BS: Old Farts Thread

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: theleveller
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 08:45 AM

"When all 'respectable' women scrubbed and donkey-stoned their front doorstep and black-leaded the firegrate. Washing day was Monday and took all day, with blue bags and starch and the kitchen was full of steam from the copper boiler."

Hmmmm. That describes my grandmother and she died when she was 59.

A couple of years ago our prat of an MEP suggested that he made his wife clean behind the fridge. It hit the national press and there were reporters camped outside his house for days. Hopefully, he won't be standing again (and not just for parliament if his wife's got anything to do with it).

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: theleveller
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 03:27 AM

Personally. I'm still looking forward to creating a lot more nostaligia for the future - that's why I started the GODS (Growing Old Disgracefully Society). Anyone over the age of 50 can join. All you have to do is - well, I don't have to tell you, do I?

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: JennieG
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 10:51 PM

Our house had one key and it was kept on the high shelf outside the back door, whoever got home first let themselves in. Mind you it was in a country town and not The Big City where I now live.

Geez.....I wouldn't do that now!

Like Ebbie I remember wash day every Monday - boiling the copper to get hot water and my mother in a bad temper all day. And if the wooden stick holding the clothesline fell down and the clean washing dragged on the ground it was best to keep out of the way for a while.

Cheers
JennieG

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: John J
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 01:46 PM

Re: unlocked doors, I remember that we didn't have a lock on our back door - so it couldn't be locked!

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Rasener
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 12:42 PM

Stirling Moss and Graham Hill

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 07:00 AM

I think it all started to go wrong about the time Pukka Pies started to be sold in chip shops. I chart the moral decline of our nation from the first chicken and mushroom pie - that was the start of all this fast living. Too much too soon - and then beast of carnal desire was loose amongst us. 1971, I think it was.

When my uncle came to visit us from the USA in 1965, he asked for some pizza pie when we asked him what he wanted to eat - and of course we had no idea of which he spoke. I think Americans have always been a bit racier and more flamboyant in that way than us.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 05:40 AM

Fireworks in the back yard - and anywhere else you could get away with it!

Remember when you could play your instrument properly?


:-P

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 05:32 AM

We used to dream about eating a banana when we were kids.

eric

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Micca
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 05:22 AM

Do you remember when certain foods were Seasonal? there were only Strawberries, Fresh peas, Raspberries and other fruits and New potatos available for a few weeks each year, now they are almost year round, they dont taste of anything much, but are available.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Michael
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 04:03 AM

Does anybody (UK) remember when for some reason (Strike?) - late 50's - there was no school milk and we got Horlicks Tablets instead?

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 09:45 PM

Man. You all had idyllic childhoods. It is sad that your present- day lives are so dangerous and fearful.

I must say, though, that it strikes me that the "happy days" were from your perspective, not that of the adults, i.e., "When all 'respectable' women scrubbed and donkey-stoned their front doorstep and black-leaded the firegrate. Washing day was Monday and took all day, with blue bags and starch and the kitchen was full of steam from the copper boiler. Fish on Friday and The Ovalteenies. Happy days." Right. Downright halycon.

When I was a young'un, we were a large family with a huge house with five exits; so far as I know we didn't have a door key.

Before we moved to the 'big house', we lived in a small house and attended a one-room country school two and a half miles away. I was in first grade and I and the sister who was five years older than I had to leave home much earlier than the four other kids because I walked too slow.

One day a neighbor stopped in his pickup truck and offered us a ride to school. My sister was aghast but I agreed shyly and climbed happily in. We got to the school house a half hour before the teacher got there who gave us a stern lecture. And a scolding from our parents later that day.

But oh, I remember that forbidden fruit! Growing up as I did, I rarely got to ride in a motor vehicle. (Yep. I too walked in snow up to my arm pits, uphill both ways. And sideways, too.)

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: David C. Carter
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 06:58 PM

Fish and chips wrapped in newspaper.

Spring,Summer,Autumn and Winter.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Peace
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 04:36 PM

Jujubes at four for a penny (one cent).

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: GUEST,Andy
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 01:11 PM

When school teachers wore tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows. Spangles and Omo washing powder. When all 'respectable' women scrubbed and donkey-stoned their front doorstep and black-leaded the firegrate. Washing day was Monday and took all day, with blue bags and starch and the kitchen was full of steam from the copper boiler. Fish on Friday and The Ovalteenies. Happy days.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: GUEST,Beachcomber
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 01:05 PM

O Tempore, O Mores,
Sic Transit etc..
What the ----s gone wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: bobad
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 11:57 AM

In my day if you came home after school and told your parents you got whacked by the teacher, you'd get another one because you must have done something to deserve it. Nowadays the parents would be launching a lawsuit against the school and teacher.

