Web Page No 2686

15th May 2020

1st Picture. Family Dinner Table

2nd Picture. Magazine about the 1950’s

3rd Picture. The Family Grocer

4th Picture. The Grove Family

Family Sayings

Parents, especially mothers, had a unique way of speaking to their children with unusual turns of phrase. Here are just a few:-

Don't look at me with those eyes. (whose eyes was I supposed to use?)

If you keep making that face, the wind will change and it will stay that way.

If you want to act like a child, I'll treat you like one. (naturally)

Quieten down, I can't even hear myself think.

One day you'll thank me. (I hope so)

Children are to be seen, not heard.

Don’t start. (start what?)

You don’t look well maybe you need some of those pink pills for pale people. (these were an actual product which were marketed by a Dr. Williams for those with a pale skin, they were supposed to put colour in your cheeks!)

There will be no pudding for you until you finish your dinner.

I must have told you a thousand times.

I will wash your mouth out with soap and water.

I want never gets.

Who’s she the cat’s mother?

If you eat your crusts you hair will go curly.

And the most used ones

Money does not grow on trees you know.

Because I said so, that's why!

Elbows off the table

I wasn’t born yesterday you know.

You are big enough and ugly enough.

I am not asking I am telling

Then there was:-

As long as you're under my roof, you live by my rules.

And

God gave you a brain, so use it.

Just you wait and see!

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. (It was never stupid to us!)

Then there was the deliberate put down

What did your last slave die of.

If you fall out of that tree and break your legs don’t you come running to me

What do you mean you cannot come here are both your legs broken?

If all of your friends jumped off a bridge, would you?

Shut the door, were you born in a barn? (she should know)

Your room looks like a cyclone ran through it.

Talking to you is like talking to a brick wall.

Let's play the quiet game.

I have a bone in my leg

The voice of authority comes through in these:-

I'm not asking, I'm telling.

When you have kids, I hope they're just like you.

Don't you use that tone with me Mister/Missy.

Stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about.

You better wipe that look off your face. (difficult)

And finally:- Wait till your father gets home!

Or the alternative :- Don’t tell your mother.

I am sure you can add many more to the list, every family seemed to have their own pet saying or phrases. What were yours?

Stay in touch

Peter

grseditor@gmail.com

You Write:

Biff Writes:-

Hi Peter, It’s a long time since i have written to you and your page. I have attached a section of film taken by my farther on VE day 1945. It shows sailors dancing and the children’s party set in Woodfield ave, Farlington. Though we were not alive one or two of your people may have older brothers or sisters or grandparents in the clip. All the best Biff (Chris Richards)

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0?ui=2&ik=842ce6ec27&attid=0.1&permmsgid=msg-f:1666063208868097533&th=171f0ba949ee2dfd&view=att&disp=safe&realattid=f_k9x73ox70

News and Views:

On this day 15 ^th  May 1960-1965

On 17/05/1960 the number one single was Cathys Clown by the 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 15/05/1961 the number one single was Blue Moon - The Marcels and the number one album was GI Blues - Elvis Presley. The top rated TV show was Bootsie & Snudge (Granada) 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 15/05/1962 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows 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 15/05/1963 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 Liberal 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.

On 15/05/1964 the number one single was Don't Throw Your Love Away - Searchers and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Conservative Party Political Broadcast (all channels) 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 15/05/1965 the number one single was King of the Road - Roger Miller and the number one album was Beatles For Sale - 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Do you realise that it is now 18 years since the big reunion in Havant and that this week this blog is 18 years old!!! Came as a surprise to me!!!!

Web Page No 2684

8th May 2020

1st Picture. Cyril Fletcher

 2nd Picture. Betty Estell

 3rd Picture. Pantomime Programme

4th Picture. That’s Life chair

                                               Cyril Fletcher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cMiw1O8myI

Cyril Fletcher  was born on 25th June 1913 and died on 2nd January 2005 was known as a comedian, actor and businessman, however he was best known for his poetry or Odd Odes. His catchphrase was 'Pin back your lugholes'.  He first began performing the Odd Odes in 1937, long before they first appeared on television in the That’s Life show with Ester Ransen (though he did appear on pre World War II television).

He came up with the idea when he was short of material for a radio show. The first, Odd Ode, was a comic, yet sentimental, reading of Edgar Wallace's war poem Dreaming of Thee. Following this broadcast, he was given a regular programme on Radio Luxembourg; it was this show that brought him to national attention. He called himself "the odd oder".

