Web Page 1160
30^th June 2013

Top Picture: Flatley Dryer

Middle Picture: View Master

Bottom Picture: The Honeys

Life in the 1950’s

Here we go again! Just a few things from way back, when we were kids. After a visit to a nostalgia web site recently I started to think about life when I was ten in 1956. I was still at Solent Road Junior School and was worrying about the looming Eleven Plus, little knowing then what a good time I would have when I eventually joined the Secondary Modern School. So let’s just take a look at life at home in 1956.

We, like many of us, had no car, no telephone (we never ever had a phone at home we always had to use a neighbours), no central heating, no fitted carpets, no double glazing and on our beds we had sheets and blankets with an eiderdown and counterpane, no duvets (they were strange continental things!) Heating came from an open fire or a smelly paraffin heater and some folks had those very strange circular reflectored electric fires with a coil-heating element in the middle or maybe a one, two or three bar electric fire. However the modern thing to have was the new Berry Magicoal electric fire complete with imitation real coal fire which could be placed in the grate! The only washing machine mother had was the kitchen sink and a boiler on the gas ring, with the washing either strung on the line outside or on a rack hanging from the kitchen ceiling. That was until the new invention, the Flatley clothes dryer came along, an upright enamelled box with wooden rails in it over a heater element, no good for really wet washing but ok for the half dry stuff!  (See picture).

These were the days of Bobbies on the beat, when you knew your local policeman and respected him (never a her) , Riley Police Cars, Velocette water cooled Police Bikes and Police boxes on many city corners and the large one on the Drayton side of the junction between the Havant Road and the Eastern Road.

The days of post boxes set into the wall of the Post Office with a stamp machine attached where you could buy a book of stamps. The CND Ban the Bomb Aldermaston Marches led by Canon John Collins were still in the future, we were more interested in our comics, the Beano and Dandy for the boys and the Beryl and Bunty for the girls; and boys do you remember the cap bombs illustrated above and the problems we had in obtaining those little round caps, we nearly almost always had to cut down reels of caps to fit?

There was Crackerjack with Eamon Andrews, Fry’s Chocolate Creams, Duncan Walnut Whips, Viewmasters with pictures of the World or animals and reel to reel tape recorders.

Talking about reel to reel tape recorders I understand that Barry is looking for a reel to reel tape recorder to play recording, which I believe his father made in someone’s front room in Kinross Crescent. The recording is of a local close harmony group called the Liddal Sisters. They were actually sisters and lived in Kinross. They started singing together in the early 1950’s, their names were Pearl, Anita and Vilma. They later changed their name to The Honeys (see Picture) and in this guise toured the dancehalls of the country often appearing on the same bills as the likes of Adam Faith, Helen Shapiro and the Beatles. This early recording could be fairly rare as the group never made any professional recordings that I can trace.

We all brushed with tingling fresh SR toothpaste (I wonder what the SR stood for) or even Gibbs dentifrice. We went to the cake shops run by Smith and Vosper, Campions or Greens or the Coop, bought groceries in Pinks, the Home and Colonial Stores, David Greig’s or Macfisheries. Coal was delivered from either Smiths, barnes or again the Coop (must buy it in the middle of the year to get the summer prices!)

Life revolved around Clarke’s sandals, Chilproof Aertex vests, shopping from a neighbours mail order catalogue and not worrying too much about keeping up with the neighbours. By 1956 we had got our first TV set, a 16” Sobell and so within a few years we were happily watching Crackerjack, Tonight, Your Life in Their Hands, The Verdict is Yours and Lockheart of the Yard the television world was with us. Life was slowly changing and we were becoming aware of the world around us and I suppose this is when the rat race began, but for us life was good most of the time as we grew up and for most of us we had the teenage years to look forward to!  

 

Stay in Touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

You Write:

DON'T FORGET THE LUNCHTIME GET TOGETHER ON 13TH AUGUST AT THE CHURCHLLIAN.

News and Views:

On this day 30^th  June 1960-1965

On 30/06/1960 the number one single was Three Steps to Heaven - Eddie Cochran and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) 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. The big news story of the day was Ghana and Somalia become republics.

