I love to remember when I was a girl.
Sometimes my remembering makes me want those times back, but
often I feel glad that things have changed.
Do you remember waking up in a cold bedroom with ice on the
inside of windows? And a weekly bath and daily all over washes with a rough
flannel?
Do you remember there being milk delivered to the doorstep
before you were even up?
Do you remember walking to school with your friends and
skipping or playing hopscotch on the way?
Do you remember cycling to school and maybe propping your
bike against the kerb on the way? I don't know when I last saw a bike
leaning on a kerb.
Do you remember getting a third of a pint of slightly warm
milk (with a straw) to drink at mid-morning?
Do you remember school dinners with liver or a sausage or
anonymous meat with cabbage or carrots and mashed potato, followed by rice
pudding?
Do you remember the excitement of school radio programmes?
Do you remember bread and jam for tea, followed by home-made
cake?
Do you remember going to bed cuddling a hot water bottle
(mine was stone!) with all sorts of things piled on the bed just to keep you
warm?
If you do, I think you (like me) are very lucky.
Yes, most of those! But our primary school was so tiny that it didnt provide meals, we had to take our own lunch.
ReplyDeleteYes I remember all those things, and a nightlight floating in a saucer of water making shadows on the walls and the birds pecking the foil on top of the milk bottles to get at the cream, my Mum would only have gold top milk
ReplyDeleteOh my word that takes me back, I remember all of those things, plus getting chilblains in the winter, but then the summer and sitting on the back step shelling peas and top and tailing gooseberries. I was blessed to have such a happy childhood.
ReplyDeleteMum brought 5 of us up single handed, we had very little , but plenty of love. My mum was the most amazing woman I have ever known. Thankyou for stirring up some very precious moments.
Tish xxx
Great memories. Pretty patterns in the ice on the windows before we had central heating. We had gold too milk too, after he took early retirement from driving a fuel tanker my Dad became a milkman. My Gran lived with us so homemade blackberry and apple jelly and plum jam. When our sons were young, the mum of one of their friends said several times she thought jam sandwiches were the sign of poverty, she was born in the Isle of Dogs, so not a foraging country girl.
ReplyDeleteStill get ice on the inside of the windows because i like a cold bedroom, sardine salad on a friday at school where I got to eat all the sardines because nobody else liked them ...those were the days
ReplyDeleteWe had fish and chips on Fridays, and bizarrely pickled beetroot (because they were obliged to serve a eg other than just potato.it made everything pink
DeleteYes - all of those. I too still like ice on bedroom windows but draw the line at my glass of water freezing solid.
ReplyDeleteAnnie
OST for me. There were no school provided lunches. Jean in Canada
ReplyDeleteLucky enough to have central heating here in Toronto as a kid - but - windows were not double glazed like they are now and ice did form on the inside in the winter. I always lived in apt. so no milk on the doorstep - we had a box that the milkman could access from the hallway (locked on our side) and the milk, butter etc. was there in the morning. Empties, your next order and money went in from our side. The breadman came around a couple of times a week - a big cart that he steered down the building hallways - he also sold baked treats (although mom usually baked her own) but occasionally we would get a treat of a sucker (lollipop).
ReplyDeleteWe came home for lunch - got an hour and a half - walked back and forth with groups of other kids and the occasional mom if there were little ones.
We ate our main meal for supper - served around 6pm when dad got home from work but there was always bread and jam with a final cup of tea before bed if you were hungry.
Thanks for the memories, I am one of the lucky ones and my generation do seem to appreciate. What we had.
ReplyDeleteI remember all those and I miss them. Heater
ReplyDeleteThese are great memories. We had milk delivered to our house too, so convenient, and there was a small list of things my mom ordered from the milk man. We had a special small box built into our house called the milk chute, it opened from both the outside and the inside. We never locked our bicycles or even heard of a bike lock. Good times.
ReplyDeleteRemembering how things were when younger sometimes makes me wish for those simpler days, and then I remember the tougher things and am so glad those are gone. We used to have milk and bread delivered to our house.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Yes to all those things. But we had rubber hwbs. I stayed overnight with a friend when I was 10. Her mum said "I left the hottie in your bed, be careful. I stubbed my toe and yelled" why is there a rock in here? " I didn't know people still used them in 1965! Nanas house had a bathroom,downstairs,beyond the kitchen.sleeping there meant using the Gazunda!
ReplyDelete