My Nan used to have a mangle...

I'm loving these "Eeeee, the kids of today tsk tsk..." stories, really .Did anyone else have a paraffin heater, (filled with "boum, boum, boum, boum, Esso Blue) in their bedroom in the pre central heating days? There is a school of thought that the fracturing of family life is in part down to the advent of central heating; when there was only a fire in the sitting room the whole family used to congregate there, communicate, eat together etc.

 

I remember the Currys shop in town started selling the twin tubs but they were a lot of money compared with earnings. Then we had the local laundrette where you could stick your washing in one machine, go the local shops and come back and stick your stuff in the big tumble dryers, both cheaper than your own twin tub. But you had to carry your washing there and back.

I think that was my job.

All appliances were very expensive, we didn't have a fridge until the 60's, before that you had to eat only fresh food or grow your own, much healthier actually.

we grew loads of veg in our back garden and we had an allotment as well for the cabbages and spuds in bulk.

I loved the gardening and still do and when I was 11 my Mum got me a gardening job for an interesting French lady who lived with her also interesting husband in Rusthall Place.

French lady was important in the French Resistance and her husband was a WW2 RN Captain. I remember the French lady used to teach me French and started using French only which was a laugh.

 

I remember Esso Blue, what was the pink paraffin. In my very young days I remember we had a combined fireplace/hob and oven, a 'kitchener' I think it was and we still had the air raid shelter in the back garden. Nowadays posh people have an Aga.

 

My hand still goes purplish when it get very cold.

You were wise not to do the feeding, they bite.

 

When we moved from the posh south we left behind a house with full central heating for a house (fire brigade) in the north (Lincolnshire ) with just two coal fires fire so me parents had central heating installed which upset the natives until they found out we paid for it.

 

As a kid we used to use a gas poker to light the fire. I saw one in Biggar Gas Museum recently. They are probably not legal any more. I can't think why.

 

Nope, Bury Mill End infants/juniors in Hemel, a nice little brick-built Victorian school. HCC knocked it down and replaced it with a portacabin

It still had air-raid shelters out the back. And a coal heap for the boiler.

 

If there's any ancient Romans reading this, they'll be "Twin tubs? Washing dollies? What's wrong with using slaves stomping the laundry in a vat of good old fashioned p1ss? Eee, you modern folk don't know you're born....."

 

I've been waiting for someone to drop pythons Yorkshire men sketch in the thread

 

I remember we used the gas poker to light the fire in the kitchener. I liked those days when I was growing up, it was a simple life, we didn't have much money to buy stuff, so we just went without things and made our own. My Dad made 2 sheds and a wooden greenhouse from recycled stuff, he scrounged tarmac and concrete from builders and the road menders and even got them to lay a new tarmac path down our back garden and bases for the sheds for a few shillings.

After working on the road, they would turn up at the end of day with a load of 'spare' tarmac, somehow there was always spare tarmac. Presumably they skimped on the road surface and flogged off the surplus.

When the council did any maintenance in the street it was an opportunity to scrounge stuff cheap, paint was a favourite as long as you liked the colour, mostly magnolia I remember, but it was cheap and the workmen earned a bit on the side.

I remember one time when a big old house was demolished in the village, a lot of stuff was recycled as they would have dumped or burned it. We all got stuff for reuse.

 

Fortunately my old Victorian stone built primary school still survives as a private house and the very nice people living there welcome old boys to visit. It still looks the same on the outside and the old toilets block is in their back garden.

We like to tell the owners about the teachers and their love of canes and making us boys suffer.

 

That's good news. I don't know why they knocked ours down. They could've refitted it with modern gas heating, etc. Obviously didn't look "modern" enough. These days, the "modern" stuff looks incredibly dated and crap, whereas remaining brick schools in the area look really nice.

 

My great Uncle did the same thing, but unfortunately lost all eight fingers, didn't affect his life though, went on to become a QC and Judge........was known in legal circles as Justice Thumbs!!!

 

Ah Hemel! I remember now, we reminisced about the two way roundabout with the Kodak sign above.

 

Easy round about once you know how it works.

 

I remember the Kodak building being built! It's yuppie flats now, I think.

 

Derick n Clive quality !!!!!!

 

Yep ice on the inside of bedroom windows , could carve a name in them brrrrr
Funnily I was never ill and asthma not so common