On 30/06/1961 the number one single was Runaway - Del Shannon and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. 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.

On 30/06/1962 the number one single was Come Outside - Mike Sarne with Wendy Richard and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. 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 30/06/1963 the number one single was I Like It - Gerry & the Pacemakers 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.The big news story of the day was Zip code introduced in US

On 30/06/1964 the number one single was It's Over - Roy Orbison and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Club Night (BBC) 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 30/06/1965 the number one single was I'm Alive - Hollies 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.

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Web Page 1158
23rd June 2013

Top Picture: Marianne Faithfull and Son

Bottom Picture: David Jacobs

31^st  October 1965

What, you may ask is so special about 31^st October 1965, well it was the one and only time that Juke Box Jury came to town and broadcast from the Guildhall. I know, as Max Boyce would say, because I was there! I had just left school and was at college and I remember queuing up outside the Guildhall all afternoon just to get a ticket. I remember arriving an sitting with great anticipation on the right hand side of the auditorium about halfway back. There were over 2000 teenagers in the building that night and the atmosphere was electric. I also remember looking at the set on stage with that famous Juke Box in the middle and noticing how battered and scratched the scenery was and it was pale blue. I suppose back in the days of black and white TV blue was the best background and the bumps and scratches did not show up on the small screen.

After the floor managers introduction and warm up we were told what would happen during the live broadcast. We were to keep silent until David Jacobs saw the red ‘On Air’ light go on and say ‘Welcome to Juke Box Jury’ and as that familiar theme tune started up we were told to clap and cheer. I remember nothing of the discs that were reviewed or very little about the programme apart from when the red light went out all those on stage got up and walked off. We decided against going round to the stage door and decided on having a swift pint drawn by Old Joe in the Great Western down the road.

However before the show started all the jury were introduced to the audience and this is where I came unstuck, apart from Petula Clark I could not remember any of the jurists which is why I only briefly mentioned the occasion a few years ago when I was talking about pop venues in Portsmouth. But recently someone emailed me to say she was there that night and she remembered that Marianne Faithfull was on the jury and was heavily pregnant at the time. This gave me a starting point and with a little research I have discovered that the jury consisted of Marianne Faithfull, Gene Pintney, Petula Clark  and Stubby Kaye.

Some months ago I talked about Petula Clark so now is the time to look at Marianne faithfull

Marianne Evelyn Faithfull was born 29th December 1946 and her singing, songwriting and acting career has spanned five decades. Her early work in the 1960s was overshadowed by struggle with drug abuse in the 1970s. After a long absence, she returned late in 1979 with the highly acclaimed album, Broken English, but her subsequent solo work, has been overshadowed by her personal history. From 1966 to 1970, she had a highly publicised relationship with Mick Jagger and she co-wrote "Sister Morphine", which is featured on the Stones' Sticky Fingers album.

She was born in Hampstead, London. Her father, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, was an Army officer and professor of psychology and her mother, Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso, was originally from Vienna, with aristocratic roots in the Habsburg Dynasty and Jewish ancestry on her maternal side. Erisso was a ballerina for the Max Reinhardt Company during her early years. Marianne’s maternal great, great uncle was Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the 19th century Austrian nobleman whose erotic novel, Venus in Furs, introduced the word "masochism" to the world. one of my great uncles who gave his name to masochism."

The family originally lived in Ormskirk, while her father completed a doctorate at Liverpool University. She spent some of her early life at the commune formed by her father in Oxfordshire. After her parents divorced when she was six years old, she moved in with her mother. Her primary school was in Brixton, where the family were living in reduced circumstances and her girlhood was marred by tuberculosis, she was also a charity boarder at St Joseph's Convent School where she became a member of the Progress Theatre's student group.

