smell any crowd of people. You could smell trains. You could smell the factory at the end of the road. You could smell people's kitchen fires. You could smell drink and smoking from the pub.

We have become accustomed to a smell less world in my lifetime. I am not convinced it is all for good.

Cannot say I ever noticed that ! I am far more acutely aware of body odour in recent times. Particularly people who strip off to almost nothing at the hint of sunshine but forget to shower . Also trainers and stinking feet nLeather shoes were and are far healthier.

Older women used to wear old fashioned corsets that used to be a bit smelly in the summer. Anti-perspirant may not have been invented either.
Lots of people just washed their hair in ordinary soap so a bit frizzy and dull.
I remember washing my teeth using salt not toothpaste.
Yes everyone was quite smelly.

Funnily enough, I don't remember folks being smelly. Certainly my parents had a strip wash at least once a day and as clothes were clean, there was no need for smell. I certainly can't understand folks being smelly today with cheap washing powder, deodorant and access to showers.

I dont remember anyone being smelly at all
Some people smelt of turf from the fire now and then but never dirty

There would be ice on the inside of the window in the sixties. We went to bed with hot water bottles and wore long nylon nighties and bedsocks. Like Mrs Teapot I also had a candlewick bedspread and I had an eiderdown but one thing I do miss is those old radiators where you could actually sit on them.

I'm sure you're right. We are always being told that we should walk or cycle to work to stay fit just the way people did in the old days yet I'm sure that if we did our modern intolerance to body odours would soon put a stop to that idea. When I think of classes of 40 or 50 children who have just walked 2 miles to school or factories full of workers who had done the same, added to heavy clothes and the tendency to have a proper bath once a week, people must have been much tolerant or accustomed to body odour.

We used to sit on the radiators at school and the teacher would tell us we would get piles, he was right.

I'm not bumping, honest.

Something popped in my head yesterday whilst on my way home, I found two marker pens in my pocket (I will take them back) I recalled my Dad bringing home those big marker pens from work accidentally and us sniffing them we loved it and were gutted when my Dad took them back! Then my mind wandered to Bostick and how as kids we loved the smell of it. I know I shouldn't be laughing as we are a lot wiser now but kind of scary too, I'm just wondering why such stuff gave us happy feelings

We used to sniff markers too Mrs T . I loved the smell , i dont think it actually altered my mood
. And bump away , I am loving this thread !'

Had a sudden memory of 3 pence and 6 pence ice cream wafers . The 6 pence one was a huge slab cut off the block of ice cream and held by two wafers
We never ever made it to the end without it dripping on to our bare toes

I'm so glad it was not just me or my brothers, we thought they were wonderful I think it was only last night that I actually considered that it 'might' have changed my mood as they sort of made you feel happy Bostick was wonderful and I am not endorsing glue sniffing, that was alien to us as children but we did it!

Oh ice cream wafers, my mum once over started buying her own blocks and wafers from Fine Fare. She was not one to get us one from the ice cream van

I do recall going on the park and nipping to a shop that sold home made ice lollies, used to love them. If you were rich you had a 99 and super rich folk had a double 99

Well worth bumping.

The start of your tragic spiral of addiction.