Food in the 50's

[Kestrel]

Just noticed this topic now.

Memories

The sight of my father in his old RAF jacket growing vegetables in the back garden. My grandparent's long back garden that had every time of fruit imaginable and the crab apple jelly made by my grandmother from one of several varieties of apple trees in the garden. We used this as you would with jam. I haven't seen it since she died aged 93 in 1976.
Going around the garden path time and time again on my treasured tricycle, much to the annoyance of our pet Alsatian.
Listening to the Archers in the evening and the omnibus edition on a Sunday morning.
Lying in the bath on a Sunday evening listening to the Top 20 on Radio Luxembourg on a little Perdio transistor radio.
Five Boys chocolate bars? There used to be a machine that had them for 2½d on the landing stage at New Brighton ferry.
Fry's green marzipan bars? They were like the chocolate cream bars but with a different filling.
Cadbury's Creme Eggs were out around the same time. My primary school (1953-1960) used to enter an essay competition run by Cadbury's and everyone received a Creme Egg.
Duncan's Walnut Whip. A conical swirl of chocolate with a walnut in the base and on top of the cone.
Penny Arrows. A chewy sweet that came in strips about ¾" wide x about 4" long. They started in spearmint and then, wait for it, a new flavour came out, banana.
Jubblys. When you eventually opened them and gently squeezed the pack to get the frozen lump out far enough to start sucking, it would slip out like a rocket and end up on the floor.
The Melody Maker that came out on Thursdays was never as good as the NME that was out on a Friday. The NME is still going today but in magazine form.
The 1/3 pt of milk that you used to get at school at 10:00am. If it was your turn to distribute them, you could have as many as you wanted.
The tuck shop at grammar school that sold 4 Mojos for a 1d. A Mojo was a little chewy white spearmint sweet. Prefects were allowed to go behind the counter and serve.
When the only way of buying bacon was having it cut on the machine at Irwin's or Pegram's.
I remember when Club Biscuits started. It was in the early 50s and we lived next to a woman who worked at Jacob's in Liverpool. Every Wednesday she would come home with a bag of 'brokes', biscuits that had been broken and rejected on the production line. In those days there was just one flavour.
On all the preceding pages, I only saw SPAM mentioned once. I still eat it now, especially the 'Black Pepper' version. You need a glass of water after that.
Having a dollop of blackcurrant jam on your rice pudding that was made with pearl rice, the only type available. Having bread and butter pudding made from the left overs of a stale loaf.
When the only way of eating spaghetti was in a milk pudding with a sprinkling of cinnamon on the top.
Going to the butcher's and asking for half a pound of steak, minced because Mum didn't like the look of the ready minced mince as she didn't know what was in it. It might even have been horse then.
In the 50s, you used to be able to post something in the morning and receive it in the afternoon on the same day.
Going on the 60 bus and dropping off a broken Hornby Dublo N2 at Binns Road on a Saturday morning and going back at lunchtime to pick it up, repaired free of charge.
Looking in Hatton's window (the original shop next to a florist) whilst waiting for the 60 bus after visiting my grandparents.
The window cleaner that had been shell shocked in the war that called every Friday whether the windows needed cleaning or not. He was paid 1/- (a shilling).
The glazier that used to ride a bicycle carrying a pane of glass.
The coal man with his horse and cart.
The scrap iron man with his horse and cart but nobody could understand what he shouted out.

[StevieG]

...the mobile knife sharpener, who came around on his bicycle which had some sort of grinding wheel attachment that it drove?

- The inevitable all-sorts 'tuck-shop' a stone's throw from primary school, which had to be on your route home (walking! of course - over a mile for me [so what? - we thought nothing of it] ), and had outside a trolley-frame that carried several cube-like metal boxes at 45 degrees, with hinged glass lids - inside which were varieties of broken lovely biscuits, loose, sold by weight!

- the amazing modernity portrayed by Lyons Maid's new 'ZOOM' Fireball XL5-ish rocket-like ice lolly.

[Kestrel]

...the mobile knife sharpener, who came around on his bicycle which had some sort of grinding wheel attachment that it drove?

Have a look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxly222EE0U

[mr B]

and appart from the xmas annuals , the only other books would be your treasured Ian Allen ABC and I spy on a train journey

worst of all was on returning home you found out that they'ed drowned the kittens

mr B

[Mickey]

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[giner]

Don't laugh, but we still do a couple of songs by Buddy Holly and Cliff Richard in our duo. All ages still like them.

[StevieG]

...the mobile knife sharpener, who came around on his bicycle which had some sort of grinding wheel attachment that it drove?

Have a look at this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxly222EE0U

Looks close enough. Much obliged Kestrel.

How about giving your long-known milkman pre-agreed weekend morning assistance in doorstep deliveries for the hour or so that it took to do your neighbourhood for about five 'bob' (but not his whole round because you couldn't be seen out/in the depot as you were under-age for being an official assistant)?

Or, as you had no 'phone (?and maybe neither did he?), Mum asking you to ride your bicycle two miles each way to the other side of town, to the chimney sweep's house to ask him (or his wife) for an appointment to come to yours when he could make it as they needed sweeping. Didn't matter when it would be as Mum or Gran would always be there.

[Mickey]

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[giner]

Absolutely, Micky. We had a kid of about 18 come up one night and ask us if we did any Eddie Cochran numbers. I asked him how he knew about Eddie Cochran and he said his grandad had a couple and that he was now proud to have them. Smart kid.

[Mickey]

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[earlswood nob]

Morning all
This thread is reaching parts of my memory that other threads cannot reach.
I was one of those trainspotters in the 50's, although I only wore a blazer to school. I don't think my mum would have liked me getting my school clothes mucked up.
We used to rush our food and dash up to a railway bridge on the branch, where a boat train would come through just before 6pm. Sometimes it would be a King Arthur and we'd all love the romantic names.
Rock 'n' roll ruled in those days, and I remember the local cinema closing down when Bill Haley's film (Blackboard Jungle?) was shown. I wasn't old enough to be with my cousins when they were jiving in aisles.
Earlswood Nob

[Mickey]

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[earlswood nob]

Hiya Micky
It was Redhill, the junction of the LBSCR & the SECR. The branch was local railwayman's name for the Tonbridge-Redhill-Guildford line. The train mentioned came from the Folkestone area and I think it was a boat train connecting with a ferry. We used to get the last batch of Maunsell Arthurs, all the Urie Arthurs were on the old LSWR, I used to sometimes see the early Arthurs at Reading South working trains to Basingstoke, when we were taken to visit a Great-Aunt.
The Maunsell S15 mixed traffic loco that is on the Bluebell line was shedded at Redhill in the 50's.
I became sold on the LNER when I received a book on railways as a school prize, almost 60 years ago, and it had pics of A4's and P2's. So much more exciting that the SR locos that we got at Redhill.
I remember Joe Brown and his Bruvvers playing at Redhill, and what a guitarist. He played Hava Nagila and put the guitar on the back of his neck to play the fast bit. The first person I ever see do that.
Earlswood Nob
PS One in the eye for Beeching, He wanted to close all the stations (except Reigate)on the branch just keeping the line for through traffic. In those days it was just one train an hour each way. Now we have TWO trains per hour each way, one semi-fast and one stopping train.

[Mickey]

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[StevieG]

...I suppose he's not the 'Joe Brown' who does Ian Allan's comprehensive-looking "London Railway Atlas" book; (3rd Edition pub'd only a few months ago) ?