Not Dead Yet - Forum

http://oldfortyfives.com/TakeMeBackToTheFifties.htm

This will take you back.

Thanks for that Val!!  have some 50s in Computer and  often have a "Sing a Long"  keeps me going ?????

Hi Phoenix, why don't you join in the music riddle?

Time is really getting 'Divided' -- and it is hard to complete things as we are now. I am going into my music more to relax my heavy head ????

I see,Phoenix. In Germany we say you are "switching off" when you are listening to the music.

Not at all!!  I am reminising about the 40/50/60s. Wishing the standards and the people of today, were more 'familiar' of how life progressed in a steady way, that was easy to understand and accept --- before any corruption!!

It was in the sixties that the German "Wirtschaftswunder" started - before there were bombed towns, no work and currency reform.
True the time of "petticoats" and Rock and Roll was a nice time, but when I think back what a lot of ironing, too.

Teri I agree !!!! we used to wash our net underskirts in sugar so it would dry stiff lol but it was never stiff enough was it ? lol

AH!!!!   The Days of The 'DIRNDYL Skirt' ???
AH!!!!   The Great Dancing Days ????????
YES!!!   I remember Them Well !!!!!

Val that was brilliant and although I am in the UK recognised most of the features especially the music. It brought memories flooding back to me and oh how I wish for those good old days again. Thank you.

Hi Elizabeth, glad you enjoyed them, we heard most of them here [UK] anyway thats why I posted it, I loved the days when I could hear the words to songs, not sure if thats to do with my hearing or the sound these days  ;D,

Val, Nothing to do with your Hearing!!  There is No Voice power today, only shouting and the Mike in the mouth.
Remember the music halls ?? no close mics: yet could hear quite clearly -- No Mic: Impediment ???  Oh ! Yes!  The 'Artists' where smartly Dressed, lovely Voices and --- No jumping about on stage!! --- Great!!

Yes Val...thank you for the thread and the chestnut one too
  I can go around the chestnut trees near me and pick up quite a few...the school boys/girls leave them as they go
back to school...and the 60s music was not quite my scene
As i am a big band man and boy...records at four shillings
and tuppence halfpenny each...Glen Miller...my favourite.
  In my young days in the late 1950/s ballroom dancing was still in...you did rock and roll and you were thrown out.
  we went to a sixpenny hop with a live band on Saturdays.

mention of rock and roll of the 50s reminds me when I first met my girlfriend who became my wife.Dancing or should I say bopping to those early rock songs were great, wish I could do them now :-\

Rocking round the clock to Bill Hayley in a flared skirt with a big belt,and then trying to get on a scooter in a very very tight skirt ......... ::)

The headmaster at my Grammar School assaulted a few boys with a cane, and punished an unknown boy who refused to stand on the bus for a female prefect by detaining all the boys, who caught that bus home after school, for two hours for a week, to punish the culprit! :o :o :o 
How things have changed!

I( am willing to bet that those youths grew uo to be good citizens.we all got that dreaded cane, it didnt do us any harm. How on earth can these do-gooders say that corpoal punishment dosnt work, it worked for us.

Mac, times have changed. Boys and girls are no longer dancing rock'n roll, but destroying whatever they get between their hands.

Same here Teri and we are powerless to stop it !
I thank God my kids were born when they were and not now.

mac, there are a lot of good kids out there, I think of them and try to reward good behaviour and try to improve or ignore bad if possible, just like training dogs!

I agree Norman in fact most of the awful behaviour is by drunk or drugged up 30 somethings, imo but I could be wrong, I seem to get nothing but help from the youngsters here when my naughty dog disappears down their skatepark looking in their bags for food.They always offer to get him for me if he goes too far in the bowl.

I know Norman,I have 7 g/kids and they are all diciplined but not mistreated,they are all very much loved, therefor all are doing very well,their parents work long hours but they always have dinner together even if its 9pm,and sundays are family days..............oh and dog days too lol
One day a week they each get up early so they can have breakfast together this can be 6am sometimes but they do it,and it works.If you put the effort in you will reap the rewards.
I dont think its the children its the type of parents they have thats the problem they are the ones who set the example.
Norman training dogs is a lot easier  ;D ;D

Good to see the optimism,val and mac. Our dog agility trainer for example is only 17, but is a national champion, very talented, set up his own business and website. Looking back, many of those born during the War were taking drugs and losing self-discipline during the Sixties, did it all start there? I was a square, or even a cube, so avoided all that!

oh là,là Mac - what a wonderful picture!

