Memories of Childhood

Remember when a bag of chips was 5p. They stayed really cheap until the 1976 drought (another story) after which the cost skyrocketed and never went back.

Going to the sweet shop for a bag of black jacks and fruit salad sweets which cost 1p each...

Now one which would cause health and safety types to have a swoon. Aged 9 and going to the same sweet shop not long before Guy Fawkes Night 1974, and buying a load of bangers which I paid for using the money I’d got from doing ‘Penny for the Guy’. There was a bloke who lived over the road from us who was a real miserable git so I though it a great idea to sneak up the path to his house, light a banger and leave it on his window sill then leg it. I’d just got about halfway down our road...adrenaline rush banging like crazy, then BANG!...I hide and watch him come out of his front door going fucking apeshit, jumping up and down shouting and screaming..thought he was going to have a coronary..he went back in slamming his door so hard was a miracle he didn’t break it...

That when we all probably thought that we were minted with our pocket money back then with prices of sweets then, loved those black jacks and the chocolate tools and mice we had then, you see those sweets very rarely these days and the pick and mix counter in the old Woollies shops! they were a bloody gold mine for sweets as well. We (WH Smith) did them a few years ago but I can't remember who does them now.

Those REALLY were the days back then when it was great to be a kid... thinking about it how about what was the worst excuse you had for doing detention?

I lost count the number of times I got detention for not doing homework!!

I never had detention, in what is now called ‘Primary School’ but was then ‘Junior School’ anyone who stepped out of line got the ruler across the palm...which bloody hurt, a wooden ruler. One time I was to have the ruler, but just as the teacher was about to whack my hand, I did a stupid thing...there was a cartoon on TV at the time called ‘Hong Kong Phooey’ and I for reasons I can’t explain..decided to be a smart arse and pull my hand away going ‘hai ya’. Teacher then grabs my wrist and cracks me across the knuckles with the ruler...the bastard Some teachers in those days were real psychopaths, the stuff some of them did when I think about it now.....

Slipper was just as bad - who is this mysterious crime fighter?
Sarge
No
Rosemary the telephone operator?
No
Henry, the mild mannered janitor?
Could be!! and how quick did he get changed in that filing cabinet? what was the cat's name btw?

Funny how perception of time changes with age. During the 70s, the summer holidays (we’d get 7 weeks off) would seem to go on and on forever. The one year that really stands out is 1976, the year of the great drought. People who think the summer just gone was a top drawer summer..,it was nothing on 1976.

I can remember having lessons in Junior School sat in the shade outside because the classrooms were like ovens, the windows had little slats in them which would let in enough air that was equivalent to a gnats fart, so kids were on the verge of fainting from the heat.

We were given ice lollies every morning and afternoon, a real treat, all the way through June and July until we broke up for the holidays.

On and on it went...the rest of July into August...90 degrees every day, the big field by us which was full of hay bales..started smelling of caramel..a really strong smell...then one night most of it was on fire. The stink of smoke was everywhere, my Mam going nuts because her washing stunk of smoke she caught me smirking then shouts ‘I’ll make you smile on the other side of your face’

(19-01-2019 19:22 )babelover48 Wrote:  Slipper was just as bad - who is this mysterious crime fighter?
Sarge
No
Rosemary the telephone operator?
No
Henry, the mild mannered janitor?
Could be!! and how quick did he get changed in that filing cabinet? what was the cat's name btw?

The cats name was Spot...all he ever seemed to do was tut, roll his eyes and sigh every time Hong Kong Phooey got something wrong...

(19-01-2019 19:37 )Carl_HoneyLover Wrote:  Funny how perception of time changes with age. During the 70s, the summer holidays (we’d get 7 weeks off) would seem to go on and on forever. The one year that really stands out is 1976, the year of the great drought. People who think the summer just gone was a top drawer summer..,it was nothing on 1976.

I can remember having lessons in Junior School sat in the shade outside because the classrooms were like ovens, the windows had little slats in them which would let in enough air that was equivalent to a gnats fart, so kids were on the verge of fainting from the heat.

We were given ice lollies every morning and afternoon, a real treat, all the way through June and July until we broke up for the holidays.

On and on it went...the rest of July into August...90 degrees every day, the big field by us which was full of hay bales..started smelling of caramel..a really strong smell...then one night most of it was on fire. The stink of smoke was everywhere, my Mam going nuts because her washing stunk of smoke she caught me smirking then shouts ‘I’ll make you smile on the other side of your face’

That was one of the best summers I remember as a kid we hd the paddling pool out a lot

...And it went on through August of 1976, having a bath in 5 inches of water because of the water shortages..don’t know how many bottles of pop I got through that summer but it was a lot. Dandelion and Burdock which would make me burp like crazy - of course I’d have to make a big thing of it, swallowing air deliberately just to burp more...then get rollicked for being rude..cream soda was another favourite..

Then the summer broke on the August Bank Holiday...with a real bang...absolutely massive storm came and people were out in our street laughing and smiling at the novelty of the rain...I didn’t, I’d gone in our house resembling a drowned rat having been on my way home from being out with my mates when the heavens opened...

Going to Rhyl one Sunday morning with my Nana, Grandad and my (2 years older than me) Uncle in my Grandad’s old Hillman Minx car in the early 70s.

Being car sick on the way there. It was pouring with rain when we got there, the windows were all steamed up, then out came the egg sandwiches, oh god Jesus...my stomach does a little horrified flip at typing that out...yukkkkk

We slept a lot of nights with windows open that summer, you couldn't do that now..