memory lane,

[minniemouse]

Our bins were in the communal yard, included was a pig bin which was just for peelings etc., any sort of food item.  We called them miskins.

[Grumpyfrog]

As lads we had an air rifle, catapult, sheath knife, soap boxes with no brakes, insatiable appetites for"scrumped" apples and sore ears from the village bobby if you got caught!


I wouldnt have swopped any of it for X boxes, ipads, or mobile phones.

[Coastal]

Other callers were, the insurance man, the beer man and the pop man, and it just hit me, I don't remember any delivery women, a frequent sight now.

[crabbyob]

The beer man?... Coastal, come on mate we need more info on that guy

[Coastal]

Beer at home means Davenports

[Johned]

In our nearby Co-op yard, horses were stabled there to haul the Co-op milk carts, the bread carts, the coal carts and the lone paraffin tanker.  One of the town's breweries still retained a horse and dray for local beer deliveries up to the fifties, likewise the railway delivery drays.  Perhaps the most impressive sight locally of horse drawn transport were the timber haulage "drugs" as they were termed.  These could be hauled by up to eight horses and fetched logs from local woodland to the timber yard for turning into planks.  We had two large timber yards.  One used the horse teams and the other had two Foden Steam lorries for hauling the "drugs," still in use in the fifties.

[firenze]

And the Breadman had a high cart with huge wheels iron clad and a beautiful horse, he shouted something which meant to tell wares. Maybe Bread and Cakes alive Ho! He wore leather gaiters and trews with baggy thighs.
    This thread sound like the dark ages doesn't it?

[crabbyob]

i actually worked for a greengrocer who worked from the back of a lorry but also had a horse and cart, so after a month or so he asked me to do a round with the horse and cart, so i would come out of school and run round to his yard and collect the horse and cart which would be waiting harnessed and loaded and i did my round every night, i finished at seven and went back to the yard and cashed up, i got £5 a week but worked all day saturday, my father worked in construction and earned under £9... the horse was called jock and was a Clydesdale... happy days

[minniemouse]

Your certainly a grafter.  I didn't do any work until I left school at 15 and then I sat on my backside in an office for the next 43 years when I was made redundant.

[zoony]

If Crabby's dad was anything like mine Minnie, if you weren't at school, you were earning..Not in a forced-labour sort of way, it's just the way things were. Every little helped. I envy you the horses Crabby..My grocery job involved a long, 5am drive to Liverpool docks, load up the big van with produce, long drive back, unload said van and clean up. Drudgery, apart from the odd giant spider scuttling really quickly out of the bananas..Straight up my coat sleeve one day!..That'll adrenalize a morning for you.. ..

[crabbyob]

yes Zoony, i love horses, never had one tho...lol... im a bit big for normal horses, and i dont enjoy horse racing, when i did my pit training over half the training was horse related... lol..even tho my pit was the most modern in europe, it employed 4,000 men and had three horses...lol... but i had the good fortune to work with them, and i agree it was not natural for horses to be down the pit, neither was it natural for men to be there, now lots of folks have said yes but you had the choice, and yes i did... the horse didnt, so we took them out the pit.... where did they go... galloping over the meadows, or sent to brussels to be slaughtered for the butchery trade... in 1900 there were millions of horses in this country, then we became automated, and dispensed with the animals... so where did they go... the do gooders should consider this before being an eco warrior

[minniemouse]

Blimey, I never even had hard labour when I gave birth, it was a caesarean and I was unconscious 

[crabbyob]

which is how it should be minnie
graft is not clever... 43 years sat at a desk is clever
well done, i wish i had been at the next desk, i think...lol

[zoony]

Crabby..We should remember that WW1 accounted for almost a million horses..and none were brought back..Then the rise of the internal combustion engine..The problems city's had with huge amounts of dung meant that trams then buses took over and horses were discouraged..They're a memory to have of those days which were indeed dark compared to now. No matter how rose-tinted the glasses might be..
....I know that you knew that, mate, just hated to interrupt myself in full flow..

[crabbyob]

excellent mate, to be in full flow is a thing of wonder
and i would be distraught at the very thought of interuptus...lol
i find myself in full flight but travelling in the wrong direction lol