Tag Archives: rural

50s and 60s Learning

I’ve been a long time away from here. Sorry! Things happen.

I was thinking recently about the way we were taught when I was in school. Here are some random musings.

A lot of our teaching was very good. We learned the times tables and even now, anyone who is a liitle older can answer instantly a question like ‘What is 9 X 6?’.

We also had to learn poems off by heart. A love of poetry is a great thing to encourage. To learn what a poem is saying is so much more important than learning a given poem by rote. There even used to be poem recital competitions in school. I’m sure they put most pupils off poetry rather than instilling a love of poems.

When I was approaching the 11+, British readers of a certain age will remember this, we had to learn how to work out simple and compound interest. We were completely unaware what this meant in real life. We just knew how to work out the £%+- etc. I only realised about 20 years later what it was about.

One part of our English (now called literacy) lessons involved learning well known sayings and proverbs. For example, we had to fill in the blanks in

All that – – – – – – – – is not – – – – .

Too many – – – – – spoil the – – – – – .

This now seems quite odd as children today are encouraged to be creative and to write descriptively rather than to use learned phrases.

Any form of games or PE was virtually non-existent. Very occasionally, on a warm sunny day, our two teachers would take us out on the playground with rubber rings, bean bags and quoits. We probably got more exercise playing together at break times! Sometimes, on a fine day, we were all taken for a ‘nature ramble’. It consisted of our two teachers taking all of us, 25/ 30 children from 4 – 11, for a walk along the lanes around our school. Hardly any traffic so it was quite safe! We picked things, were occasionally given the names of plants – and we loved it!

Music was basic and traditional. We sang hymns in both Welsh and English. We also sang patriotic songs like Hearts of Oak and The Skye Boat Song without the faintest idea what they were about. I still have my recorder and my fingers still remember how to play the Skye Boat Song.

History was also traditional and consisted mainly of learning about famous people, mostly heroes and heroines. People like Florence Nightingale, Walter Raleigh and Captain Cook.

Here are two of my books from when I was a child. The one on the left is called A Nursery History of England (note, not Britain!) and has lovely coloured illustrations of which I’ve shown two.

Christmas in the 50s and 60s.

Merry Christmas to all who read this blog. Thank you all for stopping by. Here are some thoughts on how things have changed since I was a child.

Paper Chains

It seems to me that Christmas lights outside houses and in gardens get more popular every year. When I was a child the main focal point was the tree. How we loved helping to decorate it. I still have a few of the glass baubles from the 1950s which went on our tree every year. We also used to put holly and balloons up (not next to each other!). And then there were the paper chains which were pinned up in the ceiling and went from corner to corner. These paper chains would be carefully folded afterwards and saved for next year. You could also buy packs of coloured, gummed paper rectangles to make your own paper chains and we children loved doing that.

Christmas Day Post

There used to be a postal delivery on Christmas Day in Britain right up until 1960! It’s hard to imagine now. My grandfather was a rural postman with a round which covered a wide area of scattered farms and houses. Back in my dad’s childhood his father would be out all day on Christmas Day delivering cards. People used to send cards then to arrive on the day, like birthday cards. The family also went to chapel three times on Christmas Day so their Christmas dinner and present exchanging was always on Boxing Day.

Stockings

Children’s Christmas stockings were knitted ones. They now come in a huge variety of shapes, styles, sizes and materials. Ours were light brown woollen knee high stockings. A relative had knitted two pairs for my dad to wear under wellington boots when working outside. They were coarse and itchy so he never actually wore them and they were repurposed as Christmas stockings for his three children.

Circus on TV on Boxing Day

On Boxing Day there was always a circus on TV in the afternoon. We only had one channel when we first got a TV in 1961 so it was the circus or the circus! There wasn’t normally anything on TV in the daytime apart from the preschoolers’ Watch With Mother just after lunchtime. So watching television in the afternoon was a rare treat! TVs then gave out such a weak light that in order to see the picture in daylight you had to close the curtains.

Twelfth Night

The tree and decorations would be put up just before Christmas (not like now when they start appearing in November!) and it was considered extremely bad luck to take them down before the Twelfth Night, 6th January.

Father Christmas v Santa Claus

When I was little we never called him anything but Father Christmas. Now you rarely hear him referred to as that. I knew the name Santa Claus from Christmas songs on the radio but he was always Father Christmas then. I always preferred the pictures which showed him wearing a long hooded cloak. Other kids preferred the tunic, belt and knee boots image. It’s just down to personal preference.

Credit to Wikipedia and Google Images. If anyone objects to my use of a particular image please contact me and it will be removed.

Space, Weddings and Funerals – on TV.

Here in Britain, we have just had a royal wedding. I’m sure you all heard about it so I won’t say any more on the subject. I was away on holiday in another country when it was on but even so, my friends and I were able to watch it together.

