Let's Reminisce.
- Thread starter Margaret Pilkington
- Start date
Okay, Margaret, so here’s another one. My brother (7 years older than me) was called William, and he often went searching for conkers so the school’s headmaster called him William the Conkerer (pardon the play on the spelling). One day my brother took me off to find some conkers, I was only a little thing but he let me tag along. We were a fair way from home when we came across a field which had a ‘No Trespassing’ sign but also had the horse chestnut trees which we were looking for.
We were doing no harm and we had got some conkers but wanted more. My brother had just started to climb another tree when we suddenly heard a shout ‘you little buggers, wait ‘til I catch you’. Sure enough the farmer had driven fairly close without us hearing his car. The door had been taken off the car for some reason and he was attempting to get out. He had a long stick that I’m sure he would not have hesitated to use on us, but the silly man had the stick sideways and it was blocking his exit from the car. Also being fat didn’t help him.
I can still remember my brother throwing the conkers towards the man and pulling me along to escape – I wasn’t very old and I couldn’t run fast but somehow he managed to get me over fences and once again to freedom. Of course we didn’t tell my mother.
We were doing no harm and we had got some conkers but wanted more. My brother had just started to climb another tree when we suddenly heard a shout ‘you little buggers, wait ‘til I catch you’. Sure enough the farmer had driven fairly close without us hearing his car. The door had been taken off the car for some reason and he was attempting to get out. He had a long stick that I’m sure he would not have hesitated to use on us, but the silly man had the stick sideways and it was blocking his exit from the car. Also being fat didn’t help him.
I can still remember my brother throwing the conkers towards the man and pulling me along to escape – I wasn’t very old and I couldn’t run fast but somehow he managed to get me over fences and once again to freedom. Of course we didn’t tell my mother.
More things that come to mind. Liberty bodices (don’t ask!), camphor square hung round neck, Fennings Fever Cure, Malt and Cod Liver Oil, Cod Liver Oil on its own – yuk!, thick pink square of some sort of padding (can’t remember what it was called) held against chest by the liberty bodice, so many things to ward off colds – but I still got them……
If I had been ill and was still in bed recovering my mum would buy me an orange or a peach (wrapped in its special paper) from the fruit and veg man when he was selling his wares in our street, as this was sure to make me well again, having got magic powers (or so I believed). The peach especially was not cheap and so I don’t know what my mum had to do without to buy this for me.
Toffee being made for a treat. Stirring, stirring. Testing it on a saucer of water.
If I had been ill and was still in bed recovering my mum would buy me an orange or a peach (wrapped in its special paper) from the fruit and veg man when he was selling his wares in our street, as this was sure to make me well again, having got magic powers (or so I believed). The peach especially was not cheap and so I don’t know what my mum had to do without to buy this for me.
Toffee being made for a treat. Stirring, stirring. Testing it on a saucer of water.
fennings fever cure. thats a real memory as my old man, who passed his perma cold onto me and my sister, swore by the stuff. tried it once, i prefered keeping the bad cold.
any of you lot used to go down to the local gas works with your mam with an old pram filling it up with coke in winter. if it had been snowing your sledge was used in place of the pram. funny how going smokeless coincided with the vast amount of time it then took to get warm if you were frozen.
Monkey Hanger, my dad swore by Sloan's Liniment for all his aches and pains, but he wasn't very happy the day my mum was rubbing some on his back and it went right down and under....I hadn't realised how well he could dance about until that day. We couldn't help laughing - he was not amused.
The pink wadding was called Thermogene.....and there was Scott's emulsion.....worm cakes, these looked like big chocolate buttons with hundreds and thousands on them....the chocolate was not real chocolate, but a cousin of ex-lax.....and made you poo.
Bile beans, Indian brandee, this was something I really wanted to try.....I faked a belly ache and was give a tablespoon of the stuff.....nasty, really nasty.
You used to be able to buy 12 little liver pills for a penny(I think).