Her singing career began in 1964 as a folk music performer and she soon began taking part in London's social scene. In early 1964 she attended a Rolling Stones party with John Dunbar and met Andrew Loog Oldham, who discovered her. Her first major release, "As tears go by", was written by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Andrew Oldham. She then released a series of successful singles. She married John Dunbar on 6th May 1965 with Peter Asher as the best man. They lived in a flat in Knightsbridge. On 10^th  November 1965 she gave birth to their son, Nicholas, which explains why she was heavily pregnant when we saw her. She then left her husband to live with Mick Jagger.

In 1966 she took their son to stay with Brian Jones in London. During that time period, she started smoking marijuana and became friends with Brian Jones’ partner. She also began a relationship with Mick Jagger that year. She was found wearing only a fur rug by police executing a drug search at Keith Richards' house in West Wittering (he is still living in the same house!). In an interview 27 years later she admitted that the drug bust fur rug incident had ravaged her personal life." In 1968, by now she was addicted to cocaine, miscarried a daughter while retreating to Mick Jagger's country house in Ireland.

She ended her relationship with Mick Jagger in May 1970, and lost custody of her son in that same year, which led to her attempting suicide. Her life and career went into decline. She only made a few appearances and lived on London's Soho streets for two years, suffering from heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa. Friends intervened and enrolled her in a drug programme. She was one of the programme's most notorious failures. In 1971, producer Mike Leander found her on the streets and made an attempt to revive her career, producing part of her album Rich Kid Blues. The album would be shelved until 1985.

Laryngitis and persistent cocaine abuse during had permanently altered her voice, leaving d lower in pitch. In 1975 she released the country-influenced record Dreamin' My Dreams, which reached No.1 on the Irish Albums Chart. She moved into a squat without hot water or electricity in Chelsea with then-boyfriend Ben Brierly, of the punk band the Vibrators. She later shared flats in Chelsea and Regent's Park. 

She returned in 1979 (the same year she was arrested for marijuana possession) with the album Broken English, the album was influenced by the punk explosion and her marriage to Brierly.  She moved to New York after the release of the follow-up to Broken English,  Dangerous Acquaintances, in 1981. Despite her comeback, she was still battling with addiction. A disastrous appearance on Saturday Night Live was blamed on too many rehearsals, but it was suspected that drugs had caused her vocal cords to seize up.  In 1985, she was in for rehabilitation. While living at a she started an affair (while still married to Brierly) with a  mentally ill and drug dependent man, who later committed suicide by jumping from a 14th floor window of their flat. Her divorce from Brierly was also finalised in 1987. That year, she reinvented herself, this time as a jazz and blues singer, on the album Strange Weather and it became her most critically lauded album of the decade. In 1988, she married writer and actor Giorgio Della Terza, but they divorced in 1991.

With  an all-star cast the rock opera The Wall live in Berlin in July 1990, she played the part of Pink's mother. Her musical career rebounded for the third time during the early 1990s with the live album Blazing Away. A  Collection of Her Best Recordings was released in 1994 to coincide with the release of her autobiography  As her fascination with the music of Germany continued, she appeared in The Threepenny Opera in Dublin, playing Pirate Jenny. Her interpretation of the music led to a new album, Twentieth Century Blues, followed in 1998 by a recording of The Seven Deadly Sins, with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. A hugely successful concert and cabaret tour culminated in the filming, at the Montreal Jazz Festival, of the DVD Marianne Faithfull Sings Kurt Weill.

Even into the 2000s she was releasing albums that received positive critical response, in March 2007 she returned to the stage with Songs of Innocence and Experience. The show featured many songs she had not performed live before. The Songs of the Innocence and Experience album will, she hopes enable her to live in comfort. However, she still lived in her flat in Paris (in one of the most expensive streets) and had a house in County Waterford.

In March 2009, she revealed that, following the death of her cousin, she had inherited the title Baroness Von Sacher-Masoch, but chose not to use it. On 3rd May 2009, she was featured on CBS News Sunday Morning.  In 2010, she was honoured with the Icon of the Year award from Q magazine.

On 31st January 2011 she released her 18th studio album in mainland Europe with mixed reviews. In addition to her music career, she has had an extensive acting career in theatre, television and film.

