Web Page No 2496

28th July 2018

1^st Picture. Sides to Middle

2nd Picture. Darning a Heel

 3^rd Picture. Brooke Bond Tea

4^th Picture. Ostermilk Tin

Make Do and Mend

The phrase ‘sides to middle’ crept into my brain the other day and this set me off to thinking about when we were kids how often our parents, especially our mothers, had to get the sewing box, or the tool box, out to undertake every day running repairs.

Most of the work seemed to be on the mothers as they attempted to maintain standards at home. The sides to middle phrase referred to sheets because as they started to became thin and they wore out more in the middle than along the edges. During the war, housewives would cut threadbare sheets down the middle, turn them over, then sew them back together and this accepted practice carried on well into the 1950s and later, effectively almost doubling the life of a sheet. Possibly the introduction of nylon sheets rang this practices death knell.

Something else that has disappeared since the introduction of nylon is the darning of socks. The sewing technique for repairing holes or worn areas using needle and darning wool was special and it was often done by hand, but it is also possible to darn with a sewing machine if you had one. The essentials for sock darning were large darning needle, woollen thread to darn with, a thimble to protect your fingers and a wooden mushroom to place inside the sock so as to have something to darn against.

What else? Elbow patches on jackets. Elbow patches were common in smart society in the early 20th century, but before that working people wore clothing until they had holes in them and then the lady of the house patched those holes, usually with off cuts of leather making it possible to wear those clothes for many years to come. I can remember my mother and grandmother both being busily engaged in sewing on patches. The other form of patches were to line the edge of the cuffs when they became worn, again leather off cuts came to the rescue.

Turning collars so the worn bit was sewn inside was another money saving plan, as was turning cuffs, especially after the war when materials were in very short supply.

I have spoken before of home shoe repairs, I still have my father’s last! In the past I have also spoken of handmade rugs or mats and the products of the Reddicut Wool Company.

Nothing was wasted, if our groceries were delivered by Mr Parry from Farlington in an old orange box that box was grabbed, chopped up and used for fire wood. Old stockings were washed and sewn into long sausages as door draught excluders or retained by father to sieve his paint through when it got a skin on it.

Strange things come to mind, I remember my grandmother knitting dish cloths on very large needles, also my mother opening up the bottom of a packet of loose tea because there was always a little left in the folds in the bottom. Probably enough for just one cup of tea! These were the green packets of Brooke Bond with the orange label across it on which was a savings stamp. I never did find out what my mother did with those stamps apart from stick them on a card!

The ends of toilet soap bars were saved up and then placed into a special little wire container to help with the wash here again I never did understand how a Blue Bag made things whiter!

We had a school uniform that was just for school. When we arrived home at the end of the day it was straight into the bedroom and change out of the uniform, to keep it looking nice, and into play clothes. Then we were set for the evening.

There were no such things as plastic containers and most families kept things like biscuit tins as sewing or button boxes, (my son still has my mother’s button box it is a round Sharps Toffee tin with kittens on it). My father was the master in retaining tins. He had two rather dilapidated shed which were always in a muddle but the one thing that you could always guarantee to find in them were piles stacks of Ostermilk tins all with nuts, bolts, screws, washers, hinges and all sorts of ‘Useful’ items. He must have had Portsmouth’s biggest collection of these tins, I wish I had them now, some are quite valuable.

Hope I have stirred a few memories.

Keep in touch

Yours

Peter

gsseditor@gmail.com

You Write:

News and Views:

On this day 28^th July 1960-1965.

On 28/07/1960 the number one single was Please Don't Tease - Cliff Richard & the Shadows and the number one album was Elvis Is Back - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Rawhide (ITV) and the box office smash was Psycho. A pound of today's money was worth £13.68 and Burnley were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/07/1961 the number one single was Temptation - Everly Brothers. The top rated TV show was Harpers West One (ATV) and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations. A pound of today's money was worth £13.25 and Tottenham Hotspur were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.The big news story of the day was No Hiding Place (AR).

On 28/07/1962 the number one single was I Remember You - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Pot Luck - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Lawrence of Arabia. A pound of today's money was worth £12.89 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/07/1963 the number one single was Confessin' - Frank Ifield and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Great Escape. A pound of today's money was worth £12.64 and Everton were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/07/1964 the number one single was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles and the number one album was A Hard Day's Night - Beatles. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was Dr Strangelove. A pound of today's money was worth £12.24 and Liverpool were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 28/07/1965 the number one single was Mr Tambourine Man - Byrds and the number one album was The Sound of Music Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Coronation Street (Granada) and the box office smash was The Sound of Music. A pound of today's money was worth £11.69 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.