Tag Archives: memories

christmas, history, Holidays, memories, Winter

A 1950s Christmas

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I know I said I was taking a break until after New Year,but yesterday I got to thinking of Christmas when I was a child, and how it differed from now. I can’t leave it until New Year as Christmas is over then, so decided to write it now.

I was three years old. I woke on Christmas Day excited to see what Father Christmas had brought me. My tummy felt churned up. Had he been? Had I been a good enough girl to receive presents.

Then I saw him. He was wrapped in red cellophane and peeked over the edge of the pillowcase left for Santa to fill.

Teddy.

I jumped out of bed and rushed to tear open the cellophane and release him. My wonderful teddy bear. I still have him. He sits on a set of drawers in my bedroom. He now has no eyes, the moths got his paws and he’s lost his growl, but I still love him.

I can’t remember what other presents I got, but I know one would have been a book from my Mum’s friend, Auntie Catherine. She wasn’t a real aunt, but we called all family friends Auntie and Uncle. Auntie Catherine was always good for a book to read.

We caught a bus to the local town. Not everyone had cars in those days and we had to rely on public transport. The buses were every fifteen minutes past our house and the journey took around a half hour. Once at the bus terminus we walked to Grandma’s house. I confess, I don’t remember catching the bus to Grandma’s. But I don’t remember getting there any other way. There wouldn’t have been a full bus service, though.

The first thing we did was to go and inspect the Christmas Tree that Grandma had in the hall. I shivered as we entered. There was no heating there.

The tree stood tall and beautiful. Grandma had gone into a little room off her bedroom and got it out. She had the same tree for as many years as I can remember, and I loved helping to decorate it. The same baubles came out every year. I can still remember some of them, especially a bird with a tail made of some kind of fibres. The baubles, or shiny balls as we called them, we’re made of glass and had to be handled carefully. No lights, though. They weren’t common then. Maybe they weren’t available.

We had a goose for many years that Grandma cooked in the small kitchen she called the scullery. Vegetables were cooked, potatoes roasted and stuffing made. All in this tiny space.

My mum had made Christmas puddings. She always made them a year in advance so they could mature, and there was homemade mincemeat, too, stuffed into mince pies. Nothing shop bought. Of course, there were limits to what people could buy at that time. In the early 50s there was still rationing from WW2, but I don’t remember being short of anything. But I suppose many memories have blurred together in my mind.

Grandad sat in his chair in the corner of the room where everything happened. (Confusingly, Grandma called it the kitchen!) He smoked his pipe sitting by the open fire. This was the only fire at the moment. Later, just before dinner–at midday–one was lit in the front room, commonly known as The Room.

This room was only used on special occasions. Then the aunts and uncles arrived and the table was opened up and set. We all ate a good meal, but didn’t stuff ourselves. The goose was perfectly cooked, and even the sprouts tasted good. Vegetables were seasonal. Sprouts and carrots I think were the most commonly eaten. Supermarkets and goods shipped from around the world didn’t exist.

After eating and clearing up we repaired to The Room. Here we played games. When my little sister and cousins came on the scene, it was tradition for us to go around the family shaking hands and singing ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas.’ Before they were born I did it all by myself.

One game we played was Feather Football. We divided into teams and a large sheet was stretched between four people. A feather from a pillow was placed in the centre. The object was to blow it off the sheet at the opponents’ end. We also played charades, hunt the thimble and other such games.

One time I remember being blindfolded and told to stand on a board. Two uncles lifted the board.I felt my head hit something. “Ah, they’ve lifted me up to the ceiling,” I thought.“Jump off,” said one of my uncles.

“What?” I thought. “I’m up high.” But I jumped nevertheless.

Imagine my surprise when I landed immediately. The board had only been lifted a few inches. What I thought was the ceiling was a book.

Then came the singing. We were a musical family. My youngest aunt, who was a music teacher, played carols and we all joined in, singing in harmony, of course. Then everyone did their ‘party piece’.

We had fun. No TV or radio. No video games. Just everyone joining in.

I have no memory of getting home in those early days. I don’t suppose buses would be running, and Grandma didn’t have room for us to stay. Not when I was three as her two youngest children were still at home.

I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse of Christmas long ago. (Yes, it was long ago, wasn’t it. Historical to some of you.)

Please leave any comments in the comments box. I enjoy the connection we have.

Have a very Merry Christmas and an excellent New Year.

memories

Memories 3

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Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

I recently read a post about recycling and it made me think about past years. After WW2, there were shortages of many things, and ‘make do and mend’ became the norm. But even before that, much was reused. I read that Jane Austen bought ribbons and lace to bring her old dresses up to the latest fashion.

But this post is entitled ‘Memories’ and I think I should stick to what I remember.

Recycling, or repurposing, isn’t a new thing. It’s been going on as long as humans have existed. In fact, it’s our own age that has changed. We now live in an era of throw away. In the 40s, 50s and 60s things were not thrown away after a brief use.

Thinking back to the times I remember, my grandmother used to darn socks. If a sock had a hole, she wouldn’t throw it away, but get out her ‘darning mushroom’ and wool, and mend the hole in the sock.