 In 2007, she released a second volume of autobiography called Memories, Dreams and Reflections. Her touring and work schedule has been repeatedly interrupted by health problems. In late 2004 she called off the European leg of a world tour, after collapsing on stage in Milan, and was hospitalised for exhaustion. The tour resumed later and included a US leg in 2005. In September 2006, she again called off a concert tour, this time after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The following month, she underwent surgery in France and no further treatment was necessary owing to the tumour having been caught at a very early stage.On 4th November 2007, the European Film Academy announced that Marianne Faithfull had received a nomination for Best Actress, for her role as Maggie in Irina Palm. At the 20th annual European Film Awards  ceremony held in Berlin, on 1^st  December 2007, she lost to Helen Mirren.

Stay in Touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

You Write:

Have you let me know if you are coming along to the get together  at lunchtime on 13^th August at the Churchillian?

News and Views:

Johnny Smith, composer of the Ventures' hit, "Walk- Don't Run" which reached No2 in1960 and No8 in1964), died Tuesday on June 11^th at his Colorado home, just shy of his 91st birthday. Johnny himself recorded the song in 1954 but it was Chet Atkins' 1957 version that served as the inspiration for the Ventures. Johnny ran a music store in Colorado in later years and made his last solo recordings in 1976.

On this day 23rd June 1960-1965

On 23/06/1960 the number one single was Three Steps to Heaven - Eddie Cochran and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) 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 23/06/1961 the number one single was Surrender - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. 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.

On 23/06/1962 the number one single was Good Luck Charm - Elvis Presley and the number one album was West Side Story Soundtrack. 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 23/06/1963 the number one single was I Like It - Gerry & the Pacemakers 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 23/06/1964 the number one single was It's Over - Roy Orbison and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. 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 23/06/1965 the number one single was I'm Alive - Hollies 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Web Page 1156
16th June 2013

Top Picture: Frozen Milk bottles 1963

Bottom Picture: Remember Ilford Films?

Even More Memories

I remember my first year at senior school, Court Lane Secondary, when my mother insisted that I was still a child even though I was going to senior school so I had to go to school in uniform grey short trousers with grey long socks with garters that did not work! I remember those socks because there was always the uncomfortable feeling in my shoes all day long when the socks had been darned!

Life was very different then. When we went out Dad always wore a jacket and collar and tie even when shopping and it was here that our parents actually talked to people over the counter and were served by shop assistants who knew their products. On cold winter mornings the milk on our doorstep was frozen with the tops pushed off the bottles, it was touch and go to get to the bottles before the birds did! These were the days of being satisfied that Santa had actually come instead of how much he'd brought. When we look back we realise that everyone’s Grandmother and Grandfather always looked old and Uncles and Aunts were always called Uncle this or Aunty that, never by their Christian names. 

In the winter our bedrooms were always freezing cold with a lino floor and just a small rug to put our feet on when we got out of bed. There were no such things as Continental Quilts or Duvets just sheets, blankets, eiderdowns and counterpanes.

Life ran to timetables. Time to come in for tea, time to come in for dinner, time to go out and play and time to be home and whoa betide anyone who was late for any of these fixed points! Pocket money was just that, a few pence in your pocket to buy sweets or a comic, but I can remember getting a ten-bob note for my birthday one year, it took me two weeks to decide how to spend it.

On the sport side we wore long shorts and had high sided heavy brown football boots until the black and white low cut continental style came in. Our footballs were leather with laces and these laces really hurt if you headed the ball and caught them on you forehead.

As we progressed through the Sixties employment reared its ugly head and the change of direction in life when we left school. Some went, as I did, went on to study at college, some went into the Services and some out into the wide world of employment where an unskilled labourer could earn as much as £4 a week which was considerably more than the dockyard apprentices who were earning just £2/10 shillings per week! But they were told they were learning a valuable and traditional trade.

Around 1962 a few people started growing their hair long and caused much amusement, but I was under instruction from my father who had given me the 1s 6d to go to Mr. Hember, the barber, and have a decent haircut with a neck shave.

