You can often forget how much things have moved on and what it has left in its trail.
To this day I still prefer one sided toast thanks to the impatience of a hungry kid and an asthmatic eye level gas grill on the cooker.
Anyone for anymore?
Back in the day
Rolled up newspaper, working at mill...🙂
The question is do you put that paper under your cushion when you get home as it will come in handy for lighting the fire and making a 'Blower'.
Quote: Teddy Paddalack @ 26th February 2024, 6:16 AMThe question is do you put that paper under your cushion when you get home as it will come in handy for lighting the fire and making a 'Blower'.
A blower? Do we have those down south?
I know what you mean about eye level* grills though - my mum's old one terrified me after the ignition didn't quite light and she burnt off her eyebrows and much of the front of her hair. Wasn't that one-sided toast malarkey called 'French Toast'? Surely that's an American thing with eggy bread and a frying pan etc? I don't know, I'm merely a woman who lives in a suburb and doesn't get out much.
*No, not the theme tune for the 70s version of Van Der Valk starring Barry Foster.
Sorry for the delay in replying to a post I started I;m just up and down at the mo.
A blower was a double sheet of newspaper, basically you put the poker in the middle of a fire you hat just lite and then place the paper over the poker across the fireplace and this caused a draft that lit the fire.
Quote: Teddy Paddalack @ 27th February 2024, 10:09 PMSorry for the delay in replying to a post I started I;m just up and down at the mo.
A blower was a double sheet of newspaper, basically you put the poker in the middle of a fire you hat just lite and then place the paper over the poker across the fireplace and this caused a draft that lit the fire.
Ah, thank you, I honestly didn't know that. My granddad, in whose house my brother still lives with his family - [in fact it was bought from new in the early 1930s by my great grandfather], had a something archaic called a 'back boiler' which powered the hot water system. There was a coal bunker in the back garden and he used to feed it with that and coke (clearly not of the Bolivian marching power vareity or sweetened cola drink) I worked briefly in the local archives and the photographs of the original housebuilders' brochures really reminded me of what it was like - black and white tiles in the bathroom, larder, one of the back bedrooms full of tin to feed the family during a post nuclear fallout etc.
Sorry, I've totally rambled off the point, as usual. Forgive me.
My Nana used to hide in her larder when there was a thunder storm
(Think it may have been war time flashbacks)
I think mine might have too. That generation certainly lived through an awful lot. My maternal grandmother, originally a Hoxton lass, was literally welded to the settee, which was dubbed "the studio couch" for some bizarre reason, watching TV as much as she could and handrolling ciggies from a tin of Old Holborn. She was so bone idle that her cancer diagnosis got ignored for too long because she was basically static and literally couldn't slow down any more than she had already.
Back boilers were still in use in the 70's they were in most Liverpool council houses. All the hot water came from these as there was only a copper tank no electric immersion heater.
A lot of older people that I knew who had been through the blitz were scared of thunder and lightning.
Yes, I guess so - it makes perfect sense. The whole thing was huge though and as a child, it scared me. In fact, in my mum's barely touched since the 1970s property, there are two gas fires - the one that's in the dining area truly frightens me as I'm scared that it'll leak gas and blow the place up. The one which is located in the main sitting room has to be turned off every time my brother's golden retriever visits as my mad mother believes that Honey's plumy tail will set the place alight, hence it's freezing in there. I rarely visit.
I don't hugely like thunder and lightning too and absolutely detest fireworks.
I used to go into the greenhouse during a thunderstorm where I could look up and see the magnificent displays.
Then lightning struck about 10 meters away (in a field), and it blew the glass out on that side and frightened me to death.
The blinding flash and the loudest boom I have ever heard stopped me from doing it again.
Oh bloody hell - that sounds scary. I've never owned my own greenhouse and probably never shall 