"Mercy, mercy me - things ain't what they used to be"

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Rasener
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 11:49 AM

Couldn't agree more BWM

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 04:14 AM

"When tatty picking [ half term to the PC brigade ] was spent on the local farm, up to your eyeballs in mud, picking the spuds."

Never heard of Tatty Picking, Phil. It was 'Spud Bashing' here in The Backwoods! :-) :-)

"Letting off fireworks and eating hot chestnuts."

Yes Les, and on ONE night of the year only - Guy Fawkes (or to give it its 'proper' name here in The Backwoods, "Bonfire") night, 5th November - and it had to stop at 9pm. Let fireworks off any other time and that big red-faced police sergeant ALWAYS showed up, confiscated your fireworks, gave you a thick ear, and told your dad so that he could give you one the other side. Unlike nowadays, when brain-dead wazzocks let off fireworks on any flimsy excuse, at all hours of the day and night, on any day of the year. Dickheads, the lot of 'em.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Bert
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:34 PM

Oh! and the Doctor's Spanish (liquorice) that was a hard black stick that lasted for ages.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Rasener
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:21 PM

The Coronation and bonfires in the street and everybody being nice to each other.
Letting off fireworks and eating hot chestnuts.
When British Industry was the best in the world and we didn't have unemployment.
When Gary Sobers hit 6 sixes in one over at St Helens in Swansea. Nobody mentioned the fact that it was the shortest boundary. I know because I have failed at short point on that ground and I was on the boundary.
When we could tell jokes about the Scotsman, Irishman, Welshman and Englishman and nobody would bat an eyelid.
When Syphilis and gonorrhea were the worst sexual diseases you had to worry about. Oh the shame LOL
Where you threw blotting paper soaked in Quink Ink at the teacher when his back was turned.

Those were the days.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Folkiedave
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:43 PM

Do you remember the arrowroot sticks, that tasted like liquorice and made your jaws ache.

Damn - I thought they were liquorice!!

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Big Phil
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:24 PM

The Groat, Farthing, Half Penny, Penny, Three Penny Bit, Tanner, Shilling, Florin and the Half Crown, I remember them well.

When a quid would take you and the girlfriend out for a drink, get a bag of chips to share, and have money left for a gallon of petrol for the motorbike, those were the days.

When tatty picking [ half term to the PC brigade ] was spent on the local farm, up to your eyeballs in mud, picking the spuds.

Long days spent on the Farms after school haymaking, following the Corn Binder and stacking the corn sheaths, and if you were lucky, and she was willing, a quick grope of the farmers daughter on the way. Those were the halcyon days of our lives.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Kampervan
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 03:29 PM

And playing marbles in the gutter.

Scabs on your knees where you'd fallen over on the road.

Carts made from pram wheels, a plank, and a pair of little wheels at the front. You were a king if you had a set of good pram wheels.

Pea shooters and dried peas.

Being scared of the police cos they'd clip your ear, or worse, tell your Dad and then he'd do the same.

Not being afraid of the police if you wanted help.

Your Mum and Dad packing a picnic when you went on a drive fromGrimsby to Leicester, cos it was going to take all day. (O.K), so maybe that hasn't changed much!)


Bananas being delivered to the greengrocers in big coffin-shaped wooden boxes.

Butter arriving from Denmark in wooden tubs and sold loose at the corner shop.

The list goes on............

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 03:21 PM

4) Outlaw automatic transmissions?

I remember the "good old days" when it was legal to buy a car with a manual transmission anywhere in the US. Sometime ca. 1970 or so, the move to legislated emission limits led to the virtual outlawing of manual transmissions in California. The extreme lean mixtures used to lower emissions led to a tendency to violent "knock" if one "lugged" the engine, and rapid destruction of the engine was a main result.

Since an automatic transmission can be "profiled" so that it can't slow the engine down to the "hard knock" range, it immediately became completely impossible (and illegal since none were "certified") to purchase a new car in California with a manual transmission. Elsewhere in the US, manual transmissions became much less popular with the auto makers, and manual transmissions were "deprecated" in many areas.