Looking back to the early 1950’s and attending Junior School I remember the scary, cold outside toilets with fixed wooden seats and high level cisterns with deafening flushes, Izal hard toilet paper and pink disinfectant that magically appeared in the loos every morning. In class we would read the Peter and Jane Ladybird books, they always seemed to have such an idyllic life, helping Daddy sort out apples in the hayloft and going on trips in the "motor car".

It was a time when all elderly people were respected, where teaching had some integrity and teachers were smartly dressed and well thought of and where there was one gun related murder a year and the culprit faced the death penalty. No cars had synchromesh in first gear and the police cars and ambulances had electric bells and the fire engines hand operated bells on the roof of their cabs. Oh! and Policemen all seemed to be well over six feet tall. All over the place we could see hand drawn posters for Whist Drives, Jumble Sales, Rummage Sales, Garden Parties, Sales of Work all to raise money for some good cause or other.

Just one other thing who remembers double summertime daylight saving? This was used during the war years but from February 1968 to November 1971 we kept daylight saving time throughout the year mainly for commercial reasons and because of power shortages. Although some said it resulted in fewer road traffic accidents, others said that it was a disadvantage for children leaving homes in the dark mornings to attend school, it was common place to see children walking to school with brand new Florescent bands or belts. The experiment was abandoned in 1972 because of its unpopularity, particularly in the north.

More and more memories, I really must be getting old! Only 2^1/₂ years to go and I will be 70!!!!!!!

Stay in Touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

You Write:

How about the lunchtime get together on 13th August. Will you be there?

News and Views:

On this day 16th June 1960-1965

On 16/06/1960 the number one single was Cathy's Clown - Everly Brothers and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Sunday Night at the London Palladium (ATV) 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. The big news story of the day was Arnold Palmer wins US Golf Open.

On 16/06/1961 the number one single was Surrender - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) 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.

On 16/06/1962 the number one single was Good Luck Charm - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - 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 16/06/1963 the number one single was From Me To You - The Beatles and the number one album was Please Please Me - The Beatles. The top rated TV show was Conservative Party Political Broadcast (all channels) 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. The big news story of the week was Cassius Clay defeats Henry Cooper in London.

On 16/06/1964 the number one single was You're My World - Cilla Black and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. 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 16/06/1965 the number one single was Crying in the Chapel - Elvis Presley 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. The big news story of the day was UK drink-drive alcohol limit to be introduced.

Web Page 1154
9th June 2013

Top Picture: Gibbs Tooth Powder

Bottom Picture: Phillips Stick on Soles

What Happened to ……………..

Recently I had a day when I found myself saying ‘I wonder what happened to ……’ and a whole selection of things came to mind, so I thought I would share a few with you all.

Firstly, when we were kids if we went with our mothers to the chemist there were always those very large glass flasks with coloured liquid in them upon a shelf or in the window. What happened to them?

Then the containers that medicines and potions came in were different than the ones we get today. Medicines always came in thick glass bottles with standard measures moulded into the back and the bottles were always sealed with a cork and the chemist always asked us to bring the bottles back when we had finished with them and all the poison bottles were blue. What happened to them?

Pills were another standard prescription and whatever the pills were they would be supplied in round-waxed cardboard pill boxes and similar boxes would be used for special ointments with the directions for the dose on the lid. What happened to them?

On the shelves we would see bottles of tonics and patient medicines such as Dr. Collis Brownes Chloradine, Andrews Liver Salts and cans of a strange sticky mixture to make a poultice, the cure all for a myriad of ills. What happened to them?

Whilst in the chemist mother may well have bought some Gibbs Dentifrice tooth powder  in different coloured tins or father a strop for his cut throat razor. What happened to them?

The Chemist also sold all sorts of other home comforts, glass boat shaped feeding bottles for baby, rubber hot water bottles in red, blue and green along with a fancy cover for them to protect your feet. However these bottles were tame compared to the old cylinder stone very hot water bottles with the screw top that our grandparents swore by, they were lethal to the feet but again they were considered tame compared to the other cylindrical bottles made of metal, they would certainly burn your feet if they were put into the bed without a ‘cosy’. What happened to them?