Food wasn’t thrown away unless it was bad. It was either reused for a different meal, maybe along with other leftovers, or, if it were something that had bones, the bones were used to make stock. The stock was then used in soups, casseroles and for gravy. (Incidentally, gravy wasn’t made from a packet, but from the juices of the meat, thickened with some flour. It’s much nicer than packet stuff.)

50 years ago, if you had something that your child had grown out of, you passed it on to a friend or family who had a child a bit younger. It was then often passed on again. Children’s clothes could be made from adults’ clothes that were a bit worn in places.

People took shoes to the cobbler to get them mended when they started to wear out.

Milkmen brought milk to the door in pint bottles. These bottles were made of glass and people washed them and put them out for the milkman to reuse. Similarly, bottles containing pop were made of glass. When you took them back to the shop, you got a small amount of money. I can’t remember how much, but it was probably something in the region of a penny. Children used to go round and collect them in order to get the money. A good way to supplement their pocket money.  

Newspapers, I remember, were cut into squares, hung on a string and used as toilet paper. This wasn’t as awful as it sounds, as the toilet paper of the time was hard and very scratchy. The newspaper was probably softer than the toilet paper, which was more like greaseproof paper than our current toilet paper.

Old, worn out knitted garments (probably hand knitted) were often unravelled and knitted into something else. I do remember my grandmother knitting my school cardigans. I was very jealous of those friends and classmates who had shop bought cardigans!

And clothes were mended or patched. Sleeves of men’s jackets often had leather patches on them where the elbows had worn, but the rest of the jacket was in good condition. Trouser knees were often patched, too.

When I was first married, I had some bedroom furniture that an aunt was getting rid of as she had bought a new bedroom suite. In fact, I had the dressing table until this year when I gave it to a charity that sells old furniture. It was from the 1920s and was solid oak, so was an antique. Nowadays, the young newlyweds all want something new.

Do you have any memories of recycling?  Let us know in the comments below.

If you would like to receive an exclusive, free short story by me, called The Haunted Table, simply click the link. This will take you to the page where you can download it.

Maria and Tom have bought an antique table for the old cottage they have bought. When they hear strange noises in the night that sound like crying, they worry their house is haunted, but the sounds seem to come from the table.

They set about trying to find what is causing the disturbances. The answer is stranger than either of them had thought.

(Clicking the link will add your email address to my email list, but don’t worry, you can unsubscribe immediately if you wish. Nor will you get any spam. I only send out an email each quarter, or if I have any exciting news–like a new release.)

  

School

Memories 1. Early Schooldays

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They say you always remember your first day art school. Well I must be strange as I don’t specifically remember that day.

My first school was nearly a mile from my home. I don’t remember being taken by an adult at all, although I must have been for the first few days at least. What I do remember is walking with a girl a few years older than me. I can’t see this happening now: a slightly older child being allowed to take a 5-year-old to school for nearly a mile!

I remember my first teacher. Her name was Mrs Rose, and she was lovely. She had white hair and was rather plump. At least, that’s the picture I have of her all these decades ago. We all thought she was as old as the hills. She loved her ‘babies’ as she called us.

Then I went up to Mrs Buckley’s class. She was as different as you could imagine from Mrs Rose. She was very strict and ruled her class with a rod of iron (almost literally.) If you got your sums wrong, you got rapped across the knuckles with a ruler.

The desks were double desks with an inkwell in the right hand corner of each half. We weren’t allowed to use ink, though, as we were only just learning to write and would have made a mess. Pencil was the rule. By the way, we were taught how to hold a pencil. I wonder if children are taught to do so today as many of the young people I see hold their pens in a most peculiar way. Not a way where you can have fine control. I’ve tried it.

I don’t think that there was a fixed timetable. It seemed that the teachers taught what they wanted whenever the fancy took them. I say this, because we never knew when we were going to have what was called ‘painting’. It was always in the afternoon. Sometimes we’d go in after lunch and find the desks pushed together so four could sit facing each other. When this happened, we went into the classroom and said ‘Oh good! It’s painting.’ We never knew when this treat was going to happen.

Another thing that we enjoyed, but only happened from time to time, as I remember it was ‘drill’. This would now be called P.E. Drill consisted of going out into the school yard and lining up in rows. It was a bit like you see on films of the 2nd world war when soldiers are training. Marching on the spot, star jumps, arms up, out, forward and back. Things like that. We never played any team games. But we enjoyed our drill. It was outdoors, at least.

Strangely, I don’t remember having any friends at this school, but I did have an enemy. One girl bullied me. She used to hit me if I didn’t do what she said. Some of the other children were sympathetic, but no one would even consider going to a teacher about it.

I will continue with my early school memories in another post.

Do you have any early school memories? Let us know in the comments box.

If you would like to receive an exclusive, free short story by me, called The Haunted Table, simply click the link. This will take you to the page where you can download it. This story cannot be accessed by any other means.

Maria and Tom have bought an antique table for the old cottage they have bought. When they hear strange noises in the night that sound like crying, they worry their house is haunted, but the sounds seem to come from the table.

They set about trying to find what is causing the disturbances. The answer is stranger than either of them had thought.

(Clicking the link will add your email address to my email list, but don’t worry, you can unsubscribe immediately if you wish. Nor will you get any spam. I only send out an email each quarter, or if I have any exciting news–like a new release.)