# A Blast from the past.



## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

A blast from the past, a thread to recall things you remember from your childhood or teen years,
Do you have any memories?

The old steam radio I can remember listening to these two programs.

* Dick Barton special agent 
Theme song:*






*Paul Temple detective 
Theme song *


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

A couple of WW2 themes from my tender years











The "Music while you work" was broadcast for half hour morning and afternoon, it was all rythmic up tempo pieces the idea being (they hoped) that factory workers doing repetitive tasks would try and work to the rythms.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Mike do you remember the mini motor that had a serrated roller drive directly onto the rear tyre of any push bike, you could zip along at about 25-30 mph on the straight I had one when I was courting.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

Never had one, but they did do a great service to tyre manufacturers, that serrated roller sure ate tyres, especially in hilly areas.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Mike, do you remember David McCallum Snr., the violinist? I know he led one of the Scottish orchestras in a programme every morning before Music While You Work. I’ve not found anyone who knows what I’m on about, but then I don’t know anyone as old as me (78)! Wiki doesn’t mention it.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

Afraid not, the sort of things on the radio that stick in my mind from those years were Childrens hour with Uncle Mac, ITMA - Tommy Handley and Reginald Foort at the theatre organ. 
I'm 84 so probably forgotten more than a youngster like yourself:tiphat:


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I also fondly remember old-time radio. All the kids' dramas--after school and into the evening--such as The Lone Ranger, The Mysterious Traveler, The Shadow, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, and many dozen other western, detective, SF, etc. shows. A little later, the joys of late-night AM radio, with masters of storytelling like Jean Shepherd ("Old Shep") and wonderful talk shows like the one hosted by Long John Nebel. Nebel had a crew of regular guests who could talk for hours with great authority on an enormous spectrum of subjects, often triggered by special guests there to discuss some specific topic. The Number One station for great radio then was WOR. A golden age.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Dorsetmike said:


> Never had one, but they did do a great service to tyre manufacturers, that serrated roller sure ate tyres, especially in hilly areas.


Yes I bet they were I only had mine for about a year but at 250mpg who cares,

I remember in the UK we used to get milk delivered daily in glass bottles and via an electric truck (simular to the one in the pic), now after all these years of development there is movement in NZ to go back to this system as it is more eco friendly. I also remember the birds used to peck the cardboard tops of the bottles and get a free drink.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

I can recall deliveries still being made by horse and cart; dad kept a small bucket and shovel just inside the front gate for collecting the droppings for his roses.

Some other deliveries by a lad on a bike with a large basket on the front, as made famous by the 1973 Hovis TV advert


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

One of my first memories - getting a clout from my brother when my sister told him that I had scratched his _Penny Lane_ single with my toy bell. Around that time I can also remember _Stingray_, _Captain Scarlet_, _Tinker and Tucker_, bottles of pop when the Spencer's lorry did its round, Basil the coalman with his missing thumbnail and shopping trips with my mum which took hours because of regular stops to chat in the street.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

York in the 1950s - there seemed to be a lot of ballet on our black and white television, but when it wasn't on, we were watching Billy Bunter, Mr Pastry and Tonight with Cliff Michelmore and his merry men - Alan Whicker, Derek Hart, Fife Robertson and Cy Grant singing calypsos. 

Also, in the back yard, beside the dustbin, was a small metal 'pig bin' into which you put apple cores and potato peelings - a habit left over from World War II?

We also had milk delivered by horse and cart - then when we moved to the suburbs, it was delivered by slow-whirring milk float, but there was also a horse and cart man who sold vegetables. 

And when we went by steam train to Scarborough or Leeds, at the right time of year, you could often see farmers ploughing with a plough pulled by a horse.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

The shop at the top of the road sold cheap sweets - penny arrows, two sherbety chews for a penny, liquorice roots. 'monkey nuts', Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate bars for 1d, 2d and 3d, and kali. Other snacks included single apples for 3d and pomegranates for 4d. I bought Dad a birthday present (of a small packet of Will's Woodbine cigarettes, 9d, and an apple) for a shilling (=12d, twelve old pence).