No Norman,I missed the drugs thing myself,was well brought up me !!! lol and not only that never had the money
actually I tell a lie we were actually very poor,but we knew right from wrong and never needed drugs to be happy,we were happy in a way cos we knew no different !
I would say 70s if it all went wrong,but not sure.I was blessed with a loving family,and a great hubby too !

We were very poor also mac, and my father took me out of school at age 15 to earn some money. I cannot forget the days when we played marbles in the gutter, football in the street, and other games like tipcat, and knock the bobby down and topsy with cigarette cards, and handstands up a wall. Hardly a car to be seen.  An orange and one piece of chocolate at Christmas, not locking the doors, no graffiti that I remember, calling adults Mr or Mrs, no toothpaste or brushhes, outside loo, torn up newspaper on a nail. Bet you remember something like this!lol

I sure do remember it all Norman you missed out marbles,and whip and top,hop scotch lol ohhh and the tar in the cobbles when the sun was hot and it melted lol yuck !!!
how come I still got all my own teeth ? I think its because we never had the sugary things.
maybe the kids of today have too much material things ?

Those simple games! We had bags of marbles, and placed one or two each in the middle of the road. Then we rolled big marbles or ball bearings at them, and kept any we hit, until all were gone.
Cards, we propped one up against a wall, and flicked others at it until it fell, and you won it. Topsy, kept flicking cards until you overlapped one, which you won. Tipcat, overlap a tapered piece of wood on the kerb edge, and whack it with a big stick. It would fly up and was known to break windows. The opponents then threw it back to try to land in your chalked square, to get you out. Hopscotch must be universal, we had to do it in the right order. What was whip and top? Oh yes, rounders, and jack jack shine a light, and don't step on the pavement cracks- there must be books on  old street games and their names in regions!
I'm afraid I ruined a lot of my teeth, as I spent any spare coppers on sweets and fizzy pop, but dentists have done a salvage job since age 16.
Did I read you have started Christmas shopping? How did it go? I await the evil hour when I'm told to write my cards..
On Saturday, I have been invited to play the grand piano for fun in a Church near Swindon, where I went to a wedding recently, and had a little dabble on it and held up the coach going home!

Hey Norman the christmas shopping lasted 4 and a half hours   ::) and I only got a new scarf and gloves !!!!
but I did get stiff hips the next day lol
Whip and top was where you had a stick with string on it and you wrapped it around a spinning top and pulled and it spun round you then had to keep it going for as long as poss.by whipping it.We did that after we had donkey stoned the flags lol
Hey you must be good on the piano Norm,they dont ask you back if you are no good ! what you gonna play ? something lively they can sing along to  8)

We too plated those games. I left school at 14 started work day after boxing day, my mates who were still at school had 2 weeks of, that hurt. While at school used to do a morning and evening paper round,up at 6.30 push a railway barrow up the hill to meet the paper train,(it took 3 of us)load the papers on 3 of us to take it down the hill. then in the shop, sort the papers into our paper bags and then deliver them in hail rain or snow.if we were lucky and got finished in time , home for a dripping sarny, if not it was to school hungry. Good old days, not sure, look back on them with nostalgia tho.

hi mac, never saw whip and top round our way. Not that good, I play using the chord method, that is using left hand chords either block, broken, or arpeggio, and right hand melody mostly. Mostly self taught and from courses off the Net. I can't read and play left hand sheet music very well. Professionals often do the same, from fake books or lead sheets, and don't read music. As long as you have the chords and the melody, you can play any piece really, in the easier keys.
Anything goes for me, old standards, blues, rock, folk, hymns, classical. Rap is my only dislike. It's only for my pleasure, the Church Warden is there with some kids who might want something played from my repertoire. Awfully grand, aren't I?
In the chatroom the other day, I remember someone saying they had a keyboard, was it william I wonder?
And william, you had it harder than me because I only had to deliver papers! My father made me push an old pram a long way and back to a gas works to get coke, most Saturdays, as it was cheaper than being delivered. The bags were too heavy for me to lift, had to get someone to lift them from the chute and arrange in the pram. Surprisingly, it never broke down until I graduated to a pair of sack trucks. I always dreaded seeing someone I knew from school, but one day I passed a teacher, and he blanked me.
 

