I remember

the rag-and-bone man, who would do his rounds with his horse and cart and pay you a shilling or two for discarded junk. Nowadays we have to pay the local council a good few pounds to take it away.

Brylcreem (it’s hard to believe that we could have put that muck on our hair and thought that it would improve our appearance);

hot water bottles (I have no nostalgia for these; electric blankets do the job much better);

Meccano. Maybe this still exists, but I never seem to hear about it. I never had any mechanical bent myself, but it was very popular with kids who did (I believe there is or was a similar American kit called an Erector set).

I remember seeing a rag-and-bone man about three times during my childhood, each time being a real event in the street.

Meccano is still on the go. My nephew loves it (or rather his mother loves him to be offered it), but my own sons prefer Lego or Playmobil.

My grandfather was a Brylcreem addict. I remember the red tub living in the bathroom and him always having greased back hair which I didn't like at all.

Hot water bottles are still a favourite in my household. However since last year when my daughter's burst and spilt boiling water over her feet we have switched to fleece hot water bottle shapes filled with cherry stones which can be heated in the microwave. Definitely not as effective, but safer. Personally I love my electric blanket!

I remember buying icecream wafers where the seller spent quite a lot of time scooping soft homemade icecream which he then spread lovingly over the wafer which was held in a metal, rectangular scoop, designed for such. The ice cream went on in layers and us kids were literally drooling by the time it was ready to eat!

I remember weekly pocket money and buying 2 gob stoppers for a penny, Twinkle (magazine) being reserved in the local shop for me, with my name handwritten in pencil on the top right hand corner, I remember dressing paper cut out dolls with paper cut out clothes, I remember rag curls and Saturday nights going to bed with my hair rolled up in hard sausages wrapped tightly in my gran's old stockings. I remember new clothes for Christmas and Easter and picnics in the mountains with no visitor centres to spoil the view, tucking skirts and dresses into my knickers when I went to paddle in the sea or the icy cold mountain river and nobody having a hernia over it 'because I might catch a cold'

Yep TT, Meccano (even made of metal) still exists and one of my grandson's favourites.

Hotties (hot water bottles) are still my fav too - work wonders. Can remember the old pottery ones - had two of them in the bed one particularly cold winter's night - they knocked into each other and one broke - not nice~!

Took me ages to translate what the rag and bone man used to shout as his horse and cart went by (shades of Steptoe) - was "any ol rag, rag bone"

Girl's comics didnt have agony aunt pages - just jolly japes in the 4th or whatever.

Remember my mum having chilblains (do they still exist) because women didnt tend to wear trousers then, and stockings were expensive for every day wear.

Best of all! I remember those lisle stockings my gran used to wear, and the apron she always wore until after dinner (not lunch). Also headscarves tied up to hide curlers - Les Dawson style..

Oh I remember brylcreem being liberally spread on my skin as a kid to avoid sunburn at the beach. No SPF back then. I'm still convinced that all it did was fry my skin!

And what about Scalectrix?

I used to get chilblains and to cure them I was sent to run barefoot in the snow and then plunge them into hot water! I cannot remember if it worked or not, but this same mother had me sleeping in my bed in the garden at night when I had chickenpox!
There were rather strange cures for ailments in our household for sure.

- Tiger nuts that you had to chew and chew (and chew) till they started tasting sweet. Tiny aniseed balls at 32 for 1d, bigger ones at 16 for 1d, or four for a farthing if I was skint (brassic, poor).
- Epping Forest really was a forest, surrounded by tomato farms which smelt of chamomile - unless I just thought it was surrounded, because I was six.
- Shopping at Sainsburys wasn't a run with a trolley; you had to queue at all the different sections, and the butter you wanted would be cut off, and shaped with butterclappers.
- There were horses delivering coal and milk in London, and children in the country who had never seen a horse.
- Ten years later, an ice-cream cone was a penny-ha'penny, and so was the half fare home from school. On good days, I could afford both.

Oh Lesley, are there still blackberries in Epping Forest? My auntie used to pull them downwards with a walking stick and we used to pick and pick and make blackberry and apple pies. Yum.

I don't know what's there now, Ren - too long since I was six! but what joy to cook something delicious with blackberries you picked off brambles, not off a shelf in Tesbury.

