scrapheapstuart3

I’m approaching my 76th birthday so most people would classify me as an old man. I’ve recently been accused of talking more in the past tense than in the present or future, but I think that’s fair enough as I’ve been around for over three quarters of a century. I have a lot to look back on. I have recently been reading a couple of memoirs set in the 1960s and 70s and they have brought back lots of memories. What was it like then, in those distant, pre-internet days? While I am still compos mentis, I’ll try to explain a little.

BATHTIME.

I grew up in a fairly simple, working class home in the east Midlands of England. It was a rented Railway house as my dad was a fireman and later a driver for British Rail. We had no bathroom and the toilet was outside. We only had a cold tap. Water had to be heated up for washing and cooking. We had a kettle of course, and a bigger water heater called a “copper”. It had a large copper element inside which heated up once it was plugged in. Because of all the faff, we only had one bath and hair wash per week. Bath-time for my sister and I was on Sundays evenings. A tin bath was half filled with hot water from the copper. During the week the tin bath hung from a nail on the toilet door. My dad washed me in his rough and ready fashion and my lucky sister got a more gentle experience with our mum. The days of walk- in showers and instant hot water were still a long time off for us ordinary folk.

WINTER.

I remember it being very cold in winter in the 50s and early 60s. Back then, it seems to me that we had proper winters with lots of snow, ice, rain, fog and wind. We didn’t have dramatically named storms like the recent Storm Amy — we just lumped it all together and called it “winter.” We didn’t have any of this global warming stuff either. It was proper cold. To combat this, knitted mittens, scarves or beanies were often Christmas presents from mum or grandma. Having snowball fights, going sledging or building snowmen was a regular and real thing in the winter months. Snow played a much more prominent part in our lives than just making a pretty picture on a Christmas card.

HEATING.

Our house only had one heated room. All the other rooms were freezing cold. No-one I knew had central heating in the 50s or 60s. The one room was heated by a coal fire and every hearth was furnished with a scuttle, a pair of tongs and a poker. One of my earliest household duties was to go outside to the coal house and use a shovel to fill up the scuttle, which was actually a big bucket with a lip on its rim. Every family knew how to light a fire using : screwed up newspaper, a criss- cross of sticks and small quantities of shovelled coal. If the fire was slow in getting going we held up a big sheet of newspaper to “draw” the fire. The paper made the chimney pull the draught up it from the enclosed space, hopefully feeding in more oxygen and creating a stronger flame. We were always nervous that the newspaper might actually catch fire while we were still holding it. Once the fire had got going , more coal could be gradually introduced. Underneath the fire was an ash can which had to be emptied regularly lest it overflow. I don’t suppose anybody thinks about any of this these days as all one has to do is press the heating switch on or wait for it to come on automatically. I wander if Alexa would have any idea about “drawing a fire” or getting rid of the clinker. For the uninitiated, clinker is the hard residue left behind after the coal has had all its gases burnt away.

Carrying on with the cold theme, we learnt to get dressed and undressed very quickly. Often the inside of the windows would be frozen over when we woke up in the morning. They would have pretty patterns on them which we called “Jack Frost.” Jack has mostly been banished to the past now in this age of double glazing and central heating. At night we would warm up our beds with hot water bottles as the sheets would be so cold. I can still remember the warm, rubbery smell. Some people like my grandma would wear specially knitted bed socks. Of course, none of us had duvets or “continental quilts” in that far off decade. They might have been all the rage in France but we had never heard of them. We just had loads of blankets to keep us warm. Some people had electric blankets which they switched on a couple of hours before bedtime. We didn’t get them though, presumably because of the expense and maybe because my parents didn’t fancy getting electrocuted in the middle of the night.

PLAY.

An important aspect of life for me as a young child was play. Baby boomers like to reminisce about how they used to go out and play all day, without a care in the world, until it was getting dark and their mums called them in for tea. Parents and children were less worried about “stranger-danger” then. I suppose it was just left to our common sense. Like just about everybody else, I was out with my mates playing in the streets all hours of the day, when not at school. We played chase games such as “Kingy” ( running after people and trying to hit them with a ball), hide and seek ( always a favourite) and hopscotch, after chalking the pavement with squares and numbers. I never understood the rules of the latter but still joined in enthusiastically. There was also a street game called “Queeny” but I’ve forgotten what it entailed. Boys and girls of all ages happily played together without any bother.