Hi Norman
the only music I dont like is Jazz.
You knock `em dead on saturday Norman  8)
I dont know if william has a key board or not.
You are lucky Norman I had to get coal and thats heavier than coke lol and do you remember coal bricks....useless they were I always thought,all they did was smoke lol
Do you remember the monkeys and the organ grinder ? and the ginger beer man ?rag and bone man I think you will know of.
I remember when I first saw a foreigner he was indian and selling things from a suit-case he had a turban on too !!! I was fascinated then,and the bookies in the back entries (ginnels) all very secretive since it was illegal lol

William you should have had your porridge first lol

the coke was in very big sacks mac! I got coal bricks as well ( briquettes?), on the bus, only quarter cwt but I was very little!
I will think of your support when i play, good job you haven't heard me.
I remember a rag and bone man, not the others. The first foreigners I remember were some Indians who moved in next door late forties. It was rather disconcerting to be seated in adjoining outside loos with both doing our business!

Ah the outside loo,hours spent cutting the Daily Herald in to squares, making a hole in the corner with a skewer.On a cold winters night you had to be bursting before you went.
No locks on the door, if you heard someone coming, you sang or whistled or coughed, sat there with your foot up against the door. If it was windy and let the paper go down it would blow back past you.heres a song we used ti sing while skipping.
The corporation muckcart was full up to the brim.
the corporation driver fell in and couldnt swim.
He sank to the bottom just like a little stone.
Then we heard him singing, Theres no place like home.

we got on all right with the three Indians named Singh next door, but they were rather highly sexed. they had white girls in ocasionally, including a female near neighbour whose father had a row with them in the street.
they were also charged with rape and assault on a young girl they met in a pub, and brought home. I heard shouting and screaming, and I and others were called as witnesses in Court to this. They got off the rape but not the assault, they claimed she asked for too much money for the sex.

This thread has certainly brought back some very happy memories  We played all the games mentioned near where i lived there was an area where some houses had been pulled down the rubble was left for yesrs There were quite a few children lived around so we used to make shops among all this rubble A roof slate with a stone on the back of it was a scale very tiny stones were sweets then a little larger for bread pieces of glass for money Oh the hours we spent being shopkeepers WHERE did it all go wrong

Pauline thats the million dollar question !
wish I had the answer

We've got too big and times have moved too fast, are there any locals in towns and villages left? It seems everyone is a stranger these days.

Bang on Val,it used to take hours to do the shopping here, because everyone you  knew and you stopped and had a word with them. Not now,i sometimes go down the village now and dont see anyone I know. So difficult to keep up with gossip lol

Take me back to the 50s and 60s!!  What a wonderful thought. Before  everything started to go just plain crazy. No one actually has The Answer, although many have asked. So many new Idea's are out there Today, but!! do they actually Work ?? Most people say NO!!  So why nor 'fall back' on 'Tried and tested methods' that Did work ?? ---- Ah!! Would Cost too much to Re- Implement????

As most of you know I have been away,it was one of those tinsel and turkey hols,so mostly pensioners,I went for my paper each morning and people I saw on the way smiled and said `good morning` this happened throughout the day !
So I am going to try it here ..............to see what happens I will let you know. :-\

I do it every morning mac when I take the dogs, you get all different sorts of people on the way to the beach, some going to work, children going to school, others just walking up to get their paper. Every person I pass I say good morning to and all respond, the only ones that don't are those that don't hear. Its funny sometimes to see the startled look, then the smile then the good morning some even stop and chat about the dogs. Its lovely seeing a glum face break into a smile. I always told my kids even if you feel down, smile and it tells your brain that you're happy and so you cheer up. It does seem to work.

Isnt it nice Val,ok we all got to make an effort to say good morning and see what happens !

