I Remember.....

[chrisb691]

Now, now, we are not quite that old.
Half-penny was the smallest coin value wise and three penny piece was smallest in size but would buy a single scoop ice cream.

We learn something every day. I just assumed that because we had farthings in England when I was a kid, that they were also here.

[cava]

I remember using slate pencils on slate boards at school.
I also remember petrol costing 18 cents per gallon.
I remember ice cream from the mobile vans where you bought the square of ice cream and got two wafers to sandwich it between.
I remember, in Sydney, when they used to put coal under concrete footpaths as a base.

[Lyle]

I remember working in the bank and no computers/calculators. we did the monthly interest on the paper customer account pages. That was mind numbingly boring

[Handyjack]

While I am just too young to remember Pounds Shillings and pence, I have a bucket that cost 10/6. How do I know? That is what is written on the side.

How many of you can remember long gone Petrol brands like Golden Fleece and Ampol. Or perhaps the BP super mix to blend standard and super petrol?

[chambezio]

As an Apprentice in 1970 the Foreman would give me a $2 bill and a 4 gallon drum (20 litres) then send me up the road to the service station to get some Standard fuel for a VW motored air compressor. The bloke who pumped the petrol (...yes HE pumped the petrol) often got a splash from the nozzle because $2 really filled the drum to running over.
On that same job site which was a multi story office block when we got over 4 floors (I think) we got Height Money. So my first year apprentice wage for 40 hours, 5 days a week was $30 and $3 a week Height Money. It was customary for the business owner to pull his cabin cruiser out of the water for the youngest apprentice in the company to scrape the hull before repainting. Bugger of a job!!! When I did the it for the first time I still received Height money because I was charged out on the multi story job. Did I mention it was a bugger of a job?

[issatree]

Hi All,
Yes, I think we had the best of it. Certainly wood not want to be a 17yr. old now.
Had great times with all the other boys, & yes we got up to a few pranks.

Mr Dice the Policeman told us to go home, we didn't, caught us again & let our bike tyres down, now go home. We did.

I must have been 19, pay packet was 9 Pounds 7 Shillings & Thrupence, he even diddled me one week, Dad made short work of him with Language.

That was my 3rd. job, & in between there was NASHO, great 3 Months, really cut the Apron Strings. My next job I spent 33yrs. with.
Unfortunately, I had to Retire at 53, but I'm still upright, wood not be dead for Quids.

[TKO]

I say thanks for all those memory's, I go back a little further, I remember
my Dad going to WWII and saying it wont last long you will never have to go but I did.
I remember the days with no Telly, no mobiles, A lot of horse drawn vehicles, plenty of now veteran and vintage cars, pen and ink ,chalk and slate, and the often wielded head master' cane, plenty of respect all round,
Hoons and trouble makers were dealt with quickly by the local bobby, who wasn't afraid to use his truncheon if need be.
Firemen wore large brass helmets, and went to fire's, on some pretty antique solid tyred engines, to me they were the good day's, not like these days, I am not really old, only in the bones, I am still restoring a1950 car and managing ok, and many thanks for your memory's'.

Tis of course was in the UK, been here longer than I was ever a pom
Eddie

[rrich]

I can remember V-J day. (August 14, 1945)

We were staying at a hotel in Mattituck, NY for a short vacation. My father was a New York City Fireman and in the US Marine Reserve. His job, as a fireman, was deemed to be vital to the war effort and was not drafted into the regular US Armed Forces.

All day long the city fire trucks were driving up and down the streets with sirens blaring and bells ringing. Anything to express joy that the war was finally over. As each fire truck drove by, I would run to the chain link fence to watch the fire truck drive by.

That evening at dinner, my mother had purchased a birthday cake in town for my father as August 14 was his birthday. It didn't matter that in the 'early' part of the world, the actual date was August 15. As my mother lit the candles on the cake, she started to sing Happy Birthday to my father, everyone in the hotel dining room joined in.

While I remember the events, it was only later that I realized the significance of the day.

And:
Petrol at 25.9 cents a GALLON during the late 1950s.
The "gas wars" as we would call them, in the 1960s when petrol prices would sometimes be as low as 21.9 a gallon.
Fountain Coke for a nickel or 5 cents a glass.
Movie matinee prices 25 cents at the second run theater or 30 cents at the first run theater.
Newspapers two cents. (New York Daily News.)
Street car, bus or subway ride for 5 cents. It was "outrageous" when the fare went to 7 cents.
The guys who delivered the milk and bread would join us for a picnic with their families on Independence Day.
I delivered the afternoon newspaper, 6 days a week, for 35 cents a week. You can't believe the outrage when the price went to 50 cents a week.

