Memories From Childhood

[curlyfries81]

What lovely things do you remember from your childhood that you just don't see today?

I remember going out picking elderberries to make wine for the "oldies", going to the shop for a 10p mix and taking the bottle back to the cornershop to get some pennies back.

I used to hate christmas pudding but remember the elation when I found 20p in the pudding. 

I remember going outside to play and joining in with all the other kids in the neighbourhood with skipping games and so on and then eventually being called in for my dinner - sadly those days are gone.

What are your fondest memories of childhood that you don't see any more?

[barry1010]

I've just remembered my nose would start spurting blood if anyone shouted at me, it was quite dramatic at times.  I grew out of it but still get random nose bleeds

[curlyfries81]

I would have nosebleeds too in my early teenage years, especially after eating something chewy like toffee. 

[bookbinder]

When I was about 8 or 9 years old, I had a pair of pram wheels that were connected by an axle. We lived at the top of a hill, and I would sit on the axle and ride down the hill. The only way that I could stop was by pressing my boot heels hard on the pavement. I realised, many years later, that that wore my boot heels down to a shocking degree. Yet, my widowed mother (working in a mill for a poor wage) never, ever criticised me for causing her the expense of having my boots repaired.

[curlyfries81]

I had a lump in my throat reading that, Bookbinder.

[bhg481]

There were very few cars about in the late 50s/early 60s so most people worked very locally and travelled by bus to Blackburn/Burnley/Preston by bus for a day out. I occasionally went to watch Accrington Stanley play football because I got a ride in a car. Nowadays it's a treat for children to have a ride on a bus as they usually go by car.

[New Judge]

"I used to hate christmas pudding but remember the elation when I found 20p in the pudding."

20p? That's four shillings!

6d if we were well off that year. 3d if not. My sister swllowed a tanner one year. My mum waited for "nature to take its course" before recovering the coin.

[fender62]

we made our own fun, so many things crikey erm, climbing trees, racing bicycles if you had one? swimming in rivers lakes, building dens, for me learning to repair things (made a difference in later life) erm hide n seek i could go on, never enough time in the day, unlike helicopter parents today...

[Ken4155]

7 or 8 years of age and going to my first football match at Turf Moor with my dad and his brother. It was an evening kick-off and Burnley beat Northampton town 4-1. I still remember how wonderful the atmosphere was. That was the night a life-long love-affair began and though we've had our ups and down, we're still together 😉

Just 2 years later, i was allowed to go to the games with a slightly older friend.

[bhg481]

Supermarkets - we didn't have any. All shops were local; we had a cornershop, a bakers, a cobblers, two chippies, an ironmongers, a butchers, a milliners, a sweet shop, a fruit shop  and a newsagent all within half-a-mile. The fruit shop used to sell door-to-door with a horse drawn cart; the horse knew its route and would go from customer to customer with little input from the owner. Unfortunately there was a "Halt" sign and the route which the horse refused to recognise so the driver had to get a passer-by to check for a clear junction before he could let the horse leave the previous cuctomer.

[brainiac]

A man driving round slowly with a horse and cart calling out 'COAL BRIQUETTES' in a sing-song voice that's still in my head.

No coal briquettes nowadays!

[curlyfries81]

I remember the days of individual shops. I miss the fishmongers too - they have all but disappeared from most towns and villages. 

I used to love olde worlde pubs too. I hate the ways some of these have become Wetherspoons or something equally horrid like a cheap carvery. 

[barry1010]

If you are not getting a satisfactory service from your GP, file a complaint here

https://www.england.nhs.uk/contact-us/about-nhs-services/contact-your-local-integrated-care-board-icb/

[barry1010]

Sorry, wrong thread

[curlyfries81]

Wrong thread it may be but I do remember the days when you did get a satisfactory service from your GP - i.e. the days before mass immigration and lazy Doctors. 

[bhg481]

Our town was a mill town; the mills closed down for the last 2 weeks in July (Wakes weeks) and the town died - nothing was open. My dad got a job with a company whose HQ was in Burnley, so he got Burnley's holiday fortnight, the first 2 weeks in July, so he worked our holiday weks. I remember the paper shop was closed and a man sat outside with all the papers spread around him for anybody who wanted to buy one.

[Canary42]

Trust some twerp to pollute a lovely nostalgic thread with politics. 

[Canary42]

Living on the coast and going down to the beach unaccompanied, joining up with other children and bathing in the sea.

[curlyfries81]

What an unnecessary comment, Canary42. Please don't pollute this thread with bitterness - this is about happy memories of days gone by. 

[barry1010]

I remember the hot chestnut and baked potato sellers, as well as the newspaper vendors in their little booths, 'Spatch n Mail, getcha Spatch n Mail'.

The wonder of getting the pink Argus on the way home from the match - how did they do it so quickly?  I used to cut out the reports of my team's match, and the league table, and stick them in my scrapbook.   

[bhg481]

That reminds me of trips to Blackburn on a Saturday - you could buy roast potatoes from a small van in the street where they were roasting them and sometimes buy a Sunday paper on a Saturday evening.