It also sold 'scraps' (see above) for girls to paste into their books with flour-and-water paste, or to swap with their friends.

At school, the games went round in fashions. In the girls' playground, I loved it when skipping was 'in' and we'd jump about to rhymes learned by oral tradition.

'Somebody under the bed -
I don't know who it is;
I feel so awfully nervous,
I must call Sally in.
Sally lights the candle,
Under the bed she goes - 
Get *out*, you fool, get *out*, you fool,
You're treading on my toes!'


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

I have many memories of life during WW2, some happy some not so.

Dad and the neighbours dug a hole about 12' deep at the end of our back garden, bricked up the sides & made a flight of steps at one side, concreted the floor then aded a roof of corrugated iron on top of which they piled a lot of scrap metal and concrete, benches round the walls to sit on and electricity for lighting. In addition they put in gates in the fences between all the bungalows; when the air raid sirens sounded we all trooped down, usually about 12 to 16 of us and sat there chatting or sometimes playing games like I spy, one of the ladies spied something beginning with K , it turned out spelling was not her best subject after ages of usw guesing all sorts of things beginning with K we gave up and she pointed to a small insect flying about, a gnat, not as she thought a knat, she didn't live that down for ages.

After the war dad built a greenhouse over it and used the shelter to store plant pots and suchlike.

Watch out for episode 2:lol:


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

LezLee said:


> Mike, do you remember David McCallum Snr., the violinist? I know he led one of the Scottish orchestras in a programme every morning before Music While You Work. I've not found anyone who knows what I'm on about, but then I don't know anyone as old as me (78)! Wiki doesn't mention it.


David McCallum *did* lead the Scottish Orchestra in Glasgow under John Barbirolli but left in 1936. Music While You Work started in 1940 so ... *However*, David McCallum was broadcasting with the London Studio Players and they did broadcast before Music While You Work - around 9:00 a.m. When it gets as detailed as this, you need to got to the Radio Times to get more details. Use the BBC Genome Project which has all the Radio Times from 1923 to 2009.

You can find details of David McCallum broadcasting on 55C Glasgow and 28D Aberdeen in 1924 and even read the Radio Times for that date with careful warnings of possible offensive content. Great stuff.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Since from the Civil War (which we are still recovering from, a century and a half later), America has never experienced warfare on her soil, excluding Pearl Harbor and Japanese seizure of a few Aleutian Islands. So no bombings, etc. My father half-heartedly equipped part of our cellar as a bomb shelter during the 1950s atomic bomb/Cold War era. My only war-related memories thus are having both my mother's brothers' wives move in with us during part of WWII. So we all were living in my maternal grandparents house together, and it was a tight squeeze. The brothers were both at war--one Army Air Force B-17 bomber crew member; the other US Navy as a chemist recycling and purifying helium used in Navy blimps. We also planted a small Victory garden. Did spend part of the war in Florida, as my father worked as a naval architect in the Tampa shipyard, working on concrete-hulled cargo ships. I mostly had fun.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Dorsetmike said:


> I can recall deliveries still being made by horse and cart; dad kept a small bucket and shovel just inside the front gate for collecting the droppings for his roses.


Yes I remember now that you mention it, our Coal was delivered by horse and cart the coal men would carry 1cwt bags on their backs and drop in 'the coal house'


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Ingélou said:


> York in the 1950s - there seemed to be a lot of ballet on our black and white television, but when it wasn't on, we were watching Billy Bunter, Mr Pastry and Tonight with Cliff Michelmore and his merry men - Alan Whicker, Derek Hart, Fife Robertson and Cy Grant singing calypsos.
> 
> Also, in the back yard, beside the dustbin, was a small metal 'pig bin' into which you put apple cores and potato peelings - a habit left over from World War II?
> 
> ...