I also wear a funny hat to keep the ears warm, it gets a bit blowy on the front but I don't expect you to wear that as well. :D

Lol Val,it was that windy my hair turned to straw lol
I went and got it cut off,then I had to buy a hat cos my head was cold !!!! so yeh I do wear one now  ;D

it helps to be leading a nice dog mac, if you're a man.
Norman + dog + greeting =  a reply or a smile, or a chat
Norman alone + greeting =  varied guarded responses

dogs seem to be a "babe magnet" as they say, why do women trust a man with a dog I'd like to know, and not always without one?

You are quite right Norman..........dont know the answer !
but its nice isnt it when people actually talk to you !

I think people are trusting the dog to know when someone is friendly ;D so if you've got a happy looking dog with you the thoughts are, well the dog loves him so he must be okay. I can see all sorts of holes in this way of thinking but it is first impressions.If you just glance smile and a quick good morning then look away no one is going to take you for a perv, most of the time its the shock of someone speaking that startles them.

Ah!! The sweet memories of  achnowledging People, with respect and maybe a little chat. was it not great??
 

I remember some if not most of the 50's with great niceness. Mothers were home looking after the Children and the house. People would stop and chat in the Street, sometimes for an hour at a time, Men would walk past and doff their caps to the Ladies.

Children were safe out playing in the local parks, and the apperatus in the park were of steel construction, swings made od Scaffolding and rope and the seats nothing more than an old tyre. Yes we would come home with a few bruises and cuts, but hey ho we were out there enjoying ourselves, if the injury needed to be seen in a hospital, straight down there and seen straightaway.

Oh if the Children of today could live the same life that we did??????

I think they do here mac,its the evenings that seems to bring out the druggies drunks and yobs, during the day I see the kids in the skate park, the mums and dads too. The playpark has usually got youngsters in during the holidays. I know some of the youngsters, they stop and speak or stroke the dogs, in fact I like living here, everyone seems to have a normal lifestyle it could be its a small place because Canterbury I hate, its like another world.

The 1950s!!  Great times. People were Happier and safer!!
less Crime fewer criminals about. The NHS. started in 1948, No ties with europe after helping 'them' out twice ??
 No 'elf and safety' idiots??  T'was another World, compared with Today!!

Going back to the 50s plus another 20years  Pheonix, living in a village, i remember we had 2 joiners shops, a blacksmiths,2 fish n chip shops, 2 veg and fruiterers, who went round the village for custome, 1 by van, 1 by horse and cart.milk was delivered by horse and cart, with milk churns and a half pint and a pint measure, coal was delivered in sack straight down the coal shoot. Parraffin man who sold hardware stuff. happy days.

Those simple and personal services gave us the pleasure of remembering them Today:  " The Personal Touch" --

Hope this works for you.if the link fails to open on a click, copy and paste to your browser.

http://worriersanonymous.org/Faith/Reading/Dave/Mademe.htm

50s werent my favourite time,we often had no shoes,and I being the eldest had to go for the coal or coal bricks,and take the rags to the rag yard !we were very often hungry too !
I much prefer the 60s  ;D

I liked that link Chris, just wish it was less American, I must admit I love all the modern stuff, computers,washing machines, dish washers and most of all central heating. I remember when the windows frosted up on the inside, the oven door was left open in the kitchen whilst we waited for the fire to get going and if anyone sat in front of it, the rest of the room was cold, all the doors had to be kept shut to keep the cold out.I like the freedom of modern times but miss the safety on the streets of years ago.

I miss the safety too Val
but most of all I miss sunday afternoons,when we all gathered at grandmas house,and someone would play the piano
then the home made scones would come out,and it was always best butter,not like it is now ! bought from the Co-Op loose lol as was the sugar and tea all in a blue sort of cone type packet.
I can taste them now...........mmmmm heavenly  ;D

Is'nt it amazing, just how much we remember from those days. That's why I buy the "Best of British" magazine, to keep me in conntact.

Chris, have placed the home page into my favourites, although my 'Web Guard' shows a warning ??

What Web Page have you saved to Favorites Pheonix???

As your above "worriersanonomous" ??