Introduction
People on social media are forever posting pictures of their fond memories of the past. If you were born in the 1980s or before, life seemed to run at a much slower pace as a child. You were obsessed with getting older and felt like a day was as long as a week. It snowed more, and television was not the medium of hundreds of channels but just three before 1982. It was subject to a midnight shutdown, rounded off with a film and a rendition of God Save The Queen. The milkman trundled around the streets on a cold, frosty morning, delivering your milk, cream, orange juice, eggs, bread, Corona fizzy drink in glass bottles with metal tops you take back and claim the ten pence back. If you fortunate enough in life, you could even afford the thick creamy, Jersey gold top milk that people used to pour on the odd desert.
This was a time when your local newsagents was a bazaar of necessary products. The daily newspapers, penny sweets, and sweets weighed out from glass jars into paper bags. Cough candies, sherbert lemons, cola cubes and multi-coloured chocolate buttons. Sherbet dib dabs, sherbet fountains, chocolate bars that filled you up and Polo packets that came in a mint and fruit variety. The sweet and novelty machine outside the shop, where you inserted a coin in the slot and turned the handle and a plastic surprise came out. Terry’s chocolate oranges, Kinder eggs and a wealth of chocolate boxes likes Black Magic, Carousel, Spartan, Elizabeth Shaw Famous Names Liqueurs, York Fruits, Milk Tray and metal tins of Quality Street. You could even buy single cigarettes and a box of matches were a necessity.
The Golden Age
This was a time when the coal man came to deliver your coal, wood and fire lighters. Your parents took you to Woolworths for a treat and every town centre had a butcher’s, baker’s and half-day closing on a Wednesday. Power cuts were a norm and strikes left many a supermarket shelf without bread or necessary supplies. Yet as a child, you were oblivious to the world as it whizzed by. You were just happy to play hop-scotch on chalked squares on the pavement or race around the park on your prized BMX or Raleigh Chopper. The orange-inflated Space Hopper you bounced around on or a game of Swing Ball in the garden. Running home after school to watch The Magic Roundabout, Bod, Bagpuss, Whacky Races, Newsround or Blue Peter. Your parents cooking you a big tea with Artic Roll as a treat for desert.
The Parker jacket, brown cords, paisley pyjamas and a cosy coal fire in the front room. Candles when the lights went out and an electric meter you fed with a mountain of coins. The television you rented from Radio Rentals and the fridge and cooker your parents bought on higher purchase. You shopped in Bejam, sparsely stocked Tesco and a freezer was a luxury. The bread was spread with Stork or St. Ivel Gold if you were lucky and you always had a supply of Ski yoghurts. A Fray Bentos steak and kidney pudding or pie were boiled up in a pan or the oven to fill your stomach and your mum drew faces on boiled eggs to make you eat them, accompanied by a pile of bread soldiers and a steaming cup of tea. This could be Typhoo, PG Tips or Tetley. Coffee came out as a treat, Mellow Birds, Maxwell House, Nescafe and your grandparents always had a bottle of Camp coffee in the cupboard with a tin of Carnation or sweet condensed milk.
This was a time when you had to get up to change the television channel and Easter eggs were huge and had a mountain of gifts inside. Christmas crackers actually banged when you pulled them and the Christmas tree stayed up until the end of Christmas. Pine needles littered the carpet and you sneaked downstairs on Christmas morning to take a peek at what presents were for you under the tree. The huge turkey, the smell of Brussel sprouts and the Christmas dinner covered in thick gravy and adorned with a splodge of cranberry sauce. Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies or The Queen’s Speech sounded out in the background and Christmas wrapping paper littered the front room carpet.
The TV and Radio Times always took pride of place on the coffee table and you were lucky if had a house telephone. People used to write letters to each other and you had to use a telephone box if you wanted to make an outside call. The buses finished early and you used to walk to places or thumb a lift. The pubs called time with a brass bell and people surged to the bar for last orders. A time when you could have a good night out for ten pounds or less and you could leave your house key under the door mat. A time when you spoke to and knew your neighbours and a holiday was a week away to somewhere in the UK. An era when the Blue Tits used to peck holes in your milk bottle tops, you scraped ice off your car windscreen, you could get snowed into your house and you had to start your car with a choke and one that had a cylindrical cigarette lighter that you pressed in and it glowed red when it was ready to use.
As Mrs Thatcher, James Callaghan or Harold Wilson governed and the Cold War raged in Europe, life was far more simple as a child. As long as you had your supply of sweets and pop, amongst friends and had a good game to play in the street or park, you were as happy as Larry. You could come home, covered in mud and have a steaming bath ready for you. Scrubbed with Pear’s soap and hair washed with Vosene, you came out clean and ready to go. Perhaps it was that Mr Matey’s bubble bath that did the trick and the fluffy towel that rubbed you dry. A bygone era with so many fond memories!