But it was not only in the chemist shop that things have changed, what about in the Ironmongers. Back in the 1950’s a new product was on the market to help the new D-I-Yer, Rawlplastic (the forerunner of the fibre Rawlplugs and then the plastic ones). Rawlpastic came in an orange tin and from memory it was a powder laced with flakes of asbestos. The tin came with a round punch to make the required hole in the wall, the powder was wetted down and pushed into the hole and then the screw applied whilst still wet and when the mixture dried the screw was firmly fixed. Father could also buy stick on soles and heels for the families shoes and as every household had a shoe last ( I still have my fathers) home soling and heeling was common. The soles came in a paper bag with a round tin rasp with a turned up end to roughen up the leather and a tube of special shoe glue. These were the days when you had to walk to the nearest ironmonger to buy a gallon of paraffin which was pumped up by hand from a holding drum into a measuring jug and then into your special paraffin can. What happened to all these?

When we went to the dentist, (does anyone remember the school dentist Mr Butcher?) and we had to have a filling the dentist, in my case Mr Conroy) injected your gum with what he called Cocaine! What happened to that?

You could go on and on remembering things such as lemonade powder, buying a half of a pint of shrimps in the fishmongers, chewing gum cards, The Beezer comic and The Children’s Daily Mirror, Saturday Morning pictures, Caramac, Pink Witch Bicycles, home made go-carts and sledges, roller skates with steel wheels, catapults and spud guns. But I could go on and on so I will just say ‘what happened to all these?’ The answer is that we just grew up.

Stay in Touch

Peter

DUSTYKEAT@aol.com

Pj.keat@ntlworld.co.uk

You Write:

 What I was doing in 1953 Coronation celebrations.

On June 2nd I watched the Coronation in our front room in Farlington with a lot of neighbours. I remember being told off for making a noise so I left room and went to play in the garden. (I did see the important bit)

What I do remember in detail was on June 15th Spithead review.

I was at that time at Prep School Boundary Oak we were bussed to Portsmouth Harbour to take a trip on the Gosport Ferry our school had hired for the day.

 We were given lunch in a box and we were told under pain of the cane not to move from our allocated seat. (I remember that we were very small and our feet did not reach the deck.)

There wear many hundred of ships but I never did find the one the Queen was on.

 My lunch consisted of a plain sandwich of bread and butter and a boiled egg. This egg was in its shell, which this 6 year old had to remove. On taking the last bit of shell off the egg it slid out of my hand rolled down my lap, down my legs and balanced between my feet.

 I looked at that egg and had to balance the consequence of dropping it and then retrieving it resulting in getting the cane or keep it balanced until an older boy could retrieve it.  I estimate I balanced that egg for two hours, I never took my eyes off it. I just looked down at my closed feet working out what I should do.

I never really had sight from that time on of the last major naval review this country would have, just this dam egg.

When it was time to get off the boat we were told to stand and at that point the egg rolled onto the deck and was lost in the trampling kids (some who had been sea sick)

I bet most of you remember the crowds, the cheering, the decorations all through Portsmouth and Southsea. You remember the parties the bonhomie the day off School.

But all I remember is that bloody egg.

News and Views:

Would you believe it Little Richard (the Revd. to give him his full title) has just turned 80!!!!!

On this day 9th June 1960-1965

On 09/06/1960 the number one single was Cathy's Clown - Everly Brothers and the number one album was South Pacific Soundtrack. The top rated TV show was Wagon Train (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 09/06/1961 the number one single was Surrender - Elvis Presley and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was No Hiding Place (AR) 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.

On 09/06/1962 the number one single was Good Luck Charm - Elvis Presley and the number one album was Blue Hawaii - 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 09/06/1963 the number one single was From Me To You - The Beatles 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 09/06/1963 the number one single was From Me To You - The Beatles 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 09/06/1965 the number one single was Long Live Love - Sandie Shaw and the number one album was Bringing It All Back Home - Bob Dylan. 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.