50s tv set    60s tv set

The following memories are of my very early TV experiences and are more about the excitement of viewing a live occasion than about the events themselves.

alexandra's wedding

I have very clear memories of some big state occasions (weddings and funerals) in the early 60s. In 1960, Princess Margaret the Queen’s sister, married Anthony Armstrong Jones. We knew it was being televised. My mum and her friends and their children really wanted to watch it – but none of us had TVs. Then my mum’s friend Miriam, who lived on a farm in our village, said that her Aunty Gladys had a TV. Gladys lived in the tiny town (which seemed big to us!) five miles away. TV had reached there before it stretched out to the remote surrounding villages. Anyway, this dear old lady said we could all watch it at her house. We children were enthralled with being able to watch TV – the content was less important to us. The mums really enjoyed watching their first televised state occasion. There was, of course, tea, cakes and biscuits.

yuri

In April 1961 the world saw the first human being, Yuri Gagarin, launched into space. There were still no homes in my village with a TV but – amidst huge excitement – my primary school headteacher decided to buy a TV for school use and to buy it in time for the whole school (all 28 of us!) to watch the launch live. Space travel and live TV at the same time – we were SO amazed and I’ve never forgotten it.

kents wedding

Also in 1961 was the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Kent. I remember it very clearly. We also watched this at Aunty Gladys’ house and I remember thinking Katherine, the Duchess of Kent, was absolutely beautiful.

alexandra's wedding

In 1963, Princess Alexandra married Angus Ogilvy and, once again, the mums and children of the village wanted to watch it. By this time we had a TV of our own. Some friends in the village didn’t have a TV yet and came to us to watch it.

churchill    ch fun

Similarly, in 1965, the country mourned the death of Winston Churchill. Friends came to watch it at our house. These occasions were daytime events and at that time there was hardly any daytime TV. When you watched anything during daylight hours the curtains were always closed. The image transmitted was so weak that in the light of day it was very hard to see.

Transport

   

    
My memories of car travel in the 50’s includes – and this is a child’s view, so there will be no observations on models, performance etc – bench seats in the front, handbrake coming out of the dashboard, the dip operated by a pedal on the floor, indicators which stuck out at the side of the car, no seat belts, no car radio, older cars being mostly black and smelling strongly of leather, frequent breakdowns.
My sister, the youngest of three often sat in the front on the bench seat in between Mum and Dad. At the top of a steep hill – and I grew up surrounded by hills! – there were always cars pulled over with the bonnets up and steam escaping from the engines. On long journeys, there being no in-car entertainments, we sang songs, played games and spotted things to tick off in our I-Spy books. The books were small and perfect for taking on a walk or a journey. My favourite of the ones we had was I-Spy The Unusal.
In the 60’s there were cars with individual car seats, wider rear and front windscreens, blinking indicator lights instead of flag ones sticking out and more colours including, I remember, some two-tone cars. As kids we spent hours playing outside in the mud and dirt with our Dinky, Corgi and Mathboxcars. We were impressed with the new two-tone look and used Airfix model paints to give our cars a more fashionable look. If we still had them, and we don’t, they would be worth nothing. Unlike the pristine ones in their boxes which can sometimes be seen on programmes like Flog it and Antiques Roadshow. But we had many hours of fun with ours so no regrets there!

in the 60’s came seat belts and reversing lights.  When reversing, the driver switched the reversing light on and had to remember to switch it off or risk getting a £50 fine! I remember this particularly because it was a recent development when I was first learning to drive in 1968.

This is all from my childhood memories.  I haven’t looked anything up (apart from the photos) so I’m sure there will be some slight inaccuracies. My intention is to spark off readers’ own memories of motoring in those two decades.

Although I called this post Transport, so far I have only covered cars. I will re-visit soon with more about trains and buses.

The blog begins – with food!l

Hi everyone! I set this page up months ago and have been too scared to start. So . . . .  I am just going to dive in and get it going. I will tart it up at some stage with fancy backgrounds and pictures but for today I’ll begin by telling you all about it.

I was born in 1951 which means I turn 64 this year. It occurred to me recently that those of us who were kids in the 50s and 60s are now in our 50s and 60s. I thought it might be fun to share thoughts, memories and ideas which we kids of the 50s and 60s all have in common. I’m not going to do fashion just yet, there is already a lot of stuff on the internet about 50s and 60s fashions. I will be looking at radio, TV, events from the news, school life, cars, books and so on. More ideas welcome at any time! But this first post is going to look back at food.

Who remembers being given bread and butter to eat with every meal? I think this was a hangover from rationing when food had to be padded out. Shop cakes were a luxury and we bought them when somebody was coming to tea. I loved Battenburg and Angel Cake. Home baking was for the family. Milk puddings were very common – rice, semolina, ground rice, tapioca even macaroni. We were given jam to stir into these milk puddings. Posh puddings came in packets – lemon meringue pie mix and Creme Caramelle. Cream came in tins – evaporated milk, condensed milk, Carnation and later, in a packet, came Dream Topping which was the ‘whipped cream’ favoured by many for the top of trifles (these could also be bought as a dry mix in a packet).

  

Pasta also came in tins, except macaroni which, as I’ve already mentioned, was a pudding. The only pasta I ever came across in the 50s was Heinz tinned spaghetti. I don’t remember ever having rice as part of a savoury meal in the 50s, it was always a pudding.

I will finish with a random list of other foods which were everyday items but seen less commonly now. Fray Bentos pies, corned beef, tinned salmon, Shipham’s paste, tinned Mulligatawny soup ( a rare treat in our house and a change from Heinz tomato soup), spam, spam fritters (loved them!), luncheon meat, Hovis, Nimble, Lemon Puff biscuits (which made all the other biscuits in the tin go soft and taste of lemon!), Camp coffee and tea leaves instead of tea bags which arrived on the scene later.

I hope this has rung a few bells, struck a few chords, raised a smile or two. My next post might continue the food and drink theme or I might dip into something else. Who knows where this will take me?