Anyone else remember?

[DUNKS]

just had a session down memory lane with my wife. We both remember the knocker upper who came to a neighbours  house every morning. He worked on the railway. also we remember the road sweeper with his broom and horse cart. There was the knife and scissor sharpening guy with his grindstone mounted on a bike who came quite often, the rag and bone man with his shout "anyoldragbone". The milkman with his horse drawn cart filling the jugs you took out to him. The guy who came round in the evening with a long pole turning on the street gas lamps, not forgetting the man on a bike calling to empty your gas meter of pennies. The coalman dropping bags of coal into your coalhouse which sat next door to your outside toilet. and last but not least the dustman who actually came into your garden and lifted your galvanized dustbin onto his back to carry it to the cart. We lived on a road bordering the Grand Union canal which was busy with horse drawn barges carrying coal. There was even one guy who pulled his own barge with a shoulder harness. Life has altered a bit since our childhood. At least Gerry is not now dropping bombs on the local railway sidings while we hid under the kitchen table.

Edited April 18 by DUNKS

[ditchman]

im not THAT old.....................but the local farmer used to supply the locality with wheat straw for thatching...and every year he put aside several acres to be reaped and bound and stooked....then in the winter the steam engine used to turn up dragging a thresher ....it would set up and thresh the stacks.........

at the end of each stack ...chicken wire would be put around the stack...and the local bookie would turn up and the owner of the pub and everyone who had a ratting dog...and bets would be taken on the prowess of ratting dogs ...as ther would be rats everywhere..................

that was the first time i ever got drunk at the age of 10.....

[old'un]

Bring out your dead…….the good old days.

[Penelope]

1 minute ago, old'un said:

Bring out your dead…….the good old days.

🤣🤣

[GHE]

I'm not that old either, but I do remember the coalman, once we moved to London. From memory, they had 3 sizes of bag, 1/2 cwt, 1 cwt and 2 cwt, the smaller bags being used for people who couldn't afford to buy 2 hundredweight at a time or who lived upstairs - how did they manage the weight?

And before that, we lived in S. Wales. In theory, coal was free to mine workers but in fact was free to local poor people too, we used to collect it daily in a shopping bag.

And I remember the Milkman and his horse too, the horse knew every customer address, the milkman walked alongside, delivering the bottles, the horse didn't need his input.

Rabbits were free too, and the only meat available, as a young child I became skilled at snaring them.

[marsh man]

59 minutes ago, DUNKS said:

just had a session down memory lane with my wife. We both remember the knocker upper who came to a neighbours  house every morning. He worked on the railway. also we remember the road sweeper with his broom and horse cart. There was the knife and scissor sharpening guy with his grindstone mounted on a bike who came quite often, the rag and bone man with his shout "anyoldragbone". The milkman with his horse drawn cart filling the jugs you took out to him. The guy who came round in the evening with a long pole turning on the street gas lamps, not forgetting the man on a bike calling to empty your gas meter of pennies. The coalman dropping bags of coal into your coalhouse which sat next door to your outside toilet. and last but not least the dustman who actually came into your garden and lifted your galvanized dustbin onto his back to carry it to the cart. We lived on a road bordering the Grand Union canal which was busy with horse drawn barges carrying coal. There was even one guy who pulled his own barge with a shoulder harness. Life has altered a bit since our childhood. At least Gerry is not now dropping bombs on the local railway sidings while we hid under the kitchen table.