Near our house were 3 grassed- over coal tips — waste from the mines. We used to climb them and play cowboys and indians or Japs and Commandoes up there. One day I was hiding in the long grass pretending to be a cowboy when something dark and shiny came slithering towards me. I immediately forgot about the game, and assuming it was a dangerous snake, I ran all the way home to my mum. In my panic I dropped my toy six shooter and it was never seen again. I got sent to bed early for carelessly losing my gun. This was about the 3rd one I had lost! My excuse is that my toy holster was too loose. I bet Billy the Kid or Wyatt Earp never had that problem! Ironically I later found out that my slithering nemesis was not a deadly snake but a harmless slow worm. Such is life! The tallest coal tip was nicknamed Mount Pud. To us it was like climbing Everest, or at least Ben Nevis. It was so high that as we neared the top, the grass ran out and we were just scrambling through cinders and ash. Naturally we got filthy and we got told off again when we got home. More washing for mum!

WASHING.

My mum had a primitive washing machine which heated the water up and churned the clothes around after the detergent had been introduced. Before that my grandmothers had to bash the clothes around with a special stick in something called a “poss tub” and a bar of soap had to be turned into flakes using a knife. Going back to mum’s washing machine — once it was finished, the clothes had to be fished out with wooden tongs and then put through the electric mangle, which was a set of rollers that squeezed the excess water out . My grandmas had hand-operated mangles where you turned a big handle at the side. I used to help by standing to receive the flattened clothes as they came out of the rollers. I was always a bit frightened that I might trap my fingers. The designated washing day was always a Monday. On that day we only got a fry- up for our meal as our mums had been busy all day with the washing, mangling, drying and ironing. The fry- up consisted of stuff left over from the big Sunday dinner. That’s where I got my taste for fried potatoes, smeared with spicy, brown HP sauce. There was always a bottle of HP or red tomato ketchup on the table. I now realize it was the added sugar that we were really after.

STREET SALESMEN.

Talking about sugar, one treat was when the ice cream van came round. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed. We used to have two Italian ice cream companies in Chesterfield where I lived — Cuneos and Fredericks. We used to favour the former as it was creamier although they were both delicious. At some point we progressed on to ice lollies and then “Jubblies” — lumps of orange- flavoured ice in a carton. We cut off a corner and sucked away to our hearts content. A lot of tradespeople came to sell their wares in the street. We had a travelling grocery shop, which was very useful as most people didn’t have cars and had to walk or catch a bus to the local corner shop. ( we didn’t have self service supermarkets in the 50s). We also had travelling green-grocers, butchers and fishmongers. I’ll always remember the rabbits and chickens hanging from hooks when the butcher opened his van doors. I was more than a bit horrified. The highlight of the week though was when the pop lorry came round. We had 2 — the Coop and Corona. Being loyal Cooperative Society members we only ever went to the Coop lorry. Our favourite flavours were Dandelion and Burdoch and Lemonade. We then got a bottle of grapefruit pop to go with Sunday dinner as that was regarded as extra special. It was all sugar and additives of course but we didn’t worry so much about that in those days. My grandma used to keep the pop bottles in the cellar near the coal, as that was the coolest, darkest place in the house. It was very spooky, full of coal dust and spiders’ webs, when she sent me down the stone stairs to get one. We didn’t have fridges or freezers in the 50s or for much of the 60s. We bought fresh rather than frozen food and shopped more often. In our house we had a walk- in larder which had big, cool, stone shelves. Milk was delivered daily to the doorstep, another British tradition that has largely ( though not entirely) disappeared. Most people also had newspapers delivered to their letter box. Later on, as a young teen, I earnt extra pocket money as a paper-boy. I did my delivery round before school.