He also appeared as a panellist on the popular panel show on BBC, What's My Line?, that ran from 1951 to 1963. He was the presenter of Central TV's Gardening Today for fourteen years, and Channel Television's Cyril Fletcher's TV Garden, and ran from 1990 to 1992, for two years.

He was born in Watford, the son of a solicitor, who was the Friern Barnet town clerk. He once joked on radio that he had been born under a whelk stall in Watford market: his mother was furious. Following schooling at Woodhouse School, North Finchley, where he first began to entertain by composing witty poems about his schoolmasters, he graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. in the evenings, paying the fees by performing in cabaret.

He wrote his first poem, on King John, when he was seven. By the time he was 14, he knew he wanted to be an actor partly because he so admired John Gielgud.

His first job, however, was as an insurance clerk. The work, he later complained, consisted of pushing a trolley between a broker's office and the post office. But he entertained his colleagues with his funny verses about the boss, just as he had entertained his fellow pupils at Friern Barnet grammar school with funny verses about the masters.

The Fol de Rols connection, which did so much for his career, came about by accident. In a 1936 concert at the Prince of Wales Theatre, he recited an Odd Ode when Greatrex Newman, who ran the Fol de Rols, was in the audience. He offered him £7 a week to join the Fol de Rols at Hastings. It was when that show was broadcast that he read the decisive ode. He was offered his own show on Radio Luxembourg

A Freemason and a successful businessman, he believed it important to diversify in such a fickle business as show business. He founded Associated Speakers, an agency for after-dinner speakers, on whose books were the likes of the Duke of Bedford and Lord Longford, as well as himself.

He and his wife, Betty Astell, were married from 18th May 1941 until his death, she died just under seven months later. The couple had a daughter, Jill Fletcher who is an actress and comedian.

Betty Julia Hymans was born in Brondesbury, Willesden the  daughter of Herbert Hyams and Estella Oppenheimer Hyams

She was a child performer, trained as a dancer. She sang on BBC Radio programmes in the 1920s, and met her husband while making recordings for radio in Bristol during World War II. In 1956 and 1957, they playing a married couple in a radio comedy, Mixed Doubles, written by Bob Monkhouse and Denis Goodwin.

In 1931 and 1932, she sang and danced in John Logie Baird's experimental television programming, on the BBC's 30-line shows, making her one of the first people to perform on television. That same year, she played Alice in Dick Whittington, the first televised pantomime. She starred with her husband on an early sketch show for television, Kaleidoscope (1949), and on his television series, The Cyril Fletcher Show, on ITV beginning in 1959.

She made her London stage debut in John Galsworthy's Escape (1928) and performed in revues through the 1940s, including Magic Carpet (1943) and Keep Going (1944)

Her first film in 1932, in A Tight Corner with Frank Pettingell. She stayed active in film through the 1930s, appearing in two dozen films. In 1942, the Fletchers were familiar enough to a wide audience to make a wartime newsreel clip together, honouring farmers.^[Her last film role came in 1948, when she returned to the screen in A Piece of Cake, co-starring with her husband.

She also wrote and produced pantomimes at the Ashcroft Theatre in Croydon, including Dick Whittington, Mother Goose, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and Aladdin. She died in a hospital near her home in Guernsey, aged 93 years, nearly seven months after the death of her husband

Cold not end without an Odd Ode:-

The Operation by Cyril Fletcher

My friend Theopolis Carnation

Would talk about his operation

And gaze upon with such delight

The scar of his appendicite.

The surgeon had so neatly put

A row of stitches sewn with gut

That Theopolis with half a whirl

Loved every stitch, both plain and purl.

One day as he sat in his tub

He gave his favourite spot a rub

To his surprised delight he found

The catgut made a Crysler sound.

And so next day he bought a bow

And started playing sweet and low

And in a week could play the air

Of 'Deep Purple' and 'The Maidens Prayer'.

The BBC soon got to hear

And called for Theo to appear

And said that he and his incision

Must both appear on television.

He learned the new swing music gait

He'd drop a stitch to syncopate

With his dance band became the new sensation

'Theopolis and his Operation.'

Theopolis got quite wealthy soon

Each stitch in time could play its tune

Although he grew a trifle gummy

Through rubbing rosin on his tummy.

Stay in touch

Peter

grseditor@gmail.com

You Write:

News and Views:

On this day 8^th  May 1860-1865

On 08/05/1860 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. The big news story of the day was Contraceptive pill becomes available in US.

On 08/05/1861 the number one single was Blue Moon - The Marcels 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 08/05/1862 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows 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 £12.88 and Ipswich Town were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

On 08/05/1863 the number one single was From Me To You - The Beatles and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. The top rated TV show was Labour 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.

