► Pharmacies (then called chemists) that sold bottles of wine.
► Proper cinemas in town centre and throughout suburbs where people often queued (US: stood in line) to get in.
► Cinemas again: Manager of one suburban cinema wore dinner jacket as he managed the outdoors queue
► Cinemas again: Offering continuous double-bills starting in the afternoon. Meaning I sometimes saw second-half of movie before I saw first half.
► Groceries where very little came pre-packed. Waiting while items like flour and sugar were weighed and bagged. Encouraging endless chat between customers and those at the counter (wearing white overalls and white aprons).
► Children at primary schools smacked punitively on the thigh.
► Many more motorbikes than now. Ridden by men who couldn’t afford cars.
► Low prices – obviously subsidised – for much more frequent public transport.
► Pubs with doors open to the street; raucous noises audible to passing pedestrians.
► Pedal-bikes parked casually. Suggesting (perhaps) that theft was less of a problem.
► Wealth distinctions obvious in raggedy clothing worn by child “scruffs” – a middle-class word of contempt for those living in tumbledown urban streets. Such children also marked by “candles” flowing from their noses: astonishingly widespread. A son of middle-class parents I was terrified by these unfortunates.
► War planes continuing to fly overhead.
► Food still rationed. System sustained via book of “points” scissored away by retailer with each purchase.
► The tiny bronze farthing (= quarter of penny) was being phased out. Coinage was hilarious. Half-penny, penny, two three-penny bits (One silver, the other yellowy-bronze and multi-faceted), silver six-pennies, silver shilling (= 12 pennies), silver florin (= 2 shillings), silver half-crown (= 2 shilling and 6 pennies). Foreigners, especially Americans, were baffled. Unsurprisingly.
One of my earliest memories: butter more or less didn't exist. There was some kind of pseudo, grim margarine and I can remember Mother mixing it with water to make it go further. That was certainly when rationing still prevailed.
ReplyDeleteA notorious family of "scruffs" lived halfway on my quarter mile walk home from school- Billy Beebee, a year or two older than me and burly with it, was the wannabe gangster - he stopped me and made me empty my pockets. Yes, I was "terrified."
Sir Hugh: I've posted about the butter thing (and, more horribly, about the liquid paraffin in Canadian Supper Cake). Butter was available, albeit in small amounts, as was margarine. The latter wasn't as horrible as some people made out. To make these two fats last longer they were mixed primarily with milk. The result was a strange fluffy light substance that hardly conveyed the essential greasy effect butter and marg make when spread on bread. My complaint was that Grannie R went on using this mix long after the restrictions on butter/marg were eased.
DeleteYou treat "scruffs" in a way I now try to avoid. See above ("middle-class contempt"). Yes we used the word then but we were just kids. Looking back I'm ashamed about this and tried to suggest we've since moved on. These other kids were after all poverty-stricken.This is not to undermine your horrifying encounter with Billy B but have ever considered that he perhaps regarded you as "hoity toity". Sorry about these endless corrections. You were (and are) more than four years younger than me and such a difference in our respective ages at that time meant we saw things from hugely different perspectives.,
One of my parents occasionally told of eating bacon fat spread on bread. I suspect it was my mother - she was a farm girl for some time, and I’m quite sure it wasn’t a prosperous farm. My brother could tell you much more about family history than I can. I don’t know whether this is because he was inquisitive or he simply listened when told family stories. He claims my GF once confessed that he’d done the “worst thing a man could do”, and left it at that , leading to at least 50 years of speculation for his grand-spawn. That is a lovely little coin, with the wren.
ReplyDeleteMikeM: I'm always amazed by what I remember. As a child I more or less ignored what adults got up to; my own (imagined) world seemed far more interesting. I find it hard to think any of my lot would have made a confession like that of your GF. Eventually, when I was in my teens my mother (whom I'd stayed with when my parents divorced), started passing on details of her earlier, unhappier life and I was able to sympathise a little.
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to know which speculation gathered the most votes in your family. Difficult to come close I'd say. The ethos might have well have been pre-1900.