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Memorable stuff from your formative years

Fell off a lorry, honest, Guv.


True dit. Many years ago, still single but engaged, was driving near Aylesbury with the then love of my life, a Ginetta kit car. Oh yes, and the then fiancee. (Later married her, then divorced....)

As we approached a roundabout, a largish flatbed truck came from the right and took the roundabout a bit fast. What looked like a sack of sand slid off and the truck simply drove on. I braked and swerved to avoid the sack, which could have damaged my GRP car. I drove on, whilst the fiancee bleated to stop and collect the sack - "It could come in useful in the new house...."

I explained that the car didn't have a proper boot, and even if we managed to slide it into the space behind the seats, how would she explain our ownership of it?

"Oh, it fell off the back of........." and then realised what she had been going to say. She never really forgave me for not collecting it, though.
 
Being taught by my Mum how to make a proper pot of tea.
  1. Warm the pot
  2. A spoonful of tea for each person, plus one for the pot
  3. Add freshly boiling water
  4. Wait

Enjoy
 
Being taught by my Mum how to make a proper pot of tea.
  1. Warm the pot
  2. A spoonful of tea for each person, plus one for the pot
  3. Add freshly boiling water
  4. Wait

Enjoy
I remember that recipe as I used to be my granny's brew bitch. All the bleeping time! Even after when making a pot of tea on the cooker as she liked hers strong enough to melt the teaspoons, I melted the teapot on the gas ring. Aluminium has a distinctive odour when it's on fire.
 
Tin tray with a ceramic tile. Teapot (brown glazed) with cosy on the tile. Tin tea caddy with a proper caddy spoon (short handle), tea strainer and base and a small container of bicarb. Bottle of milk and a teaspoon and the kit was complete. Lovely feeling of wearing a warm tea cosy on your head and the wonderful smell inside. Modern psychologists tell us to live in the moment to reduce stress. Been doing it for 60+ years.
 
Tin tray with a ceramic tile. Teapot (brown glazed) with cosy on the tile. Tin tea caddy with a proper caddy spoon (short handle), tea strainer and base and a small container of bicarb. Bottle of milk and a teaspoon and the kit was complete. Lovely feeling of wearing a warm tea cosy on your head and the wonderful smell inside. Modern psychologists tell us to live in the moment to reduce stress. Been doing it for 60+ years.
Yes to all of the above at my grannies, who taught me to make and enjoy tea. Don’t recognise the bicarb in the recipe. Is that a local variation? What was it used for?
 
Tin tray with a ceramic tile. Teapot (brown glazed) with cosy on the tile. Tin tea caddy with a proper caddy spoon (short handle), tea strainer and base and a small container of bicarb. Bottle of milk and a teaspoon and the kit was complete. Lovely feeling of wearing a warm tea cosy on your head and the wonderful smell inside. Modern psychologists tell us to live in the moment to reduce stress. Been doing it for 60+ years.
Everybody above the age of 50 has worn a tea cosy as a hat at least once
 
A small amount of bicarb on the tip of the teaspoon was added to the tea to bring out more colour so less tea was used. It was a wartime practice that hung on for years in our house.
 
One of my early memories is of how unreliable cars were. My dad had a Cortina at one time & it was a pig. He was on the buses & sometimes had a 03.30/4am starts.
I’d hear him go out of the front door, unlock the car, then ‘de de de de de de - pause - de de de de de - pause - der der derrrr’.
The front door would reopen, keys angrily thrown down on the phone table (remember them?) & I’d hear him phone his work & ask them to send someone to pick him up. 15 mins later a double decker (Gardner powered) would be clanking up our quiet street, waking up everyone within half a mile.
I imagine he was popular with the neighbours.
Cold mornings as a kid in the early 1980s (tbf, we had some cold snaps then). The whole road would resound to the attempts of blokes attempting to start gems like the Cortina and Avenger.
Us kids would all be sent out to push start dad’s car to get him away to work. My youngest brother was about four or five (and we couldn’t stop him anyway) and baby sis was exempt as she had only just started walking.
Certainly gave a bracing start to day prior to the trudge to school. If it had snowed, the trudge to school suddenly got lots more fun.
 
Cold mornings as a kid in the early 1980s (tbf, we had some cold snaps then). The whole road would resound to the attempts of blokes attempting to start gems like the Cortina and Avenger.
Us kids would all be sent out to push start dad’s car to get him away to work. My youngest brother was about four or five (and we couldn’t stop him anyway) and baby sis was exempt as she had only just started walking.
Certainly gave a bracing start to day prior to the trudge to school. If it had snowed, the trudge to school suddenly got lots more fun.
Just reminded me of hours making "slippy curries" (I've no idea why we called them that either) where a gaggle of kids would trample the snow flat on any downhill bit of pavement until it turned into a solid sheet of ice. Then spend all day sliding down it.
 
There was a Joke Shop in my local city which sold all of this stuff. Along with other "jokes" which would probably never pass H&S rules now.
I was visiting one in Cardiff to buy a plastic ball and chain for a soon to be groom, when the owner, serving a crowd of young trainee pranksters with soap flavoured sweets, handed me one to prove their efficacy.
Oh dear.
They were delicious, in a fragrant, flowery sort of way, and I said so. The small jesters looked on in awe as I savoured it, and said owner huffed mightily when I asked if I might try the chilli flavour.
 
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