Memorable stuff from your formative years

[721CXT]

Looks tidy enough, where's that?

Tremadoc Road, Clapham North.
In the '60s the place looked like it was about to collapse, blast had gutted the lower floor and inside was just rubble & glass into the basement. I was amazed to see the difference on Google Earth a couple of years ago.

 

[A signaller]

Tremadoc Road, Clapham North.
In the '60s the place looked like it was about to collapse, blast had gutted the lower floor and inside was just rubble & glass into the basement. I was amazed to see the difference on Google Earth a couple of years ago.

South of the river, being a "northerner" I rarely ventured into bandit country, worked in Croydon a few times, and survived, but I take your point, as I watched through the late 60's and early 70's the bomb sites on my manor slowly evolve into new flats and houses. That ever changing building is still going on, in the city, and odd spots in and around the old homestead, where mum still lives, it is constantly changing, getting more and more congested. More and more outsiders and foreigners taking over what were once the indigenous populations ancestral turf, now a morass of tongues , smells and strange religions, and all the individuality that set it apart that made it unique, from all the other individual little community's that formed the whole, gone, now one big bubbling pot of crap.

 

[Tedsson]

Tremadoc Road, Clapham North.
In the '60s the place looked like it was about to collapse, blast had gutted the lower floor and inside was just rubble & glass into the basement. I was amazed to see the difference on Google Earth a couple of years ago.

Reminds me of Pimlico. After the war and well into the sixties it was an utter shitheap.

(That paperboy gets around!).

You could get an entire terrace of houses for £15,000. All split up into dingy flats, decrepit bedsits, full of squatters and junkies etc. The area was so shite post-war they even made an Ealing Comedy (shorthand for not funny) called Passport To Pimlico where the locals declared independence from the U.K. to go it alone.

Like this but significantly tattier (then).

Nowadays those houses sell for £4-6million (I hoiked the photo off Rightmove and the middle one is £4.4million). There are others up to ten mil.

 

[Cregg Bristle]

Aforementioned belts in aforementioned bric a brac shop

 

[AlienFTM]

South of the river, being a "northerner" I rarely ventured into bandit country, worked in Croydon a few times, and survived, but I take your point, as I watched through the late 60's and early 70's the bomb sites on my manor slowly evolve into new flats and houses. That ever changing building is still going on, in the city, and odd spots in and around the old homestead, where mum still lives, it is constantly changing, getting more and more congested. More and more outsiders and foreigners taking over what were once the indigenous populations ancestral turf, now a morass of tongues , smells and strange religions, and all the individuality that set it apart that made it unique, from all the other individual little community's that formed the whole, now one big bubbling pot of crap.

Zero Alpha's grandparents and back lived in Hammersmith (some lived opposite The Dove on the riverbank, later bombed out, now a peace park. Why that street starts about number 13 immediately in front of the Dove).

Couple of years ago we found where some had lived (and moved over the road) near Ravenscourt Park. Apart from cars and street and house furniture, very little has changed in 100 years. Funny how it goes.

 

[robinrocket111]

Same too in 1960s Bootle. We called it playing on 'the debris' often 1/2 a whole street of terraced houses had been demolished in the blitz. Given it was only 20 years after the end of the war it wasn't that surprising that they'd been left. That said, I had a mate who lived there in the early 80s' and some of the streets still hadn't been rebuilt by then.

As a truck driver, I've had a few nights out down near the Mersey docks, any idea what year they demolished and outlined the church that was destroyed during the Blitz. I know it's a park now as I've wandered around there a couple of times going for a pint and some tucker?

 

[robinrocket111]

Aforementioned belts in aforementioned bric a brac shop

How much were the belts and where?

 

[Cregg Bristle]

How much were the belts and where?

Small shop on the corner of Bedminster Parade and East St. in Bristol. Couldn’t see the price tag but I’ll pop in and ask if you like.

 

[robinrocket111]

Small shop on the corner of Bedminster Parade and East St. in Bristol. Couldn’t see the price tag but I’ll pop in and ask if you like.

Don't worry to much, I personally can't afford them. But that's the sort of stuff that should be looked after, the leather looks quite dry and not left in a window.
Perhaps some knows of a museum that would have them, after all in a way its the second innings form of trench art.

 

[Goatman]

Well, I had to find an appropriate thread. With love from The Igloo :

 

[Tedsson]

Time for a thread bump.

A friend just pointed me at this twitter site:
A very funny guide to the 40 greatest household dangers from the sixties and seventies.

I think we managed about 35 of them.

 

[Offa]

Time for a thread bump.

A friend just pointed me at this twitter site:
A very funny guide to the 40 greatest household dangers from the sixties and seventies.

I think we managed about 35 of them.

