Oh yes, what about the cars! My Grandad had an Austin 7 that you had to start with a handle. It was a lovely car. My uncle had a Lanchester. He parked it at the top of Porlock in Cornwall and it rolled down quite a way before we managed to get a big stone under the wheel.
We used to all pile in and go to Cornwall on holiday and play car games, spot the car make
I always wanted Ford or Austins. After I had kids I realise why my mum had always wanted Rolls Royce.
You are right, this is a great thread!

When I was a teenager some of the lads bought cheap old bangers as first cars and one of them had a Lanchester, it had pre-select gears, I bet the car would be worth a fair amount now if it was still around. I bet it cost him a fiver!

Remember my cousin buying my Uncles 1936 Morris 8, and doing "full power trials" along the A45....think he got it over 50mph!
My father had, in 1960's......a 1949 Ford Anglia, complete with side indicators. He then went all up market, and bought a 1957, split windscreen, Morris Minor.......still had it in 1972! The number plate (TRT2) was worth more than the car!

I, in the navy, needed transport I could use on my own for weekend leave.......that meant 2 wheels. Bought my first bike, BSA Bantam 125cc, from a shipmate for £5! Even the last bike I rode, in 1976 BSA Royal Star A50 500cc, only cost me £250..........had one today I could add another nought to that figure!

These entries bring back memories!

Being driven to school in the early sixties by my Dad in the sidecar on his Vincent Black Shadow (He was sooooo popular in our street starting the thing up early in the morning, especially when he was on an early duty at HM Naval Base on Portland - HMS Osprey was the 'ship')....

Being sent up to Mr and Mrs Whatley's sweet shop at the end of the street to get my Mum and Dad's cigarettes (10 Woodbines or Players Weights - so called because they were also sold by well, weight).... Kids could do that back then and no questions were asked!

Not seeing my first pocket calculator until 1976 (My best mate Dave Hyde's Dad was a customs officer at Weymouth and had confiscated a few that came into Weymouth port in a 'dodgy' shipment)... It was a small black Sinclair and only had the basic four functions and a square root key! As far as I know it was the ONLY one in Dorset at the time!!

When we took our final exams before leaving school we were only allowed to use log tables and slide rules - the only calculators allowed were the soft ones between our ears, which reminds me.... I had need to attend a local college and, to a man, none of the students had even heard of a slide rule let alone use one. I took mine in to show them and they were fascinated.

Finally, and most importantly, having to take my chances in life.... There were no Health and Safety Nazis around to spoil our fun in those days!

Oh... and the last car that I can remember my Dad buying was a Ford Zodiac MkIII.... It was immense, pale blue metallic, red leather upholstery, acres of chrome and loads of 'automotive' badges fitted to the front bumper... Everyone wanted a lift home in it!

Ok, it's official, you are all decidedly "old" and I'm still a "young" whippersnapper.

The good old days.

I've made this list somewhere but will have to rely on memory alone, and also mentioned Richard Digance who made a far better list than I had already and covered many of mine as well so won't duplicate any of them. 200 Remembers

For me I'll start off with when the TV had 2 channels, 9 (ITV- Associated Rediffusion) and 1 (BBC) and when BBC2 started, followed by colour TV and Trade Test transmissions, which are still better than most programmes we have now.
The Idris lemon on shop doors, he did mention the tiger in your tank, but I'll add the tiger tails and little oil man they gave away with the petrol as well (one was in an antique shop recently for £5), MacFisheries, Spurrier's bakeries, Delsey toilet paper (we always had the yellow till they stopped making it), Esso Blue ads on the TV, the gas board flame man, when Rootes still made cars, London telephone exchange names (I'll refrain from listing them all), and the four coloured telephone directories, A-D (yellow), L-R (green), E-K (pink) and S-Z (blue). Now we get a small local one which is a few pages thick and have to go online to find anything else. And Robbialac paint.

That's wonderful, I have never seen Richard Digance before!

Sisterseagull........won't pretend I knew your father, though would have noticed a Vincent Black Shadow.......drool.! However, I was in KEPPEL at Portland 1960-62 so knew OSPREY.

I'm a little younger than some of you (though still closer to 40 than 30! ) but I do remember a few things mentioned!
I remember "candy cigarettes", those white toffee cigarettes with the pink tip, and also "ten pence mixes", where you could get ten pence worth of "junk" sweets. My favourite with the ten pence mixes was also the chocolate tools, and the white chocolate "fish and chips". Yum!!
They still had the cane (perhaps the "strap" too, but not the slipper or the paddle, I don't think) at the local Junior school which I went to - although I never got it myself! Playtime was mostly football for the boys, and the usual playground games like "What time is it, Mr Wolf?". They even had two playgrounds, to separate the girls from the boys.
Good memories all!

Oh the cars. My Dad had one of those Lanchesters with the pre-select gear box. I saw one at a classic car show a couple of years back, worth a bomb now. Everything started with a starting handle, and I'm sure I heard a lot of new words when it kicked back onto my Dad's thumb a few times.