During the war in Liverpool, we had 'pigbins' attached to the lampposts where everyone put their spud peelings, carrot-tops and any leftovers (there weren't many!) The milk was delivered by horse and cart - our milkman was appropriately called Mr Sowerby - and kids walking by the dairy were allowed to sit on the horse. The rag'n bone man also had a horse and cart. There was a knife-sharpener too who had a handcart.
I know I've mentioned it before, possibly ad nauseum, but Ken Dodd helped his dad deliver our coal frrom a big wagon, but I was too young to remember him.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

LezLee said:


> During the war in Liverpool, we had 'pigbins' attached to the lampposts where everyone put their spud peelings, carrot-tops and any leftovers (there weren't many!) The milk was delivered by horse and cart - our milkman was appropriately called Mr Sowerby - and kids walking by the dairy were allowed to sit on the horse. The rag'n bone man also had a horse and cart. There was a knife-sharpener too who had a handcart.
> I know I've mentioned it before, possibly ad nauseum, but Ken Dodd helped his dad deliver our coal frrom a big wagon, but I was too young to remember him.


Who was your dustman Lonnie Donegan's old man 

The first concert that I went to had the top billing of Syncopating Sandy, he was a bit of a nutter going in for Piano marathons 100hrs none stop, I was about 9 - 10 years old from memory and was treated by a Girl of about 15-16 purely plutonic, I don't remember what he played.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

First concert I went to was a "school special" by Bournemouth Symphony orchestra , can't remember what they played though.

In the 50s I went to some of the JATP ("Jazz at the Philharmonic") tours, quite a few well known names, Ella Fitzgerald, Shelley Manne, Jimmy Guiffre, comme to mind other names escape my memory; I also in later years got to see Shearing at Festival hall, MJQ, Basie, Ellington, Herman, Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass, the reformed Miller band under Buddy de Franco & Jacques Loussier; one that may not be familiar to non UK members was Nat Gonella. Classical was not forgotten Birmingham Symphony with Rattle driving and the King's singers back in the early 70s.

I feel lucky to have seen so many, but I'm also glad I can still enjoy them and others on record.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)




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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Do any of you remember Radio Luxembourg or AFN (American forces network) They played pop jazz etc which was just about impossible to get on the local radio at the time.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Dan Ante said:


> Yes I bet they were I only had mine for about a year but at 250mpg who cares,
> 
> I remember in the UK we used to get milk delivered daily in glass bottles and via an electric truck (simular to the one in the pic), now after all these years of development there is movement in NZ to go back to this system as it is more eco friendly. I also remember the birds used to peck the cardboard tops of the bottles and get a free drink.
> 
> View attachment 109878


That was my morning job before school two days a week and Saturday - helping the milkman. He didn't have a float though, it was an all-terrain thing, out in the countryside and to the nearby village. Later on I helped the coal man after school.

I'm not particularly old, but the countryside was still quite backward well into the early '80s.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

Never managed AFN, but when in the Middle east with the RAF we listened to Willis Connover on the Voice of America, jazz programme every evening about 8pm on short wave.

Never listened to Radio Luxemburg much.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

I was listening to this at the print shop back in the late 1970s/early 1980s:
Adventures in Good Music--Carl Hass


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Dan Ante said:


> Do any of you remember Radio Luxembourg or AFN (American forces network) They played pop jazz etc which was just about impossible to get on the local radio at the time.


I have hazy memories of Radio Luxembourg c. 1970 - my teenage sister was a fan. They kept mentioning someone called Peter Stuyvesant - I never twigged until later that they were advertising a brand of cigarette. The only DJs I can remember were Emperor Rosko and Johnnie Walker (the latter is now on BBC Radio 2 doing a 70s show).


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

eugeneonagain said:


> That was my morning job before school two days a week and Saturday - helping the milkman. He didn't have a float though, it was an all-terrain thing, out in the countryside and to the nearby village. Later on I helped the coal man after school.
> 
> I'm not particularly old, but the countryside was still quite backward well into the early '80s.


Did they pay you much?


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

elgars ghost said:


> I have hazy memories of Radio Luxembourg c. 1970 - my teenage sister was a fan. They kept mentioning someone called Peter Stuyvesant - I never twigged until later that they were advertising a brand of cigarette. The only DJs I can remember were Emperor Rosko and Johnnie Walker (the latter is now on BBC Radio 2 doing a 70s show).


