Oldies and Fossils

[Bill M]

Lets not forget cracker night and the lead up to it. About 2 weeks before cracker night all the fireworks were up for sale in the local newsagency, this was the best time of the year for me.

We could buy anything we wanted, as kids too! We saved up for it and bought whatever we could afford. Parents helped out with a couple of $$ too. On cracker night we let off as many as we had. Roman candles, skyrockets (fired out of those 1 pint milk bottles), frisbees, double bangers and the biggie was the 4 penny bunger. We took turns lighting the fuses. Some kids had their parents set up a bonfire in an empty paddock, everybody went and had a good time. Next morning we went looking for the duds........ahhhh the smell of gunpowder.

Then it all got canned and all we ever did was talk about it for years to come.... and I'm still talking about it.

 

[Ruby]

I remember slates - and sharpening slate pencils each morning on a slab of concrete (perhaps a septic tank?) in the school ground. Also Salk vaccine for polio (needle in the arm). Black stockings at high school all year round - no air con or fans!! My bus fare each way to school was twopence (or tuppence) and when at high school, threepence on the tram.

 

[Smurf1976]

Lets not forget cracker night and the lead up to it.

Another thing ruined by a few idiots doing silly things and eventually banned as a result.

It's a shame, one of my earliest childhood memories is of the display my grandmother set up in her backyard. Still remember that quite well today. Had all the fireworks in position, and there were lots of them, and went around lighting them one after the other. Had a bonfire going too.

Times have changed though. A few people did very bad things with fireworks so I can understand the ban. And where my grandmother's house once stood is now, due to general expansion of the town, part of the commercial zone with a shopping center where that and a few other houses once stood.

 

[explod]

The King ? You must be 90 ?

The Queen took over about 1954 because all us kids were packed into the shool bus and we saw her at Hamilton Victoria during her Coronation Visit.

I was about 7 then and still a fair bit younger than 90 now, .Lol

 

[Julia]

Don't remember those, but the cycle of fads in my day were pogo sticks, yo-yos, hula hoops, spinning tops, then back to pogo sticks.

You omitted the limbo stick, though that may have come a bit later. Where we bent over backwards to see who could pass under the ever-lower limbo stick.

Funnily enough, I think of the music to that every time I see someone championing an averaging down stock strategy.

 

[sydboy007]

Lets not forget cracker night and the lead up to it. About 2 weeks before cracker night all the fireworks were up for sale in the local newsagency, this was the best time of the year for me.

Gosh yes. My parent slive on the princess highway and we used to set them off out back of the house. The traffic would be bumper to bumper so we'd put on a real good show for them.

I loved the ones with the parachutes.

Gosh, those were the days, when a bag of lollies cost 10c at the local news agent.

Everyone at school had throw downs just waiting to scare someone not paying attention during recess.

We seem to be trying to outlaw stoopidity and it doesn't work.

 

[burglar]

... We seem to be trying to outlaw stoopidity and it doesn't work.

Stoopidity will always be fun!





Till sum wan gets hurt

 

[Tink]

Great posts, I have enjoyed reading them.

Agree with your post, basilio.
Also extended shopping times made a difference.
Everything was home cooked, no fast food outlets.

Items were held on to and repaired, not so many do that now.

I remember Mr Whippy too.
We had one driving around not long ago, it wasn't the same reaction for the children.

 

[noco]

The Queen took over about 1954 because all us kids were packed into the shool bus and we saw her at Hamilton Victoria during her Coronation Visit.

I was about 7 then and still a fair bit younger than 90 now, .Lol

As per my previous post Queen Elizabeth11 was crowned on the 2nd June 1953....She actually took over the reign in 1951 or 1952.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/6/newsid_2711000/2711265.stm

King George vi died in his sleep 06/02/1952

 

[sydboy007]

I remember Mr Whippy too.
We had one driving around not long ago, it wasn't the same reaction for the children.

Ah Mr Whipy. Proving that Pavlov's dog wasn't the only animal able to be trained by sound

I remember racing out with pocket money once a month to get my choc top with crushed peanuts.

Just heard greensleves yesterday. Assumed it was an ice cream van of some sort. I've always wondered why they chose a lovers lament to entice the kids.

Then we had the bottle milk delivery with a cow moo horn. We used to get the non homogenised milk because it was cheaper. Oh how I hated that layer of cream on the top of the bottle. Reminded me too much of drinking the milk at my dad's family farm. There's warm milk, then there's warm milk because it just came out of a cow

 

[robusta]

Great thread, while I'm only in my mid 40's I grew up in Tassie so a bit like 20 years behind and not a bad thing at all.

I remember our big occasional trips to Hobart, we would eat at this exotic place called The Coles Cafeteria. You would grab a tray and slide it along picking out whatever you wanted (Mum limited us to 1 savory, 1 salad, 1 bread roll and 1 desert). All the food was in small bowls and you would pay when you got to the end of the line.