You sounded if you lived next door to me in the mid 50s , although we never had a horse drawn milk cart but we did have an old four wheel barrow that the milkman pushed around the streets in all weather , yes we had the coalman bring us a cwt of coal on his back down our narrow passage , the dustbin men with the galvanised bath on there heads ,the chap on his bike to sharpen your shears , the chimney sweep who had a trailer on the back of his bike , he would sweep your chimney and it took a week to clear the soot up . You are the only one who seemed to remember the old penny gas meter that you put a penny in the slot on the top and wound the lever round until the penny dropped to the bottom of the meter , what about the ole linen mangles with the big wooden rollers ? Also at the end of our road we had an emergency phone box with a Blue light on the top , now that is going back a bit 

 

[DUNKS]

7 minutes ago, marsh man said:

You sounded if you lived next door to me in the mid 50s , although we never had a horse drawn milk cart but we did have an old four wheel barrow that the milkman pushed around the streets in all weather , yes we had the coalman bring us a cwt of coal on his back down our narrow passage , the dustbin men with the galvanised bath on there heads ,the chap on his bike to sharpen your shears , the chimney sweep who had a trailer on the back of his bike , he would sweep your chimney and it took a week to clear the soot up . You are the only one who seemed to remember the old penny gas meter that you put a penny in the slot on the top and wound the lever round until the penny dropped to the bottom of the meter , what about the ole linen mangles with the big wooden rollers ? Also at the end of our road we had an emergency phone box with a Blue light on the top , now that is going back a bit 

 

Wifey insists hat the meter man collected shillings and not pennies. Probably correct and yes I remember the old mangle in the back yard. Monday was wash day.

[wymberley]

You got me on the knocker upper (did you see Antiques Roadshow on Sunday) but I'll swapsies getting the wireless accumulator charged.

[DUNKS]

Forgot that one. It was my job to take the glass accumulators to the bike shop to get them charged so dad could listen in to the footy results. Remember listening to Lord Haw Haw also Valentine Dyall the man in black horror stories.

Edited April 18 by DUNKS

[wymberley]

Had to be charged for Sunday evening. Journey into Space and **** Barton were a must.

EDIT: That'll be Richard!

Edited April 18 by wymberley

[London Best]

I am merely a child compared to some of you lot, but even I remember the shilling gas meter in the fifties. And the proper dustmen and galvanised bins. And the rag and bone man giving kids goldfish. I remember Grandma washing using a ponch and dolly tub, and a rubbing board, in her outside wash house with it’s built-in boiler, coal fired of course. (Very posh!)
My wife’s father was still delivering coal on his back in hessian sacks from his old Bedford three tonner when we met in 1970, and he retired in ‘73. 
I was born in 1948 and my Father at the time had a milk round which he delivered on a three wheeler trike. So my birth certificate reads: Father’s occupation: milk roundsman. 
I suspect many more should read the same!

[marsh man]

58 minutes ago, London Best said:

I am merely a child compared to some of you lot, but even I remember the shilling gas meter in the fifties. And the proper dustmen and galvanised bins. And the rag and bone man giving kids goldfish. I remember Grandma washing using a ponch and dolly tub, and a rubbing board, in her outside wash house with it’s built-in boiler, coal fired of course. (Very posh!)
My wife’s father was still delivering coal on his back in hessian sacks from his old Bedford three tonner when we met in 1970, and he retired in ‘73. 
I was born in 1948 and my Father at the time had a milk round which he delivered on a three wheeler trike. So my birth certificate reads: Father’s occupation: milk roundsman. 
I suspect many more should read the same!

Your f i l must have had a very good back to lug those bags of coal about until he was 73 , our ole coalman used to wear a heavy sleeveless jacket and the sacks of coal were on a flat back lorry that were the same height as he was so he balanced them on his back and way he went , he used to charge 10 bob a sack all the year round , normally it was cheaper in the Summer when there was less demand for coal  , also in the Summer the coal company used the lorries for carting Peas , these were still in the pods and loaded up on the lorry to be carted off to Birds Eye to be shelled , now everything is done on the field , except the freezing bit , but that is sure to come before to long .   MM

[amateur]

... and don't forget the Betterware salesman with his suitcase containing miniature samples of furniture polish. I used to blag one to polish my prized pushbike with.