My very first “job” however, involved travelling round the streets selling bunches of firewood with my paternal grandad. He was a retired miner and had a pony and cart. My dad had made me a little hand cart and my job was to shovel up the pony’s droppings when it did its business in the street. My dad then used this as fertiliser for his garden. He gave me a silver sixpence for every cartful. That’s about 2.5 pence in today’s money but it was a useful amount of money for a young boy in those days. I used it for sweets and bubble gum from the local shop. The bubble gum came wrapped up in flags of the world. I used to collect them and stick them in an album. I valued that time as it was the only occasion when I spent any quality time with that particular grandad.

SUNDAYS.

Sunday was a special day for my parents, but a bit of a misery for my sister and me. I grew up in a strict Methodist family and so Sunday was all about church and worship. We had to attend both morning and afternoon Sunday School where we sang simple hymns, learnt Bible stories and coloured in pictures. One week it might be the Good Samariton while the next week it might be about Jesus feeding the multitudes with just 5 loaves and 2 small fishes. One of the most popular songs we learnt by rote was “I am happy, loved and saved.” In each verse we spelt out the key word, for example: H.A.P.P.Y. Another one was “Now Zacchius was a very little man, a very little man indeed indeed, he climbed up in a sycamore tree, for the Saviour he wanted to see.” I think you get the idea. After tea my sister and I had the ordeal of the evening service — 4 hymns, a prayer, a long, boring sermon and the benediction. It lasted for about 75 minutes, the longest hour and a quarter of the week.

We weren’t allowed to play out on Sundays, have ice creams or watch sport. This became a big frustration for me when ITV’s “Big Match” ( its answer to Match of the Day) was broadcast on Sunday afternoons. Sunday was also Brylcream day. My dad would summon me to the kitchen once I’d got dressed up in my “Sunday best” and smothered my hair in thick, white grease from a jar. He would then comb it and slick it back in a big quiff so I ended up looking like Elvis Presley. Ever since I have always said “no” when the barber asked if I wanted gel on my hair. Sunday, of course, was also the day of the big dinner. This is when we got to eat the Sunday roast and all the trimmings. My dad would stand at the head of the table, make a big ritual about sharpening the carving knife, then would cut a slice of beef or pork for each of us to go with our vegetables, mashed potato and gravy. He was very proud when he did this because he had been out to work and earned the money to put meat on the family table. It’s not surprising that he became very confused, angry and upset when I later became a vegetarian.

SCHOOL.

I began school when I was nearly 5. I mostly enjoyed it even though it was quite strict. We had to learn our times tables by rote, chanting them all together in the class. If the headteacher came in we all had to stand up and he would test us on our tables. For instance — what’s 6 times 5 or 4 times 8? If we got one wrong we risked getting whacked by a ruler across the back of the hand. I got the ruler for cheating in a test, naughty me, and I also got slippered for fighting. The other lad and me were having a playfight in the classroom but accidently knocked over a book stand. There were good things though. It was at school where I developed my love of literature, history and geography. I also made friends there. Each classroom had 4 rows of desks — A,B,C and D. We were given regular intelligence tests and were made to sit at the desk which reflected our position in the class. So if you were at the front of row A you were top of the class, but if you were at the back of row D you were at the bottom. It was all quite blatant and crude. It’s just very unfortunate that D is the first letter of DUNCE. One good thing about schools in the 1950s in my opinion was that primary school pupils didn’t have to wear a uniform, as they have to now. We just wore our normal togs. Boys up to 10 had to wear short trousers however and it became very embarrassing for me as I was very tall for my age. In the end, me and a couple of other lanky lads got special permission to wear long trousers.

HOLIDAYS.

The undoubted highlight of the year for the family was our annual week’s holiday by the sea. Paid holidays had only just been brought in after the war and I could tell my dad was particularly proud that he could afford to take his family away. We were doubly lucky as my dad’s job on the railways meant we all got 5 free tickets every year. So we were able to catch trains to traditional seaside places such as Blackpool, Scarborough, Gt Yarmouth or Margate and enjoy a week sitting in deckchairs on a beach and making sand castles. My sister and I also enjoyed having a ride on the donkeys, going to a show at the end of the pier, eating fish and chips with mushy peas and licking extra big ice creams. We never got into Punch and Judy though. We stayed in Guest Houses as we couldn’t afford hotels which were regarded as “posh.” Most of the landladies of the B and Bs were nice enough but we still got chucked out of our rooms between breakfast and teatime, rain or shine. I suppose it saved them a lot on their heating bills.