On 08/05/1864 the number one single was Don't Throw Your Love Away - Searchers and the number one album was Rolling Stones - The Rolling Stones. The top rated TV show was Conservative Party Political Broadcast (all channels) 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 08/05/1865 the number one single was Ticket to Ride - The Beatles and the number one album was Beatles For Sale - 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 £11.68 and Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.

Web Page No 2682

1^st May 2020

1st Picture. Place setting

 2nd Picture. Fish knife

3rd Picture. Pickle fork

4th Picture. Kensitas Cigarettes

Eating at home.

One thing that my family always set great store by was good table manners. Come a main meal we all sat around the dining room table and ate together. The table would be set with a table cloth (with matching napkins on Sundays) decorative place mats, cutlery, condiments and sauces, tomato and/or HP or Daddies along with Colemans mustard. If the meal was to be cold meat, this was often on a Monday when mother used up the remainder of the Sunday Roast Joint, there would always be a dish of home cooked beetroot, a jar of Pan Yan Pickle or assorted pickles with pickle forks on the table as well. We all had our regular set places to sit with fathers being at the head.

First of all came the call by my mother from the kitchen ‘Have you washed your hands and face?’ so it was a journey upstairs to the bathroom to undertake the obligatory wash and brush up before eating. Having done so I came down and sat in my appointed place and waited for my meal to be served. Eating with one’s fingers was certainly a real no no in our house that’s what the cutlery was for, we even had fish knives and forks for any sea-based dish, which was normally just once a week. I think these were family heirlooms from some distant relative. I do not remember glasses on the table even water glasses but they may have been there. We never said Grace at the table before or after a meal in our house but it was clearly understood that no one started eating until every diner had all sat down and was ready to eat.

Once I had completed my first course, I always had to place my knife and fork together on the plate to indicate that I had finished. Then came the pudding or afters, apple crumble and custard, fruit pie or maybe rice or macaroni pudding or even a milk jelly and again the rule of placing the cutlery neatly on the plate when I had finished applied. I then had to wait until everyone at the table had finished eating before I could ask if I could leave the table. This I was told was just good manners.

Conversation was always very stilted at these meals as we understood that you did not talk with food in your mouth so conversation was somewhat limited. Although, after the meal was finished and tea or coffee served in the sitting room and where my father and grandmother lit their cigarettes, my father Kensitas (as he collected the coupons) and my grandmother Senior Service, my mother did not smoke, and the world would be put to rights.

All the food was home cooked by either my mother or grandmother. One of my abiding memories is of my grandmothers homemade Cornish Pasty’s. They were cooked from chopped raw meat and vegetables and were enormous but tasted wonderful. Mind you she did have an advantage; she was actually Cornish being born in the west country! My grandmother, my mother’s mother, came down from her home in central London and lived with us from 1952 whilst my father was posted to Ceylon for two years. That was the original plan but she stayed until her death in 1974. Another memory that now comes to mind is her steamed bacon and onion suet pudding.  Delicious!   

One of the other things that my parents would insist on was never to put your elbows on the table. I am sure most households had the same rule, never bolt your food or stuff your mouth full of food and never chew with your mouth open.

All this was good practice for eating out but I really cannot remember ever going to a café, let alone a restaurant with my parents. But I suppose that it was training for later life!

Stay in touch

Peter

grseditor@gmail.com


Now take a look at Hancock and an Egg:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM5eaf49MI8

You Write:

Jonathon Writes:-

Hi Peter

I was ruminating on our childhood days at Solent Road Primary School here are some of my thoughts.

We used to walk to school from Rectory Ave along Woodfield Avenue over Gillman Lane and on  through the Recreation Ground left down Farlington Ave and right into Solent Road wind, rain or shine.....even snow. No shutting down of schools if it gets a bit too cold for somebody's liking!!!!!

The school playground had houses backing onto it and one of the owners was Arthur Pelley. He was a WW1 veteran I seem to remember and a TocH buddy of both our Fathers'. I remember there used to be very occasional fights between boys in that playground and everyone would surround the pair baying"fight fight fight". One memorable fight took place between my elder brother Christopher and someone who was shoving me around. I think that was the first and only time as young boys that he ever stood up for me. Later he was good to me in the Sixth Form when he helped me become a Senator or Prefect just before he went up to Leicester University and died in a tragic accident.