Yeh, It was a bit earlier about 1954-5 it was the only music we could get other than light classical and a wee bit of pop at least that I knew of, to day I have a couple of internet radios which can get hundreds of jazz stations and classical/folk/news etc not quality sound but a great choice.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

My wife complained about the Soviet radio of her youth in Leningrad playing exclusively Mravinsky + The Leningrad Philharmonic. On the Nevsky prospekt there were a few venues that played Demis Roussos (a Greek Pavarotti-like wardrobe) and ABBA, music brought by Finnish tourists. (Putin loves ABBA by the way).


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I grew up near a large airfield in south-east England. From a very early age, I got to know the Vulcan delta-winged bombers that would fly past, often quite low and always thrillingly loud. Only years later did I learn that they were part of Britain's nuclear weapons 'deterrence'. 

And yes, we had a pig-food bin as well.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

I worked on the radar of Vulcan and Victor bombers in the RAF as ground crew in the 1960s, our unofficial motto "you bend 'em we mend 'em"


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

Mention of the RAF reminds me of the uniforms we were issued with, originally in the 1950s the shirts had separate collars which required collar studs one front and one back, issue was 3 shirts and 6 collars, you were allowed to send one shirt and 2 collars to laundry each week, along with 1 vest 1 pair of pants 1 pair of pajamas 1 pair of socks and 1 towel. 

The shirts did not button right through just 3 buttons at the top so it was a pull it over your head job. It was some years before collar studs and separate collars were discontinued. I also remember shirts that needed cuff links, buttons frequently came off, socks got holes in the heel and toe and trouser pockets also got holes; nowadays things seem to last better, I can only recall one shirt missing a button in recent years, presumably syntrhetic materials are doing the job.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

TxllxT said:


> My wife complained about the Soviet radio of her youth in Leningrad playing exclusively Mravinsky + The Leningrad Philharmonic. On the Nevsky prospekt there were a few venues that played Demis Roussos (a Greek Pavarotti-like wardrobe) and ABBA, music brought by Finnish tourists. (Putin loves ABBA by the way).


I still like ABBA............



Dorsetmike said:


> I worked on the radar of Vulcan and Victor bombers in the RAF as ground crew in the 1960s, our unofficial motto "you bend 'em we mend 'em"


Well done Sir, a true fixer.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Dorsetmike said:


> I worked on the radar of Vulcan and Victor bombers in the RAF as ground crew in the 1960s, our unofficial motto "you bend 'em we mend 'em"


Some years ago I was back in Kent, helping to look after my sister after a major operation. One afternoon we were driving past that same airfield while there was a bit of an air display on, and there was the unmistakable growl of a Vulcan. It came in low over farmland and executed a superb barrel roll. 
I have been told by aeronerds that a Vulcan could not (or should not) perform a roll. But it could and did. Suddenly my sister and I were kids again.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Do you remember those wooden phonograph needles for 78s, they were made of Bamboo and of triangular section, you just had to rub a file over them every 2 or 3 records.


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## Guest (Feb 9, 2019)

Dan Ante said:


> Do you remember those wooden phonograph needles for 78s, they were made of Bamboo and of triangular section, you just had to rub a file over them every 2 or 3 records.


I don't remember those bamboo needles you refer to, but wouldn't they wear down quickly if you had to file them down so frequently? Perhaps they were cheaper back then.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

My father used them, he also tried a device that was supposed to sharpen metal needles


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Reading about the Vulcan bomber, I was reminded of an awe-inspiring sight from the mid-1950s. I had spent the night at a friend's house and we had awakened just before sunrise on a clear, chilly morning and gone outside. We happened to look directly overhead into the clear blue sky and saw far, far above, a ghostly flight of B-36 bombers. They were so high up that they passed in silence, streaming vapor trails in the sun that bathed them but not us below, still in the pre-sunrise gloom.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

poco a poco said:


> I don't remember those bamboo needles you refer to, but wouldn't they wear down quickly if you had to file them down so frequently? Perhaps they were cheaper back then.


I don't know the cost of the needles but my Grandfather had a phono with a horn that used them, I think they lasted for maybe 6-7 records then got thrown out you only had to file a wee bit off to sharpen, they came in a small tin ready to use, same as the steel needles that Mike mentioned.


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