There's still little (less) choice for buyers in the US, except to some extent in the "big hunkers" that are so popular here.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: GUEST,Winger
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 02:43 PM

... and white dogshit in the streets.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: David C. Carter
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 01:38 PM

I can still recall the groan that went around the cinema when PEARL & Dean adverts came on the screen.

And the Ice cream lady.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 01:25 PM

Jim D.

There is nothing you can do, but if you are whacky enough to do as I do you can get a init that charges up cars and has an inverter for plug in appliances like stereos. Mount speakers and sub woofers in the grill (damn the radiator) or uner the rocker panels. connect the stereo ,with a CD player mounted in the front seat, to the speakers.

When the speeders pass you release pause of the sound effects http://www.a1freesoundeffects.com/vehicles.html of car horns skidding, crash impacts or train horn complete with the pitch distortion caused by motion.

With enough distance you can sit back and enjoy the self absorbed speeder rubber neck himself into a broken neck.

A similar effect can be done with holography at night but it is a bit pricey.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Rasener
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 01:15 PM

LOL I remember that.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: David C. Carter
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 01:07 PM

And they played the National Anthem at the end of the evening,accompanied by a stampede of people rushing for the exit.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Rasener
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 12:51 PM

Do you remember the arrowroot sticks, that tasted like liqourice and made your jaws ache.

When Cinemas were called fleapits.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Sooz
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 12:08 PM

ISIRTA is on BBC7, Wandering Minstrel.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Bert
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 11:54 AM

I think we should start a speed limit club. A convoy of friends who drive through downtown or on the freeway at the speed limit at rush hour. The congestion would get so bad that they would have to set reasonable limits instead of speed traps.

Remember when we had a bus pass and went to school on the regular bus along with the grownups. We got a whacking once from the headmaster for singing on the bus.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 11:38 AM

Ha! I had to walk five (5) miles UPHILL BOTH WAYS through snow up to my eyebrows just to use the Internet!! And it was text-only, too!

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Wesley S
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:39 AM

KB in Iowa - sorry you're mistaken - that was my dad that had to walk uphill in the snow to get to school. With holes in his shoes. And that was springtime in Duluth.

I remeber wing windows on cars, looking forward to the next issue of the Flash or Green Lantern and being able to ride my bike anywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:32 AM

Frozen Jubbly at 4d a go.

Flying saucers (the kali ones, not the aliens' transport).

Mnnchester City reserves for sevenpence ha'penny.

Farthings in change.

Mild beer at 10d the pint.

Rudies with Maureen in the park shelter.

Park-keepers who put a stop to rudies . . . )

Rudies on the railway cutting..

Cycling everywhere with no fears.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Midchuck
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:19 AM

It got so that, if the posted limit is 55, people think they have a right to go 65. If the limit is 65, they think they can go 75. And they get away with it. The police wouldn't DARE to try to enforce the limits as they are posted.

In fact, a lot of people treat the limit as if it were a lower limit. If you obey the limit, people will honk at you, tailgate you, zoom past you at the first opportunity, and blame YOU for creating a traffic hazard.

This really pisses me off, but I don't know what to do about it.

1) Eliminate speed limits, for a short time, and clock all the cars' speed.

2) Set new speed limits at the 85th-percentile clocked speed, i. e. the speed that 85% of the drivers voluntarily drive less than. The logic is, if more than 15% want to drive faster, you can't enforce the limit anyway.

3) (This is the hard part) Set up drivers license exams that really test ability to drive - not just point the vehicle.

4) Outlaw automatic transmissions. If a person needs an automatic, he can't really drive anyway. If he can use a standard shift but doesn't want to, it means he doesn't want to be bothered paying attention to his driving, so he shouldn't be driving.

5) Set the same penalties for using a handheld cell phone while driving a car, as for drunken driving. Statistics show they're equally dangerous. (Yeah, it's true, statistics can show anything you want them to, but in this case my own feelings about the matter agree with the statistics.)

6) Forbid anyone from driving a car with a horsepower greater than his age in years. Since people would turn to very light cars in order to be able to get up to highway speed, there'd be a tremendous energy saving.

I'll think of more later.

Peter

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:08 AM

"Remember the days when children didn't get shot to death in school playgrounds ?"

The truth is that the VAST majority, maybe 99.999999%, still don't! But I know what you mean - one is too many.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 10:06 AM

Jim, my 'speed-limit' gripe is those who, whilst driving in a 60 limit, insist on only doing 45. Then, when they enter a 30 limit, they insist on still doing 45.

