Bring back any memories?

[Allan at Wallan]

I can remember, as dairy farmers, we were so poor, that when the neighbours put their rubbish bins out - we took them in!

That's rubbish. (lol).

[Chief Tiff]

I can remember when we went from carbide lamps to electricity. I remember my excitement when they blasted to put in the power lines.

I remember in Adelaide before there were carbide lamps and kerosene lanterns they used to use something called "electricity"...

[ubeaut]

What about cracker night..... Guy Fawkes, Queens Birthday, New Years Eve all had to be celebrated with fireworks that you could buy at most milkbars, newsagents and department stores. These were set of at the closest bonfire which was usually on a vacant suburban block of land.

Spuds in the coals of the bonfire.

The hunt for fizzers the next morning and the burned fingers from setting them off.

Cracker guns: water-pipe, penny bunger and a ball bearing or marble. Aim at the fence and hope it didn't backfire.

Hop Harrigan, Biggles, Superman, Dad n Dave and all the other serials on the radio before there was telly.

Saturday matinee at the movies for kids with serials, cartoons, newsreel, etc before the main feature.

Police who didn't wear guns and didn't need them to keep the peace.

We had an ice-chest long before we had a fridge. A one-fire stove before the gas early cooker. A copper, washboard and hand cranked mangle before we had a washing machine.

Chicken was a luxury not an every day fast-food meal.

Fastfood was fish n chips and a potato cake on Friday night.

Short back n sides haircuts..... Coming back into fashion again for hipsters, always in fashion for soldiers, sailors and crims.

Rock n Roll music on the radio real rock n roll you could dance to not the drug stuffed garbage that came later.

Getting a free ticket to the circus for helping put up the tent.

Side shows with the half man half woman, tattood lady bearded lady and other no longer politically correct stuff. Jimmy Sharman's boxing troop.

OK that's enough from me.

Cheers - Neil

[onetrack]

I can remember when Jesus Christ wore short pants, and played halfback for the Jerusalem under-14's!

[Oldgreybeard]

Hell I'm getting old, I remember all these as well.
Bob

[Chesand]

I can remember when Jesus Christ wore short pants, and played halfback for the Jerusalem under-14's!

I don't remember that but I do remember all the other things mentioned.
Even unpasteurised milk as my grandfather had a small dairy and the milk was passed over a cooler consisting of a row of horizontal metal pipes. His sons (my uncles) used to deliver the milk and then have to collect the money once a week. The cows were milked by hand and my grandfather was able to squirt you in the eye with milk straight from the cow. Family history research has shown that he was taken to court by the milk inspector for watering down his milk.
My father delivered bread before the war and later delivered firewood in the winter and ice in the summer.

[onetrack]

Yep, a mate reckons, "you've never known true poverty, until you've been a dairy farmer!"

As a kid in the '50's, we lived on the dairy farm only 11 miles (18kms) out of the Perth CBD - yet we had no running water, no power, and an unsealed limestone road ran past the farm.
Dad built the house there between about 1948 and 1951, using a hand-operated concrete brick maker, because the brick supply after WW2 was pathetic, and you couldn't afford them, anyway.
When he first started building the house, the road was actually just two hand-dug wheel tracks through the sand, filled with limestone.

We used Aladdin and Tllley kerosine lanterns for light, a Metter No. 2 wood stove was the cooking and heat source, Mum used a washboard and mangle for washing clothes - and in Winter, because we were too poor to buy extra blankets, we sewed wheat bags together to make up primitive doonas.
I never saw or used an electric power switch or 240V power, until I was 13.
Our water came from a rainwater tank and a bore that produced endless volumes of superb-quality water from just 16 feet down (5M) - and the nearby Gnangara Lake was a stunning, always-full lake, averaging 12 feet deep, with water so clear, you could still see the bottom, 100 feet (33M) out from the shoreline.
Today, Gnangara Lake has virtually ceased to exist, development has filled what is left of the Lake with dirty brown swamp water, when it does get a small amount of water in it.

Dad owned 134 acres (54 Ha) here, and he was only the 3rd owner of the land title since the colony of W.A. was founded in 1829.
The property was originally gifted as a land grant to the W.A. Governor, William C. F. Robinson, who later became Governor of Victoria.
Dad acquired the property in 1934, as payment for working for a Station owner all through the Great Depression (1929-1933), when he worked for 4 years for the Station owner without pay.
The Station owner was a complete gentleman and paid Dad up in full at the end of the Depression, and he became a lifelong friend of Dads.
Dad was conned into selling the property during a fit of gloom and overwork, in 1957, for 10,000 pounds ($20,000), and within 5 years, the property was resold for 50,000 pounds ($100,000).
Today, our old dairy-farming property is the suburb of Landsdale, and if we still owned that 54Ha, it would be probably be worth upwards of $300M!!

Despite the hardships, I still think I had a pretty good childhood. I had thousands of hectares to play in, never had to worry about thugs or hoods or bullies, and never had to watch out for traffic.
I learnt lots about wild animals (including tiger snakes! - nasty buggers, they are!), learnt lots about farm animals (including the fact that I never want to see or ever ride a horse again!).

I never got a bike until I was 10, and I went to a school where we still used inkwells in the desktop, and the teachers were tyrants who belted you with sticks and canes at every opportunity.
I reckon they would probably be charged with child abuse today - but we survived and actually learnt enough to survive in the tough big world!
I never got any trophies or awards at school for anything - today you get a trophy just for participation. My, how things have changed!

[rrich]

I just remembered this one.

In Brooklyn, New York we lived with my Grandmother. It was on a very quiet street and would be called a Town House today. We had two common walls with neighbors. My Grandparents purchased the house, new in 1914.

When the house was purchased it was considered "Rural". While the house initially used gas for lighting, one of the 'Features' of the house was that it was WIRED for electricity, should electricity ever get out that far into rural Brooklyn. LOL!

[Bushmiller]

Perhaps you are not really old until last year you could remember all those things, but this year you can't .



Regards
Paul

[Oldgreybeard]

Perhaps you are not really old until last year you could remember all those things, but this year you can't .



Regards
Paul

I've always wondered how you know what you do not know or what you can't remember

[Bushmiller]

OGB

There's usually plenty of people around to remind of your failings. Myself, I remain firmly in denial.

Regards
Paul

[ubeaut]

I've suffered from "Oldtimers Disease" since I was in my teens.

But what can you do?

Have a cuppa tea...

[rustynail]

I can remember when Jesus Christ wore short pants, and played halfback for the Jerusalem under-14's!

Far too pugnacious for a halfback.

[Bushmiller]

Listening to Radio National yesterday it occurred to me that there were no longer any radio plays. I grew up listening to those. One of my first memories of life in Australia was in 1980 listening to a dramatised version of "Lord of the Rings." It was broadcast over many weeks on a Sunday morning and I remember we would stop building the shed for half an hour to listen. As you may gather, I was a slow builder.

Regards
Paul

[onetrack]

Oooh, it wasn't called the radio when I was young, Bushmiller! It was the WIRELESS - and it came in a Bakelite housing with a big rotary selector, with all these fantastic radio call signs on the dial, containing combinations of letters and numbers!

Blue Hills! - utterly gripping, and you couldn't wait for the next episode!
The Country Hour! - all the information you could possibly want, from the news to the weather, to the grain and sheep prices!

Even used to knock off work in the 70's and listen to Sunday repeats on the ABC, of the audio soundtrack from Steptoe and Son!
Couldn't help but roll around listening to Harold whining about Albert totally buggering up his romantic trysts - or just being a "grubby ol' man", taking a bath in the kitchen sink!