I remember when Elvis died and I was on my summer holidays at my aunt and uncle's farm in Mayo in Ireland. My brother and I went there every year for two weeks and as town kids we loved it. It seems the sun was always shining but I doubt it. I remember the night Elvis died my aunt and uncle and some of their neighbours were sitting around talking about it and being generally shocked and upset. One of them said - and this has never left me - 42, so young.
I remember thinking to myself - how funny these adults are. 42, that's so old! And today my cousin (the son of that family) who I played with and had so much fun with as a child - he was the older brother I never had and always wanted - turns 42. And yes, they were right all those years ago. It is so young!

OMG Sue943! How much IS petrol in the UK now? We're visiting in Sept and it sounds like I'm going to need to squirrel away more petrol money!

I remember when:

I could see a movie matinee for .75 cents
Hearing my mother wonder why I wasn't interested in watching a parade on a B/W TV
When a comic book cost me .12 cents
When I didn't like reality shows (oh, that's just yesterday...:)
Being ticked off when Paul McCartney married Linda (hey, I was 13, we coulda made it work!)
Having a black light bulb and Peter Max posters in my bedroom
When, on our farm, we would never feel the need to lock the doors

wob

I love that Cheshire cat, woboogie.

One thing I’m glad to see the back of is the occasional bad egg. Today’s battery eggs may be boring, but they don’t stink the place out for hours the way a rotten egg did in the old days. Of course, everybody knew how to test them by floating them in water before cracking them into the frying pan, but of course you didn’t do this every time.

I don't live in the UK but found this site...

http://www.whatprice.co.uk/petrol-prices/recent-petrol-prices.html

It is not cheap, those prices are per litre, not gallon..

God Lord, Sue! Sorry, I should've read where you were from. Jersey looks beautiful, I'd like to see it someday.

Looks like we'll be driving less, and taking trains more this time.

I remember paying by myself for the first time at McD's. .10 cents for an order of fries...

...when you could buy a gallon of milk for under $1.00

...when kids had fun playing board games

...when people were just, generally, friendlier

wob

All this is making me wish that I grew up when most people here did. I would've missed FT, but I wouldve loved to be friendly with the neighbours, and free to roam (well more free than I am now anyway).

woboogie what is the price of a gallon of milk in the US now? I remember paying around $1.99 a gallon in the 80's.

I was going to say that those petrol prices aren't too bad, just about what we are paying, when I realized that they are pounds, not dollars....

Here in Western Canada I pay between $4.50 and $5.00 for a four litre jug of milk.

Lady1, a gallon of milk is usually around $2.25-2.35 here. I pay about 1.50 for a 1/2 gallon.

Petrol here in MI has shot up to about $3.60/gal. Still cheaper than what you pay in quid per litre, (not sure how that works out with the Canadian dollar, Agony) but, frankly, it's getting ridiculous everywhere.

But, God forbid a price (on anything) ever goes DOWN (permanently vs. a 'sale')...

wob

Wow, woboogie, I pay $3.69 a gallon for milk here in western Pennsylvania! Consider yourself lucky! Ours hasn't been below $3.00 in over a year!

Well, Cin, I was wrong...I just paid 1.89 for a half gallon and saw they were charging 2.99 (on sale) for the gallon. Still not as high as yours, but...give it time.

I usually buy milk with a lot of other things and don't pay much attention. This time that's all I was picking up.

wob

I remember when petrol rather than gas was 79.9c per litre.

The "inexpensive" brand of milk at my store is $4.50/gallon. If you buy two, you pay $5.60 for both, which is a good deal for me since I have two kids.
I paid $3.73/gallon for gas today at the cheapest place around here.
California is not the most cost-effective place in the US to live.

Wow! The equivalent here for 1 litre of milk would be $1.05 (US) (+-$4.20 per gallon) and around $1.10 litre for petrol with an expected increase in 2 weeks making petrol $1.30 per litre (+-$5.20 per gallon). I need to find a job just to pay to put petrol in my car.

I hadn't thought of the price of milk as an indicator of the cost of living. I've just bought a half-gallon (Imperial) for £1.34 at the supermarket. With an exchange rate of $US2 to £1, that works out at $4.47 for a US gallon.

You lot have it cheap then! I have just worked out the cost of a US gallon of our milk - I use semi-skimmed.

£1.04 a litre so that is £3.94 for a US gallon or in dollars, $7.86.

We cannot shop around, they are not permitted to import milk here so we have to use the locally produced milk and it is a set price everywhere.

We spent most of out time at school and had few school holidays