To know my sniffing addiction Benji


I will of course write a book one day Richard, can you imagine my recall of jumping across brooks sapping apples high on Bostick

I don't remember people being smelly either.......could it be because we wore natural fabrics, clothes made out of cotton and wool ?

My thoughts exactly. Cotton wool and leather shoes.

One of the most comments I hear from people is that shoes/trainers now make their feet stink no matter what they wear, even more expensive stuff.

I bet your Beetle Crushers were fresh

I've got a bit of a blind spot with shoes.

I remember shorts, shirts, jumpers, jammies, snake belts, woolly socks, windcheaters, balaclavas etc........but I can't remember what kind of shoes we wore......

I remember wearing wellies in the snow though......

Clarkes lace ups for school. Black. Clarkes sandals. A pair of plimsoles and a pair of wellies. That was my feet covered annually for years.

I had Clarkes shoes as a little one but as a teenager went to town with all sorts.

Swing, it is never wellies, it is Wellybobs I remember duffle coats, gaberdine macs the heavy make blazer when going to secondary and having to have a winter hat and a summer boater

Shine I sound like I went to a private school, which I did of course That's why I talk so posh innit

Jeez, you were bloody loaded

You are joking.

It was the pumps that did it, I was barefoot

I think Timpsons was the main shoe shop in our town......

I remember Gaberdines......and plastic macs !

I lived in the wilds of a remote Scottish island. Red rings round my legs from wet wellies slapping my legs as I walked 3 miles to school . putting on wet shoes in the morning and finding the newspaper stuffed in the toes that mum had put there to dry them . Sand shoes were for sports day.

Do you mean the infamous "packamac"

yeah.........Pakamac

that was the main brand of them

clear thin see-through plastic that you could roll up and stick in your pocket........

Timpsons and Lilly and Skinner were ours.

How about those plastic buckled shoes for the beach?

I am now really very jealous Benji as that would be my dream. That said whilst growing up the countryside was on our doorstep, it's still not to far away but not a walk as it was.






Duffle coats were the best, they never dried out, you'd go to school the next day still damp

Yes I agree. My granddad would go over a week without a bath and never smelled of BO.

and a bit whiffy

I've still got my duffle coat that I bought in 1970 (from Millets) when I left home for college

I wore it a couple of weeks ago on a freezing cold day........it's my warmest coat/jacket.....

It was not the whiffy that was really bad, just the bloody weight of your duffle coat that brought you to your knees


Swing, you have to try to do the Canterbury Meet in August and bring it with you

I must have looked a vision of loveliness...baggy dark blue knickers, shoes and uniform that I would "grow into", blazing red knee caps (due to the cold), a satchel that weighed more than the QE2 and a grey hat that was as soggy and as mis-shapened as my duffle coat.

Funnily enough I did wear it when I did a few DS meet ups about 5/6 years ago........there are probably photos of me in my duffel coat in the hands of DS members.......

but I've given up on all that meeting malarkey.......

My most vivid sensual memory of childhood is how much I hated the cold. Getting out of bed in the cold winters of the 70s was hell. Our bedrooms weren't heated unless we were ill and there was linoleum or oil cloth or something on the floor - glossy laminate material - no rugs - and it felt like stepping out of bed into an ice rink. To immediate teeth chattering and great shivers.

I don't remember people having body odour though, except for the smell of groups of children at school after it had been raining. We didn't have baths daily always as children but it was certainly expected for adults and teens to have a daily strip wash and we had clean clothes, fresh underwear and (us children) socks daily - I remember thinking it was terrible to wear socks for two days in a row, on a very rare occasion when I had to. I would say with less heat around at home in the winter, people sweated less and their skin pores were more closed, so they probably didn't produce the amount of odour people do in centrally heated winter homes today. In summer my family did wash a lot more, you certainly kept an eye on how much you were sweating.