Mr. or Mrs. Constant-Speed is what Mrs. Backwoodsman and I call them.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:48 AM

I had to walk five miles in the snow to school every day.
Uphill both ways.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 09:18 AM

I remember being beaten up on the way to school, at recess, and after school. During school the teachers hit me and at home I was spanked for the least little thing. We never had enough food and our clothing was rags cast off by beggars and tramps. Everyone obeyed the law, however, and that's how I got my first good meal: I was arrested for straying outside the crosswalk and sentenced to thirty days in jail and they served me watery gruel and moldy bread but boy! was it good.

In school (if we weren't eaten by a saber-tooth tiger during the forty mile walk we had, through partially frozen quicksand and hot molten lava) we learned about tensor calculus, quantum mechanics, fractals, reading, and memorized the complete works of Shakespeare. In second grade things got hard.

Oh, the memories! The memories!

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:49 AM

Remember the days when children didn't get shot to death in school playgrounds ?

I despair

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:31 AM

OK, here's my gripe. By the way, it seems everyone who has posted so far is British. Mine is an American problem. Does this happen in Britain, too?

Once upon a time people used to obey speed limits. Then, during the 1973 oil crisis the US government imposed a national speed limit of 55 mph. Before that, speed limits were a state and local concern.

The new limit was obeyed at first, then speeds gradually crept up. It got so that, if the posted limit is 55, people think they have a right to go 65. If the limit is 65, they think they can go 75. And they get away with it. The police wouldn't DARE to try to enforce the limits as they are posted.

In fact, a lot of people treat the limit as if it were a lower limit. If you obey the limit, people will honk at you, tailgate you, zoom past you at the first opportunity, and blame YOU for creating a traffic hazard.

This really pisses me off, but I don't know what to do about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:16 AM

At least Janet and John are back!

but I still miss Maltona Drops and ISIRTA!

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 08:00 AM

"The gollywog on Robinsons Jam. Whatever happened to that?"

Fell victim to the baying pack of Holier-Than-Thou-PC-Wazzocks, Les.

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: David C. Carter
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:35 AM

Helping the milkman on school holidays.Do they exist anymore over in the UK? Milkmen,that is!
Sticking my head out the carriage window.Getting a face full of smoke.
My mother giving the chimney sweep a cup of tea when he'd finished cleaning the chimney.
The smell of the Sunday roast cooking whilst listening to the Navy Lark,Billy Cotton,Familly Favorites etc.
Going to the "oil shop"to buy bamboo sticks to make bows and arrows.

I'm gone for Kleenex!
David

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: topical tom
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 07:23 AM

Ah, Big Little Books, pulp magazines, the old grammaphone (remember that term?), The Lone Ranger, Amos and Andy and so many more radio programmes!



    God bless the "good old days" and selective memory!

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Rasener
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 06:20 AM

Oh the memories Bryn,

The gollywog on Robinsons Jam. Whatever happened to that?

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 05:36 AM

Deal me in.

Remember Black Sambo bubbly gum (am I allowed to say that ?) - Black Jacks at 4 for a penny (1d !) Fruit Salad ditto ; hard Spanish ; 2oz of kali for 3d ;

Childrens' Saturday matinees at the pictures, and the posh kids - those who didn't wear pumps in summer and wellies or clogs in winter - were the ABC minors and sat in the ninepenny seats ;

Proper football boots that had to be dubbined ; scooters with large wheels for Christmas ;

You got a door key on your 21st birthday and not a second before ;

Polices on foot ;

Penny candles for farting matches and for going to the petty in the dark at end of yard ;

Mam saying to Da - how many times have I t tell you to bring the plastic bucket up - that enamel one makes too much row !

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Michael
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 05:10 AM

When we were all out we locked the door (back - front doors were for funerals) and hung the key on the nail in the coalhouse. Thats what EVERYBODY did. We never put the nail there, presumably houses were built with one in!

Mike

Subject: RE: BS: Old Farts Thread
From: Rasener
Date: 19 Oct 07 - 05:07 AM

I beleive you John. A move anywhere from Birmingham was good enough LOL Actually my first move from Brum was Graingmouth in Scotland. Hoots mon.

At our old address in Market Rasen 2 years ago, we left our front doors open the whole day and left things like bikes in the front garden. Even forgot to lock the doors at night most of the time. We never got broken in to or anything nicked.
Shame we don't feel the same way at out new address in Market rasen.