When you bought them they were wrapped up in a twist of paper.
One day my dad was feeling ropey(not from beer I hasten to add).
I was sent to the shop for a pennysworth of little liver pills.
They looked like small white sweets....I popped one into my mouth and sucked it.....once the sugar coating was sucked off it tasted horrible and I spat it down a grate.
When I got home my dad countedthe pills and said I had been 'jewed' and he made me go back with the twist of paper for the one that was missing.
Bile beans, Indian brandee, this was something I really wanted to try.....I faked a belly ache and was give a tablespoon of the stuff.....nasty, really nasty.
You used to be able to buy 12 little liver pills for a penny(I think).
When you bought them they were wrapped up in a twist of paper.
One day my dad was feeling ropey(not from beer I hasten to add).
I was sent to the shop for a pennysworth of little liver pills.
They looked like small white sweets....I popped one into my mouth and sucked it.....once the sugar coating was sucked off it tasted horrible and I spat it down a grate.
When I got home my dad countedthe pills and said I had been 'jewed' and he made me go back with the twist of paper for the one that was missing.
No but I was sent with a push chair along Nuttall street to Bob Wilkinsons Hardware shop for a gallon of paraffin and two packs of coal bricks.
This was because the coal man would not come up the hill unless there were a few people getting coal.
Taddy you are right about the kaolin poultice..we used those for patients who had wound infections and those who had pneumonia...the heat soothed the discomfort at the base of the lungs.
A bit like a hot water bottle with no risk of spillage.
We were told that even a cold Kaolin poultice would draw out infection, but I liked to use the hot.
We also used a Nelsons inhaler to give Friars Balsam (tincture of Benzoin)inhalations for chest infections....old fashioned but very effective.
A bit like a hot water bottle with no risk of spillage.
We were told that even a cold Kaolin poultice would draw out infection, but I liked to use the hot.
We also used a Nelsons inhaler to give Friars Balsam (tincture of Benzoin)inhalations for chest infections....old fashioned but very effective.
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If I remember rightly, the hardware shop that you mention, used to sell Fishing baskets, laundry baskets etc. I have mentioned in earlier posts that I think that my father could well have been one of, if not the last (tradesman trained) basket makers in Lancashire. I do know that he carried on his trade after getting a job at Huncoat Pit and he made many for a shop on Nuttall Street. that shop plus other outlets for his wares kept him in beer money for years.
They say that you shouldn't look back on life but I do regret not taking up his offer to teach me his art and it was an art, anything from shopping baskets to baby's cribs and antique wickerwork chairs.I fact anything made from Cane or Willow.
Yes, I did call it a Poultice in an earlier post.
Not spotted until I posted...now edited to reflect that.
Yes you are right about Bob Wilinson selling wicker baskets....and fishing baskets.....they used to hang high up on the ceiling.....and the large laundry baskets were in the back of his shop....many of these were used as a first bed for a new baby,suitably padded of course.
The co-op smelled of coffee and cheese....Bob Wilies smelled of Lamp oil, firelights and coal dust(which is what the coal bricks were made of).
The co-op smelled of coffee and cheese....Bob Wilies smelled of Lamp oil, firelights and coal dust(which is what the coal bricks were made of).
The clough at the end of Richmond Road was called Nelson's Clough and Cocker Lumb (as we always called it) was up Green Haworth and could be got to going up Broadfield to Benjamins Row and then down to the river in the bottom, usually we followed the river down to Hoyle Bottom and then up Pt House Lane back to Broadfield.
Dotti your story about your dad and Sloan's Liniment made me laugh and reminded me that many years ago I was up Peel Park with me dad and a player went down injured and lay there for some time, one of the blokes in the crowd shouted "Put some Sloan's down crack of his a**e he'll get up" everybody round about burst out laughing but I didn't know what they were laughing at until several years later when I had a similar incident to your dad - and like him I wasn't amused.