I used to eat very slowly savoring every mouthful. My family would be finished and often a lady would come around and wipe the table, asking me to pick up my jelly while I was still eating...

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=...v&sa=X&ei=0F-XVP2hBOPGmAXz2YGYAw&ved=0CCwQ7Ak

We had some Italian friends from Triploi, it was only years later that I thought hang on!! Tripoli is in Libya. We only knew Greeks and Italians.

 

[robusta]

Ah Mr Whipy. Proving that Pavlov's dog wasn't the only animal able to be trained by sound

I remember racing out with pocket money once a month to get my choc top with crushed peanuts.

Just heard greensleves yesterday. Assumed it was an ice cream van of some sort. I've always wondered why they chose a lovers lament to entice the kids.

Then we had the bottle milk delivery with a cow moo horn. We used to get the non homogenised milk because it was cheaper. Oh how I hated that layer of cream on the top of the bottle. Reminded me too much of drinking the milk at my dad's family farm. There's warm milk, then there's warm milk because it just came out of a cow

Yep I remember that warm milk just out of a cow, thought I hated milk for years because of that. We just has a few cows but it was always fun to feed the poddy calves and round up...

Our Christmas tree was a eucalyptus sapling cut down and stick in a bucket of sand.

 

[sptrawler]

I remember when I was a kid in Bunbury, about 200k's South of Perth.
They built the new Regional hospital, it was the first building with a lift, we spent hours going up and down in it. Then we realised the extra fun to be had by rocking your head back and tapping the emergency stop button. The look of terror on the other passengers faces was highly amusing, not so funny now in hindsight, hey kids will be kids.
The next source of amusement, was the automatic opening doors on the new R&I bank building, didn't take us kids long to give those a good workout.:
Life was so much simpler then, you made your own fun and a lot of it included excercise.

It was a while ago, the Regional hospital has since been demolished.lol

 

[Calliope]

The age of innocence. Those lazy hazy crazy days of summer.

It was a hot day so my younger brother and I rode our ponies down to visit my schoolmate Angus who lived near the banks of the Condamine. There was a sheltered pool nearby completely enclosed with weeping willows, so the three of us stripped off and went in. Angus's two older sisters Mavis and Doris heard the racket we were making so they came down from their house, stripped off to their pants and dived in with us. We boys were pre-pubescent and the girls were about 14 or 15.

Their father heard the racket and came down and chased the girls home with a few smacks on their bottoms.

We boys had no idea what the problem was. It left us feely guilty that we had done something wrong., but we didn't know what.

 

[Julia]

Everything was home cooked, no fast food outlets.

That might have something to do with the very few people who were fat back then. Most people grew and ate their own vegetables and ate simply.

Items were held on to and repaired, not so many do that now.

I don't even think it's possible to find people who can repair items now, Tink. You've just reminded me of the frequent replacing of the element in the electric jug (we didn't say kettle then) because with no automatic switch-off, the element often burned out.
Probably a new kettle these days can be had for less than we'd have paid for replacement element.

Syd, interesting note on Greensleeves being a lovers' lament. I hadn't thought of it before, but you're right.
Perhaps some advertising agency advised that such a well known tune, regardless of the actual lyrics, would be particularly memorable.

Comparing the time when we were kids to now, I'd say the simplicity of our lives and the lack of self-consciousness is the greatest difference. I'm blown away by the narcissistic absorption of people now, with their selfies and sharing of their every thought on social media.
And the insistence that all kids are 'special', everyone at a birthday party gets a present, not just the kid having the birthday, no one actually wins any game because they are 'all winners'.

It seems like a woeful preparation for the real world where they will discover not everyone is really a precious little snowflake.

 

[burglar]

... it was the first building with a lift, we spent hours going up and down in it ...

Up the down escalator!!!

 

[trainspotter]

Cyclone Tracy 74. I was 7 years old. Lego was just starting to be marketed so EVERY kid got Lego for Christmas. Pity it was scattered up the street with the rest of Darwin. I rode around on my Malvern Star pushy with a pillow case and ended up with a couple of sack fulls. Merry Christmas everybody !

 

[sptrawler]

Up the down escalator!!!

Yes I'd forgotten that one, when we went to the city, I used to race my brother.

Giving your mate a dink on your bike, nowadays the kids get driven everywhere.

 

[sptrawler]

Cyclone Tracy 74. I was 7 years old. Lego was just starting to be marketed so EVERY kid got Lego for Christmas. Pity it was scattered up the street with the rest of Darwin. I rode around on my Malvern Star pushy with a pillow case and ended up with a couple of sack fulls. Merry Christmas everybody !

Yes and your old man ,screaming out in the middle of the night, when he steps on the leggo on the way to the dunny.

 

[noco]

Who remembers the mechano sets where every thing was steel and you used real mini bolts and nuts...no plastics in those days.?