Sitting in the bath (tin) in front of the coal fire once a week. My Dad towel drying my hair afterwards. Toast made on a toasting fork over the fire and then buttered with real butter. Watching my Grandmother make things on her treadle sewing machine, she was faster on that than any modern electric machine, I never could get the hang of it. Piano lessons in a neighbour's front room - wish I'd kept them up when I was older. Playin hopscotch in the street. The wonder of the first supermarket in our High St. It was International Stores and was so different from anything we were used to - my Gran always said it would never catch on. The Coronation on TV. My Grandfather was in hospital and children weren't allowed to visit in those days, but the ward sister said I could go in as it was a special day and they had a TV in there and everyone watched the Coronation. First time I'd seen a television. I was five and I think it was another two or three years before we had one at home.

JaneMarple........boys and girls at my school, shared the same playground..but......girls one side, boys the other!
A white painted line divided the playground.....and was an invisible "Berlin Wall"......cross it at your peril. Being caught on wrong side of line, entailed (for boys) a visit to Headmaster's Study and a close encounter with his cane!
One of the "perks" of Duty Prefect, was that you got to patrol the line during playtime, thus able to "chat up" object of affection!

Christinap.......I was given a piano by my Grandfather, my mother decreed that I would learn to play it properly, and was dispatched for weekly lessons. I LOATHED it......after a few weeks of extremely reluctant child having these lessons, my parents got the message and lessons were discontinued!

My Grandfather had the only TV when I was a kid, so any event televised all our relatives crowded into my Grandfather's house at Colchester to watch it. I recall watching Queen's Coronation, "Mathews" Cup Final, Grand National and whichever year it was in the University Boat Race when Cambridge? boat sunk! Marvelous "magic" wooden cabinet/box, with screen smaller than modern computer screen!

Further to be last posting............in those days no arguments over which Tv channel to watch, there WAS only the one! BBC......and no adverts.......bliss!

The Groves on television, that signalled bedtime for us, we had to go as soon as it finished.

I learned to machine sew on a treadle machine, my mum had one.

Motorbikes with sidecars were fairly commmon, the old version of a small car I guess as 'mum' could ride pillion and the two kids were in the sidecar. My uncle George had one when I was little.

Actually my older brother had one when he was in his late teens, his girlfriend used to ride in the sidecar and one evening he came home very distressed. He had hit a badly marked roadworks and was thrown, the motorcycle continued down the road with his girlfriend in it and he had to chase after it - he was really shocked as she could have been killed. They are still married so I guess that she forgave him.

I had an Uncle with a Motorbike and sidecar too. He used to take me to the dogs.
My uncle Pat played Hooker for Gloucester, and I used to go to most of the Rugby matches at Kingsholm. Oh the joy when the Hungarian team came to play, their shorts were half the length of those of the Gloucester side! Woohoo. (They presented single roses to many of the ladies watching, I had never seen anything so romantic!)I suppose that was 1955.Yum

Interludes when there was a gap between programmes, the potters wheel springs to mind.
When it was law that the evening's television programmes had to end with a religious programme.

What I find galling is that I am only 54 and yet when I go to Antique and Craft Fairs, I find things from my childhood (toys and household items) labelled as antiques. When I was growing up, to be classified as "antique" an item had to be at least 100 years old.

Out of curiosity, I googled "definition of antique" and didn't find anything too specific. Most definitions were along the lines of "having a high value because of considerable age".

So if all the things I grew up with are now antiques, I guess that makes me an antique. So do I feel pleased because I "have a high value" or not so pleased that I am "of considerable age" (LOL)?

Peashooters and caterpults were acceptable toys, and guns which shot corks.

Oh, and I forgot! I've always been a fan of typewriters, and at school (late 80's early 90's) we did "Keyboard Skills". Computers were only just becoming popular in school as I was leaving it - only basic computer games etc. So we learned how to type properly, on the big manual typewriters, during Keyboard Skills - the sort of typewriters with the satisfying ding at the end of each line. I also got a old typewriter of my own from a charity shop, to practice on. Although computers (and their keyboards!) are a lot easier, and a lot less messy, sometimes I yearn for the old typewriter

MG, I remember reading years ago that the definition of "antique" was anything over 100 years old as well. I absolutely love going antique shopping and I see things in the stores that I remember having and I see lots of items that my grandparents and parents had. I think that one of the reasons I love to go is when I do see these items, it usually brings about happy memories.

Satguru, thanks for posting the Richard Digance clip. It seems to cover 20 years or more, and I recognized many of the items.

Another thing about TV in the old days (fifties) was that when you switched the set off, the picture dwindled to a little white dot, which took some time to vanish completely from the screen.

I also remember the "school milk" in the Infant school (late 70s) in proper glass bottles, not in milk cartons. I don't remember anyone having accidents with the bottles however

They still do have free school milk in Jersey. The government tried to stop it in 2010 but businesses have stepped in to pay for it.

C30.... My old man only had the Vincent for a couple of months as he changed his bikes like his underwear! He also had numerous JAP's, a beautiful Velocette (the one with the fishtail exhaust, a couple of Ariel Arrows, a BSA or two and a few Triumphs (You couldn't get Japanese bikes over here then as you'd be well aware)... My Dad was at Osprey from around 1959 until about 1965ish if my memory serves, so I expect that you'd have crossed paths once or twice!!

Steve