I was buying a tube of toothpaste the other day and I was amazed, as I am each time, by the vast number of pastes available. Not just different brands. Each brand seems to have dozens of different types! Out of interest I did a Google search on Colgate toothpastes and found 55 listed. Back in the 1950s and 60s there were only a few brands. Each brand had one type. I remember Signal being launched and longing to try it but my mum always bought Gibbs SR.
Two of the very few brands we had in my childhood.
Today’s huge selection.
The same applies to other everyday toiletries. The main shampoos I remember are Sunsilk, Supersoft, Vosene and Loxene. All shops selling toiletries sold shampoo in sachets as well as bottles. There were no conditioners. The first one to hit the market was called Tame Creme Rinse. I used to buy a sachet for myself. You then mixed the contents with warm water in a cup and poured the solution over your hair after shampooing. It was a revelation. I could get a comb through my wet hair without having to spend ages working through knots and tangles.
A bewildering choice of shampoos and conditioner.
I don’t think we heard the word moisturiser back then, they were known as face creams. We always had Nivea in our house. My mum used to rub it on our cheeks before we went outside in really cold weather. There were also creams called ‘cold cream’. My mum used ro rub cold cream into her face before bed. I remember one my Nana used to use called Ponds Vanishing Cream. I can still recall the smell of it.
I know a lot of people didn’t wear deodorant in the 1950s and 60s. I can recall, in high school in the 60s, being aware which girls didn’t wear deodorant. My mum used one called Odorono and my sister and I were encouraged to use deodorant as we approached puberty. The only other ones I remember the names of are Mum and Sno-mist. I favoured Sno-mist probably because it was advertised on Radio Luxembourg and had a catchy jingle. You could get stick on or sprays. The sprays weren’t aerosols, just squeezy plastic bottles.
Some of the many deodorants now available.
I have such clear memories of our mum reading this to us before bed. We were in turn fascinated and horrified by it. Some of the images are pretty scary – a baby turning into a pig, for example!
I absolutely adored this book! It is SO sad in parts! I pictured Squire Gordon as the kindest, most handsome man ever.
My sister and I were totally charmed by the Borrowers books. This was the first one then came The Borrowers Afield, The Borrowers Aloft and The Borrowers Afloat. Years later, as a teacher, I have read The Borrowers to children in my class and it still has a timeless appeal.
As a child I was slightly disturbed by some of the weird things in these two books. I was easily scared I think and they had the same effect on me as Alice in Wonderland.
What a lovely story this is! When I was about ten or eleven it was serialised on TV and shown at teatime on Sundays for eight weeks. The Sunday dramas were brilliant. Several of the books mentioned here were shown as TV serials in the 50s and 60s.
I remember when I was given this as a present my mum explained the Civil War to me in child’s terms. When we are young it’s difficult to picture the span of time and she told me years later that I completely misunderstood the time scale and asked her which side she’d been on!
I’m fairly sure this was a Sunday afternoon serial on TV too but later than the 1960s.
These were a huge family favourite! I think there were parts of some of them which the three of us knew off by heart.
Oh, how I loved these books! I wanted to BE Heidi! I longed to live in a house with bedroom in a loft like Heidi’s. I read all three – Heidi, Heidi Grows Up and Heidi’s Children but my true love is the original Heidi.
These first three images come under inappropriate/ non-PC. Can you imagine letting a child have sweets which are pretend cigarettes now? I also remember that you could get pipes and pipe tobacco which were sweets.
These two speak for themselves. The Black and White Minstrel Show was huge in the UK in the 1950s – and, of course, every family had one of the ubiquitous gollies! Unimaginable now.
Moving on to unsafe/ dangerous. I remember having a paraffin heater in the bedroom I shared with my brother and sister. We now know that there was a poisonous gas problem (carbon monoxide, in particular) with these but also a serious fire risk. In a cold winter with no central heating a paraffin heater was very welcome and comforting.
I can remember helping a local farmer with his hay making. At the end of the day we children would be sitting on top of the pile of hay as the tractor pulled the cart down the lane towards the barn.
Cars didn’t have seat belts and children could sit in any part of the car – as in this picture. I can remember my sister sitting on the bench seat in the front in beteeen my mum and dad on long journeys as she suffered with car sickness in the back.
This is a pouffe – very common then, less so now!
Childhood Memories of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. 