ENTERTAINMENT.

As we didn’t have magical electronic screens to keep us amused in the 50s, everyone was good at keeping themselves entertained. In the early 50s we didn’t even have a television. It was the golden age of hobbies. My dad encouraged us to start stamp collecting, which we really enjoyed. It taught me a lot about the world and probably led to my lifelong love of travel. Being the son of a railwayman meant that it was inevitable that I became an ardent train spotter. It was probably in my blood. I stood on railway bridges or station platforms, noting down the numbers and names of the steam locomotives that chuffed by. It was the last golden age of steam before the rail network got taken over by the boring diesel and electric multiple units that dominate today. For us young boys, all wearing our caps ( as everyone did in those days), spotting steam locos was an all encompassing experience, and a feast for the senses. The sight, sound and even the smell of the engines were ( and are) spectacular.

Back home we had the radio to entertain us. I used to like the music request shows such as “Children’s Favourites” with a presenter fondly known as Uncle Mac. On Sundays we had “Forces Favourites” catering mainly for the British service men and women in Germany and other overseas bases. My Grandma used to listen to a radio soap opera called “Mrs Dale’s Diary” and everyone listened to “The Archers” – an “everyday story of country folk.” Amazingly, over 70 years later, many still do. By the way in those days the radio used to be commonly referred to as the “wireless”. It was all run by the BBC as commercial radio had not yet taken over the airwaves. We also listened to comedies such as “Round the Horn” and “The Goons”. The latter was one of King Charles’s favourites so you can tell how old he is.( even older than me.)

To amuse ourselves, our family often had a jigsaw on the go. Until it was finished, we kept it under the tablecloth. Top tips were to do the straight edge pieces first to create a border and to leave the sky until last. We also used to make “proggy” rugs or mats, by cutting up strips of spare material and attaching them to a special canvas backing, stretched across a frame. As you can see, a lot of our entertainment was communal and didn’t involve looking at one’s own private screen for hours on end.

TELEVISION.

As the 50s decade progressed, televisions slowly started to appear in the home. At first they had small screens ( 12 inch was typical) and were in black and white. A lot of people purchased or rented them for Queen Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953. My maternal grandma did. Neighbours then would pile in to watch the ceremonial events in London. As a little boy I used to enjoy all the “Listen with Mother” programmes on BBC such as Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men and Andy Pandy. I used to get a lump in my throat and cry a bit when and Andy and Teddy went back into their basket. Later on I progressed on to The Lone Ranger, a masked lawman bringing justice to the wild west, on his horse Silver and ably assisted by his faithful “Indian” friend” Tonto. Then after ITV launched in the mid 50s, new highlights were “Wagon Train” and “Rawhide”, both exciting westerns. I got special permission to stay up for Wagon Train on a Monday night as my usual bedtime was 9pm and it didn’t finish until 9-30. I would pretend to go to bed and then, unbeknown to my sister, who was 2 years younger than me, I would sneak downstairs in my dressing gown to watch the forbidden fayre.

Like many people have pointed out, life was a lot simpler in the 1950s but just as enjoyable. There was no internet, no unlimited choice of TV channels, fewer cars to ferry us around and few of the luxuries that we now think of as necessities such as double glazing, hot and cold running water, bathrooms and indoor toilets. My family didn’t get the last 2 things until we moved to a brand new council house in 1960. I remember that first wonderful hot bath! No doubt I have missed loads of interesting subjects out, but you can have enough of a good thing. I don’t want to outstay my welcome. I had a great childhood with lots of freedom — except on Sundays. I then went on to a very exciting teenage-hood in the 1960s, the age of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and “Swinging London”. Even in the relative backwater of Chesterfield, the 60s were pretty exciting. I feel lucky to have been in the generation that has lived both before and after the advent of the internet. The pace of technological change has been difficult to keep up with at times but I’ll keep trying to move forward, as well as fondly looking back. It’s called nostalgia.