It was not a big deal for children to take public transportation, unescorted. At age 8, I had to take two buses and a ferry to get home from school during the month of June. (We had a vacation home at the shore.)

I could walk up Bedford Avenue to Ebbets field to watch a Brooklyn Dodger baseball game. If I could scrape together fifty cents for a bleacher seat. There was never a concern about my safety.

Best of all, I could take the tubes out of the TV set and have them tested. Most TV & Radio repair shops would test the tubes for free. (Or do you blokes call them valves?) Using my paper route earnings I would buy replacements and make the TV set work again.

[Bob38S]

Friday's I was allowed to buy my lunch from the little shop over the road from school.

No permission required to leave the grounds, no crossing monitors, no traffic lights - you crossed when the opportunity arose.

One shilling (10 cents for our decimal members) was all I ever had. This bought a pie with mushy peas and black sauce (Worcestershire sauce) for 8 pence and a Peters ice cream bucket with a small wooden paddle for 4 pence.

Eat the ice cream first which gave the pie time to cool to eating temperature. On the odd occasion (Winter) when the temperature was really cold the ice cream was given a miss and the 4 pence was spent on lollies. You always picked the chocolate bullets as they were 6 for a penny.

A lunch fit for a King

[Tonyz]

Hands up all who have spent a farthing. (I know Alan has )

no..........but I have spent an evening farting.....is that close?

[Bob38S]

Close but no cigar.

[crowie]

Thank you one and all for the great memories.....here's some of mine.........

I remember collecting Golden Circle, Kirks & Tristrams soft drink bottles from the Athol Hedges factory on the way home from school as you'd get thripence for returning each of them.. Potato scollops were 2 for thripence, iceblocks were thripence too, so you needed 2 bottles for a good meal or a large Coke a cola bottle which was worth sixpence....
With a penny you had to work out whether to buy lollies at 4 a penny or 3 a penny...
On special occasions mum would send us to Con's corner store to buy a brick of icecream which was wrapped in newspaper with stern instructions to get straight home quickly, especially in a Brisbane summer...
The other thing was Christmas when all the grandkids got a thripence in there plum pudding with hot custard....
Under the verandah in our old Queenslander we have a very large bin supplied by the APM paper mill at Petrie for recycling all our old newspapers & cardboard; the 3 wheeled trike came every couple of months to collect the bin's paper..
We only got lunch money in high school after a long weekend and the was decimal 20cents would buy little lunch & big lunch; on all other days we'd have to bring our grease proof sandwich paper wrapping home for reuse the next day...
The baker & milko delivered daily & fruito weekly, as with weekly service from the rubbishman & captain midnight...the postie came twice a day too.....oh and the gutter sweep bloke was down our street 2-3 times a week....we had steam trains, trams and trolley buses in Brisbane into the late 1960's....
As I got older I was allowed to go with dad to the dump early on Sunday mornings; dropped one load and returned with a trailer load of good stuff....
My first job as a kitchen boy in a cake shop at 50cents an hour plus all I could eat.....after a few months you got more selective as to what you grabbed but always plenty.....

[doug3030]

On special occasions mum would send us to Con's corner store to buy a brick of icecream which was wrapped in newspaper with stern instructions to get straight home quickly, especially in a Brisbane summer...

Thanks for that post Crowie, reminds me so much of my growing up in Brisbane in the 1960's - right down to the name of the owner of the corner store. Wondering if we lived near each other?

Cheers

Doug

[crowie]

Thanks for that post Crowie, reminds me so much of my growing up in Brisbane in the 1960's - right down to the name of the owner of the corner store. Wondering if we lived near each other?

Cheers

Doug

Holland St, Northgate East......1961-1968.....

[rwbuild]

I remember...
We had a 3 digit phone number, ring anyone in the local area but to ring town or anywhere else, call the exchange to be connected
Dad was a dairy farmer, horse and plow, 44 gallon drum on the timber sled to water the melons, pumpkins, etc
Mail was addressed by property name not number
The milk was picked up in 20 gal cans and hand loaded onto the pickup truck
Cashing empty Noons soft drink bottles for 3pence
Bread was delivered by the baker in a horse drawn cart
Trams in Sydney
Lifts had a lift operator call out the various floors
Steam trains to Sydney if more than 4 carriages otherwise less than 4 diesel motor cars
Pen nibs and inkwells (great for flicking wads of paper dipped in ink at flies on the ceiling)
1 quart bottles of milk delivered to school and the lucky kids had flavored straws to drink it
Polio clinics at school (AAHHH that dreaded needle before the syrup was introduced)