[ditchman]

i remember the first world war veterans intheir hand cranked wheelchairs.....and wooden legs and mangled faces.....smelling of BO and tobacco and in a 3 peice suit...piling out of the pub at lunchtime of beer and 3's & 2's.....laughing their tits off 

they earnt the right to do what pleased them

[RCB56]

All I remember about the coalman is I never saw my father again when we changed from coal to gas 🤣🤣

[martinj]

enlighten us youngsters "Ahem!" please, what are 3's & 2's

Edited April 18 by martinj

[welsh1]

I am a mid sixties child, but growing up in our village we had the fish man come round on a friday, pop man on a wednesday and brawn's the baker on a saturday with loaves and rolls still warm, i remember a man coming round with a sharpening stone on the front of his cart and all the street getting knifes sharpened. The coal was delivered up to the 80's .
My Granddad was a rag and bone man in Hartlepool dealing in cloth/textiles mainly, he would go round the streets with his cart and it was pulled by one of the 3 shire horses they had, my Dad used to tell me they were the most placid horses, and as a kid weighing next to nothing would ride them round the fields bareback with an air rifle strapped over his back for rabbits, he said he had to make sure there was always a fence near by because it was easy getting off but not so easy to get back on lol.

[adzyvilla]

I'm significantly younger than you lot being in my early 40s, but I can remember a few things that would be very familiar to what you have written here, but would boggle the minds of millennials. We still had sacks of coal delivered into the coal shed when I was very young before dad had gas central heating put in (I think I was 8 or 9 so that must have been around 1990), that really made a difference to our 150 year old farmhouse, but having the fireplaces in the bedrooms bricked up felt weird. Living on a farm we often had rag and bone men and scrap merchants call in, we used to get some magnificent fruit baskets from them at Christmas. Milk was free from our own cows, as were eggs and shop bought meat was a rarity until mum went to work full time. We still had a 50p electric meter in the late 80s, and the telly was a 14" black and white, and we only had one. The insurance man used to call round on the last Friday of the month to collect his money. The other thing I remember is my dad buying a little lock to put on the rotary dial phone to stop my sisters using it the tight old ******!

[ditchman]

1 hour ago, martinj said:

enlighten us youngsters "Ahem!" please, what are 3's & 2's

its a version of Dominos

[marsh man]

One thing no one had mentioned was when you could go to your village shop and stick anything you bought in the book and then paid for it when you got the family allowance or when your dad got paid .

Our village shop let us have a bottle of Corona for 9d and never got anything on the empty bottle when you took it back .

Our local fish and chip owner would fry any large fish we got off the trawlers and only charge us for the chips we bought.

Ditchie would most likely know this went on at the Christmas poultry sale at the sale ground at Acle.

The men and women would go to the sale ground to buy the Christmas dinner , some of the poultry were oven ready but plenty were still alive , if someone bought a live Turkey they would ask this bloke if he could kill it , he had a short length of a stout broom stick and he would hold the Turkey up by its feet so the Turkey had a kink in it's neck , he would lower it down so it's neck touched the ground and then he would put the broom stick across it's neck and stand on each end , he would then give the Turkey a quick jerk upwards and the bird was as dead as a dodo , the woman would open her purse and give him two bob or half a crown and off she would go with with this freshly killed Christmas dinner , what would happen if this went on this day and age 

[ditchman]

we got our stuff from Swaffam market (livestock)

[Poor Shot]

I was born in 93 so not a single thing in this thread is familiar apart from the coal man. We still have a coal man locally but he does deliver from the back of a lorry and not a horse and cart. 

Some on this thread will have children older than me or perhaps even grand children older than me. 🤣

I am old enough to remember penny sweets being a penny and getting 100 of them for £1, Cadburys Freddo bars being £0.05 and cans of coke in the local pub being £0.45. Last time I bought a coke in a pub it was £1.85. 

Imitation chocolate or chalk candy cigarettes were a thing and available in a 20 pack branded similarly to real cigarettes. Cap guns, banger darts, BB guns and snap pops were a thing your uncle gave to you on your birthday to annoy your parents with. 