I remember the little "tuck" shop across the road from the school, wasn't it Shaw's. I vividly remember the wide range of inexpensive sweets and lollies on offer. One of my favourites was the big block of rough honeycomb on a stick and chocolate dipped. Only a penny. Also the penny flat slabs of bubble gum with a "space card" in the wrapped offering. I collected everyone of those cards and saved them for several years until our move to Ethiopia in 1958 when my Father gave all my toys and possessions away. Not much a ten year old can do about that is there!!!! My most grievous loss was a superb set six Meccano that I had won in a competition in my Mum's weekly magazine as a six year old. It was that Meccano set that started me on my eventual Engineering career.

Our teachers were strict and I have written about that before. But caning for very trivial offences was extremely common. Now most of those teachers would be imprisoned, the code of behaviour has changed beyond recognition.

Mary Writes:-

I loved my record player which was a Bush, a present on my 14th birthday from my parents. There were also a few records. One was Shirley Bassey & she sang "Kiss me Honey, Honey" which was considered quite racy at the time. My father & I spent many a happy time in Weston Harts choosing records, which became the gift to buy when you were given money for birthdays & Christmas. I wish I still had my record player as Griff has. I can understand how he treasures it. Whilst I was living away my mother gave it to a young lad who lived near us. Apparently he took it apart to see how it was made!!! I wasn`t best pleased. Take care everyone, Mary

Griff writes:

Dansette Part 2

The very first Dansette model available in 1950/51 was the Plus~a~Gram and the Senior, these were very expensive and many teens and adults could not afford record players until later. It retailed at 33 guineas which today would be approximately £800. Imagine that!   

In 1962 a Dansette Popular 4 speed record player would be sold for 11 guineas in Curry's and Weston Harts in Portsmouth and for another 2 guineas you could opt for the Bermuda with a 4 speed autochanger with legs. (see picture) 

 Despite this, many teenagers acquired one, taking them to parties, and purchasing the latest singles (45s). Did we ever !  

 Many Dansettes were sold in December as Christmas presents, or as in my case a 16th Birthday present but the majority would be purchased with the then readily available "hire purchase". I know for a fact Curry's Hire Purchase was 33% down and the rest paid in weekly or monthly instalments because my Mum did exactly that back in 1962. 

 In 1958, Dansette started producing the Dansette Junior and later the De Luxe designed to appeal to the teenagers who would take them to and from parties.

By the late 1960s, recording techniques were becoming more sophisticated. Stereo had been virtually ignored until then and there was a change of direction from the 45's to the LP. Customers began to seek more modern Hi-Fi systems. 

 Inevitably the market dried up for record players. Imports from Japan took over the market with cut-throat competition and the company went into liquidation. Dansette production ended in December 1969, following the introduction of relatively cheap and efficient Japanese and other Far Eastern imported Hi-Fi equipment.

During the years 1950-1969/70 over one million Dansettes were sold.

Many of these record players still remain in use but have been refurbished, there are now many firms in the UK who restore these players as well as independent engineers who restore the players as a hobby. There is nothing you cannot buy to refurbish a Dansette and other record players but the companies who do the professional restoration will charge well over the £100 mark for a basic refurbished working model and up to £400+ for a totally guaranteed restored to a new one and the selling/buying market is very strong as well. The most sought after Dansette model is the red and white record player.  Wishing that you kept your Dansette record player now?  lol

I hope you enjoyed my look into the past of how we enjoyed our music as teenagers but I can assure you I am no dinosaur as I have Spotify and Alexa around the house but it's just not the same as hearing the comforting clunk of the record auto changer spindle dropping another 45 onto the playing deck and the hiss of the stylus needle as it rested gently onto the record before you heard the music play is it.

Take Care......And Regards to Everyone  Melvyn (Griff) Griffiths.  

News and Views:

  On 1^st May 1960-1965

On 01/01/1960 the number one single was Do you Mind - Anthony Newley 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. The big news story of the week was Soviet Union shoots down American U2 spy plane flown by pilot CG Powers

On 01/01/1961 the number one single was Wooden Heart - 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. The big news story of the week was Castro makes Cuba Socialist.

On 01/01/1962 the number one single was Wonderful Land - The Shadows 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 01/01/1963 the number one single was How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers and the number one album was Summer Holiday - Cliff Richard & the Shadows. 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 day was Churchill retired.

On 01/01/1964 the number one single was A World Without Love - Peter & Gordon and the number one album was With the Beatles - The 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 01/01/1965 the number one single was Ticket to Ride - The Beatles and the number one album was Beatles For Sale - 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 Manchester United were on the way to becoming the Season's Division 1 champions.