Excellent post. So many memories of pre-H&S days.
In those pre-tabloid days, did anybody else's father use the daily broadsheet newspaper (Daily Express in our case) to 'draw' the fire; place opened newspaper over fireplace, seal off with hands and wait. The fire either 'drew' or paper caught fire and had to be quickly stuffed up the chimney. Oh, and chimney fires meant it wouldn't need sweeping: no soot, all burned up.

 

[endure]

Trolley buses.

 

[HE117]

Trolley buses.

View attachment 553307

Derby?

 

[tiv]

Excellent post. So many memories of pre-H&S days.
In those pre-tabloid days, did anybody else's father use the daily broadsheet newspaper (Daily Express in our case) to 'draw' the fire; place opened newspaper over fireplace, seal off with hands and wait. The fire either 'drew' or paper caught fire and had to be quickly stuffed up the chimney. Oh, and chimney fires meant it wouldn't need sweeping: no soot, all burned up.

Yes, remember it well. And sawing and chopping wood for kindling to get it going in the first place.
As to the paper, I think that was the News Chronicle?

 

[endure]

Derby?

Yes

 

[RBMK]

• Leccy blanket - my parents had one but never really used it.
• Pressue cooker - used twice a year, once at Christmas
• Chopper - looked great but sh!t to ride
• Hand whisk - yes, used to make scrambled eggs and Birds Angel Delight
• Clacker balls - banned in our school after the first broken wrist
• Push on shower - yes had one of them
• Passive smoking - every pub you ever went in, top deck of the bus etc & my mum
• Paraffin heater - yes, my dad tied it to a coat hanger so it couldn't be knocked over
• Scholls - not in my family but several of my female teachers. Advantage was they couldn't catch you.
• Crossbow no, slinky no
• Foil in the plug - definitely not, use a nail instead.
• Ronco trimcomb - yes once and only once
• Last in the bath - first house I lived in had a tin bath & hot water came from a "copper" heated up on the cooker (early 60s), later backboiler so only ever had to share water with my brother
• platforms - only had one low pair, hated them.
• Rawlplugs - I'm sure I've still got a box somewhere
• Pogo stick - my cousin still has the scar on his shin where he came off one

I'll add:

• Twin tub washing machine much loved by my mum.
• Hand drills
• Wembley trophy footballs - bl**dy hawthorn hedges
• Matchbox toys with poisonous lead based white paint
• Watney's party 7 - Undrinkable muck
• Warniks advocaat - for a sophisticated Christmas [not]
• Gas pokers to light the coal fire

 

[Trackpen]

Yes, remember it well. And sawing and chopping wood for kindling to get it going in the first place.
As to the paper, I think that was the News Chronicle?

It was a test in Cubs: lay and light a fire.
Cut kindling; roll and twist sheets of newspaper into circlets; place kindling on top; then a couple of small logs;,then some small coal.
Light paper; watch it go; at the right moment add larger lumps of coal; broadsheet newspaper over front of fireplace to draw; yell ‘Oh Shit!’ when it erupts in flames ‘cos you got it wrong; get thumped round the ear by your mother; get thumped around the ear again when your father got home for ‘using bad language’ - especially in front of your mother.

 

[CaptainRidiculous]

Brut, blue stratos, old spice and cossack hair muck.

 

[RoofRat]

• Leccy blanket - my parents had one but never really used it.
• Pressue cooker - used twice a year, once at Christmas
• Chopper - looked great but sh!t to ride
• Hand whisk - yes, used to make scrambled eggs and Birds Angel Delight
• Clacker balls - banned in our school after the first broken wrist
• Push on shower - yes had one of them
• Passive smoking - every pub you ever went in, top deck of the bus etc & my mum
• Paraffin heater - yes, my dad tied it to a coat hanger so it couldn't be knocked over
• Scholls - not in my family but several of my female teachers. Advantage was they couldn't catch you.
• Crossbow no, slinky no
• Foil in the plug - definitely not, use a nail instead.
• Ronco trimcomb - yes once and only once
• Last in the bath - first house I lived in had a tin bath & hot water came from a "copper" heated up on the cooker (early 60s), later backboiler so only ever had to share water with my brother
• platforms - only had one low pair, hated them.
• Rawlplugs - I'm sure I've still got a box somewhere
• Pogo stick - my cousin still has the scar on his shin where he came off one

I'll add:

• Twin tub washing machine much loved by my mum.
• Hand drills
• Wembley trophy footballs - bl**dy hawthorn hedges
• Matchbox toys with poisonous lead based white paint
• Watney's party 7 - Undrinkable muck
• Warniks advocaat - for a sophisticated Christmas [not]
• Gas pokers to light the coal fire

Rawlplugs ?,you were well off...Bryant and May spent matchsticks,snapped to length !