In S. Wales at least, every village had a street or square with a butcher, monger, grocer, hardware shop, cobbler, clothes shop, (independent) bookies. In the village I was born, all of these are now houses with no clue that they were once shops. 

The foot and mouth pandemic and the stench of the burning of sheep and cow carcasses at the farm on the end of my parents street. Roughly the same time that Cheesy Dorito crisps were released and to this day I associate the smell of them with the mass burnings and can't stand to be in the same room as an open packet of them. My mother worked part time in the local corner shop and brought a pack from the first box they had delivered home for me. She must have been so disappointed that I didn't even finish the packet. 

I can remember the place being littered with abandoned mine works, washeries, rail sidings etc. Most of this has now been cleaned up and left to nature or are now ugly housing estates. 

CRT TVs with great huge boxes sticking out of the back of them. The less well off kids would have TVs with a £1 meter on the side, usually accompanied by a £1 with hole drilled and a string run through it to fool the meter. I believe they were Buy as You View or similar. 

A pub on near enough every street. They all looked the same, were decorated the same, smelled the same and even had almost an identical set of bar flies sat at the bar from lunchtime every day. They all had the nicotine patina on the walls and ceilings. Nearly all closed and converted into flats now. 

Being let into the pub at 12:00 on NYE to wish the elderly folk a happy new year and hold a hand out for spare change. I made a small fortune from drunken old ladies due to my baby face. 

Being able to wander about the place for miles as a child and not get molested, stabbed or beaten. Me and my mates used to walk everywhere. There's a not a scrap of land within 10 square miles of my parents old home that we didn't explore. A few younger relatives in the family haven't even explored past the end of the driveway. 

I'm also probably one of the last age of kids to have a proper (horrendously unhealthy) selection of foods at school. Turkey twizzlers were a Tuesday thing in primary school. Secondary school had a plethora of unhealthy options that you could buy using a card that you deposited money on using a machine. A plethora a ultra processed, lard laden foods from pies, pasties, sausage rolls, deep fried chicken and chips, cakes etc. Then that large tonged **** Oliver got involved in my later school years and ****ed the whole thing up. Probably the main reason why I ended up a fat **** and now spend two hours a day in the gym to maintain a figure that isn't fat ****. 

[Westley]

5 hours ago, London Best said:

I am merely a child compared to some of you lot, but even I remember the shilling gas meter in the fifties. And the proper dustmen and galvanised bins. And the rag and bone man giving kids goldfish. I remember Grandma washing using a ponch and dolly tub, and a rubbing board, in her outside wash house with it’s built-in boiler, coal fired of course. (Very posh!)
My wife’s father was still delivering coal on his back in hessian sacks from his old Bedford three tonner when we met in 1970, and he retired in ‘73. 
I was born in 1948 and my Father at the time had a milk round which he delivered on a three wheeler trike. So my birth certificate reads: Father’s occupation: milk roundsman. 
I suspect many more should read the same!

Remember the shilling gas meters, in the 1960's I was fitting them  !   😄

[marsh man]

20 minutes ago, ditchman said:

we got our stuff from Swaffam market (livestock)

Only well off people went to Swaffham , and we were not one of those .

What was a lot better in those far off days was when you could go to your nearest dentist and get looked at the same day if you went before 9am , I saw in the E D P last week where they said there are 6000 on the waiting list at a dentist in Kings Lynn yes 6000 , it is just as bad if not worse in Yarmouth , some things were a lot better in the pre boat people era ( good ole days ) 

[ditchman]

6 minutes ago, marsh man said:

Only well off people went to Swaffham , and we were not one of those .

What was a lot better in those far off days was when you could go to your nearest dentist and get looked at the same day if you went before 9am , I saw in the E D P last week where they said there are 6000 on the waiting list at a dentist in Kings Lynn yes 6000 , it is just as bad if not worse in Yarmouth , some things were a lot better in the pre boat people era ( good ole days ) 

dont mention teef....ive got 2 more loosens