At the back of our house was waste ground where we built dens, using wriggly tin from WWII air raid shelters.
I found a Raleigh bike frame on that waste ground, used my paper round money to buy rims, tyres and brakes for it.
My first bike got me into trouble because, having no mudguards, the backs of all my clothes were always covered in mud.
ah yes elf and efficiency in black and white left so much to the imagination.Only full Brazilians were in the eateries of Rio 1
Usherettes with a tray of ice creams under a little lamp
Double cinema seats
Ready rubbed
Girls in Tights
Caramac
Picnic bars with crunchy exterior
Marathon bars, Marathon bar sessions
The Dandy the Beano the Sunday papers, vicar knobs scoutmistress weekly
Tizer, Corona, Harp Lager, Berni Inns Lyons Corner Houses
Bicycle clips , satchels,telegrams
Individual Fruit Pies on the train
Bubble and squeak, Vesta curry, Mulligatawny
Australian Plums in a can
The attached menu seems exotically delicious to me , I wonder how we survived.
All washed down with lashings of Ginger beer plus
Hirondelle a wine so fine served in Optics
For the ladies Warnicks advocat (Uncooked omelette with piss) Babycham and Cherry B
For the young suitor cheap fizzy sweet Lambrusco was the "guaranteed legopener' the Spy or Ladies drink of the aherm...clubs
A flavour of the era
" By the late 60s and early 70s dinner parties had become very popular, featuring the new fashionable ‘foreign’ dishes like Spaghetti Bolognese, often accompanied by wine. Before the 1960s wine was only drunk by the upper classes, everyone else drank beer, stout, pale ale and port and lemon. Now Blue Nun, Chianti and Mateus Rose were the wines of choice. Many spaghetti novices spent their evenings chasing their food around the plate attempting to catch it in the fork and spoon provided, whilst trying to avoid splattering themselves with thick tomato sauce."
Friends would give parents little nets of exotic spirits so undrinable not even dad would open, miniatures of sticky liquers.
More quotes
"Pre-dinner drinks were often accompanied by cubes of tinned pineapple and cheddar cheese on sticks, stuck into a melon or grapefruit to look like a hedgehog – the height of 60s sophistication!Also at this time, chains of restaurants such as the Berni Inns began to appear in every British town and city, serving the classic 1970s favourites of Melon or Prawn Cocktail, Mixed Grill or Steak, and Black Forest Gateau or Lemon Meringue Pie for dessert.
The only takeaway option being the chippy, the odd chinese. Remember going to veerasamy in London, my Uncle spent much of WW2 in India and around and he took us. His neighbour a Col was married to an Indian lady and she taught me mum how to cook curries in the late 60's - very racey for those days.
Listening to Van Morrison reminded me of a standard "treat"
Imagine that white foam used for punctures , now stick it in a cheap chocky biscuit and you have the Wagon Wheels as the afters for some Big D nuts
which planters buried
Seldom visited "arry flashem at the greeengrocer
assumed it was for rabbits or foreigners
Meanwhile mothers baked
Yes so to sum up, Riley over to you
Cashing in our thruppence returns, then paper-rock-scissor for who climbs the wall to retrieve the bottles; good earner.
Walking to/from school past the local arsenal where hundreds of rifles and thousands of bullet boxes were sometimes left unattended.
Getting on a bus and giving a destination in the other direction, for a free ride.
Padding the butt with cotton wool wrapped in a handkerchief when you know you're due four or six of the best. Never did understand why they called it the best.
Grabbing whatever you want at the local grocers because mum's paying on Friday. Never mind the consequences, that'll come later.
Good days.
And cigarette cards, come mum, dad keep up the chain smoking
We had our own cigarette machine in the lounge. Somebody came around every week to refill the locked wooden dispenser.
They also tallied up the missing ones skilfully extracted, with a sharp knife and tweezers, without paying the day before payday.
The thrill when the leccy man or gas man came to empty the meter. Watching him count out the shilling coins at the bottom of the stairs. Would we get a refund or would he find the foreign coins?
Being taken into town shopping and always stopping at the Lyons coffee shop for a fizzy drink for me and a milky coffee for mum, plus the ecstasy of a fresh cream meringue.
A tray full of GOLD is not worth a moment in time.
Kardomah aroma the real grinder
and for those who recall the unequalled Kunzle showboat cakes now sadly unavailable.The pleasure is up there with sex on mescalin or overtaking on a blind corner while on LSD sucking space dust on a Triumph bra, sans pareil
https://www.davidpilling.com/wiki/index.php/Kunzle
I worked in a bakery in Copenhagen , seen French and Viennese patisserie my bros a top chef royal banquets etc but nothing topped Kunzle, the Austrian refugee in the Midlands
Sacher and Demel eat your heart out the crumbs in the box better than Emtermanns
The Fondue.
The copper. Under the draining board next to the sink. For boiling whites. Dads shirts, nappies, net curtains and bedding. The wooden tongues used to extract boiled laundry, and put it through the hand operated ringer.
Nylon shirts, jesus they used to be a nightmare. like walking around in your own personal sauna.
Watching the moon landing
Wimpey was gross (now), but great (then); lugging home a gallon of paraffin and an ounce of dark shag; no yellow lines; anyone with a ball was king of the street; watching them realign the trolley rails; 3d cupcakes at Lyons; first job at Woolies; clothes two sizes big; spending a penny in the underground bog; weekly bath; getting beat up for drawing moustache and beard on big sis' Cliff poster; discovering an easy pinball to rack up and sell credits...
Taking most of the day to get from bexley to cornwall in dads sunbeam rapier. Toilet stops, food stops, breakdowns. We take for granted car reliability now. You had to have more than a passing mechanical understanding to commit to a long journey in the 60's
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