21st September 2017
First Picture: A tiny Lighter flint
Second Picture: A selection of mourning bands
Third Picture: Telephone money box
Fourth Picture: Column gear change
I must be getting Old!!!!
The older I get the more I seem to
remember the things that were in daily use but we see no more, so here are a few.
My father filling his petrol Ronson
Lighter with lighter fuel by pouring it from the can onto the cotton wool in
the fuel chamber and at times changing
the flint and wick and cleaning the serrated wheel. Who has a petrol lighter
these days?
Whilst talking about wicks one of the
greasy, smelly and messy jobs which had to done in the house was the regular
cleaning of the wick on our paraffin heaters in the bathroom and hallway. It
always seemed that whoever was cleaning it always ended up with a black, sooty
and greasy deposit all over their hands!
No central heating for us when I lived at home!
Death was not something that many of us
came across in our younger days but the way our parents dealt with death was
completely different to the way our Grand Parents and elderly relatives dealt
with the loss. For this older generation, there were many conventions to be
observed. As soon as the person had died all the curtains in the front of the
house were drawn and stayed that way until a week after the funeral. All
pictures in the house that had a face on them were covered with a cloth as were
any mirrors. From somewhere black armband were produced and were worn by both
men and women for many weeks after the death. Men
wore black ties for some time after the death. Ladies wore funeral jewellery
made of jet and the gentlemen wore jet tie clips and cuff links. There was also
funeral crockery mainly made by the Jackfield pottery. In many families, it was
not the done thing for the ladies of the household did not attend the funeral
and so mostly a funeral service and internment were male dominated. This was a hangover
from the conduct of Queen Victoria, luckily things have changed over the last
116 years.
At infant school after lunch
the pupils were told to put their arms on the desk and lay their heads on them
and have a rest for twenty minutes. I doubt if that still happens.
So many
other things have changed for example in some households the man handed over
his unopened pay packet to his wife who then gave him back what amounted to his
pocket money. Others allotted varying amounts went into tins or jars to cover
the rent, bills for the utilities, insurance policies or to pay regular
instalments on essential items, such as the gas or electric cooker or the
telephone. Another receptacle was earmarked for storing the one-shilling pieces
needed to feed the gas and electricity meters.
It was
left to the housewife – mostly wholly dependent on her husband for money - to
squirrel away what she could to cover such items she might want, such as
make-up, a rare visit to the hairdresser or birthday and Christmas presents.
Things in the 1950s were still male dominated. For a married woman who worked
there was nothing more annoying, when faced with a form that required the
answer to the question "occupation" to be instructed by the official
to write "housewife". Worse still was being told that you needed your
husband's permission, verified by his signature, to do certain things, such as
enter into a hire purchase agreement. It was assumed that a female might
default on payments unless she was backed by her husband.
How things
have changed!!!!
Moving on,
one of the biggest changes since we were kids can be seen in the motor
vehicles. Here are just some. Cars of the late 1950’s had no heaters, no radios
and only a basic system of windscreen wipers and almost every car came fitted
with a running board on each side. Now who remembers a foot operated dipped
headlight switch, swinging arm trafficators set into the door support and had
to be hit when they did not swing out. How many new drivers today would even
know how to drive a car with column gear change, and to know the joy of a
through bench front seat!!!!
Ah well
there went another look into the past.
Keep in touch
Yours
Peter
You Write:
News and Views:
On this day 21st
September 1960-1965
On 21/09/1960 the
number one single was Apache - The Shadows
and the number one album was Down Drury
Lane to Memory Lane - A Hundred and One Strings. 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 Tottenham Hotspur were on
the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 21/09/1961 the
number one single was Reach for the Stars / Climb Ev'ry
Mountain - Shirley Bassey and the number one album was Ipswich Town. The top rated TV show
was "Coronation Street (Granada)
and the box office smash was One Hundred and One Dalmations.
A pound of today's money was worth £Argentinian
swims English Channel both ways non-stop and 13.25 were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1
champions. The big news story of the day was Take Your Pick (AR)".
On 213/09/1962 the
number one single was She's Not You -
Elvis Presley and the number one album was Best of Ball Barber & Bilk. 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 Everton were on the way to
becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 21/09/1963 the
number one single was She Loves 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 Liverpool
were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On 21/09/1964 the
number one single was You Really Got Me
- Kinks 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 Manchester United were on
the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.
On
21/09/1965 the number one single
was Make It Easy On Yourself - Walker
Brothers and the number one album was Help - The Beatles.
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 Liverpool
were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions
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