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@kengillard wrote:

I can stil remember mum doing the "laundry"...then there was the hand driven thingo that squeezed the water out..I remember mum got her hair caught it it one time.  Wasn't too happy.   lol

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I think you might be talking about a mangle. We had one long before we had a washing machine. It was a massive cast iron thing, similar to this:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangle_(machine)

But ours was a rather superior model, because it folded down and had a wooden tabble top.

Then there were the not so enjoyable - medically - grease on burns, sheets ripped for bandaging, only weekly visits by parents if you were in hospital, no visits by under 12 year olds. 

No electrical tools in the garage,  straightening nails to re-use them.

ONLY tank water - 2" water in the bath = the cleanest to the dirtiest in the family to use that same 2" of water; and the Arum or canna lillies that benefitted from the drain pipe.

A grandmother who said there was no such word as CAN'T

I can remember mum wringing everything manually.  6 kids in 8 years worth of nappies. It eventually wore away a part of the wedding ring band.

That was the time of working mums = and they didn't leave the house.

You usually got 1 or 2 presents at Xmas.  And usually, 1 was a pair of shoes to last the year.

Spot. Rest Park, yes and it was done so sneakily, there one day, gone the next - now the council is talking about getting rid of the rock pool, which has been there forever.  

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@the_hawk* wrote:

 

 

the baker delivering with a horse and cart and the horse knew the round and stoped and started with no driver or instruction.

 

 

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Had a milkman like that as late as '71 in Vale Park Hawk. Horse heard the clink of the empty bottles as they were picked up and moved himself down to the next house.

Other house a few years earlier, Fruit n Veg truck came around twice a week selling off the truck. Housing trust rent was collected by a man driving around in a little Viva.

When, if you were lucky enough, you had a camera.  A Brownie Box perhaps.  Wait a week for the processing of the film from the Chemist shop. ......

when the "oldies" had that staid look in the photos like they'd never laughed in their life, children had their favourite toy in the photoshoot and had that "just combed" look....

Bex, Vincent's APC, Aspro......

Coffee came in the Chicory and Coffee essence bottle....

Olive Oil only available from the Chemist....

Castor Oil....

(look away Spotweldersfriend) corsets, girdles, suspender belts, stockings.....

your clothes, even though made from patterns from Enid Gilchrist or Paton's, were invariably hand-me-downs.....

darned socks (that had been knitted on 4 needles), ....

repaired sheets (or if beyond repair, became cot or bassinet bedding, bandages, etc)....

you repaired/replaced the sole of the shoes with glue and/or blue tacks, and added "taps" to the heel to alleviate quicker wearing out.....

Glory Box for your 16th Birthday which you had to fill over the years till you married to set up a house .....

A wedding present could have been a canteen of cutlery, which you kept for "good".  60 years later,  the grandchildren find it still in the box - the "good" never came....

"Gone to Gowing's" and "went mad and the police shot her", two things my Nan would say when I asked where Mum was.