In My Day

[StoneTheCrows]

I remember the baker and milko used to come in horse and cart.
Was a treat to be the first kid on the block to get a free ride with the baker.
Milk in glass botttles
Mr Spooner was the local vegetable guy who would drive around with his van and stop basically door to door selling fresh fruit and veg.
The Rabbit guy would sell his rabbits hanging off a stick - door to door again.

Sixpence every saturday - straight to the flea pit for cartoons or whatever was playing and ice cream
Also remember a man used to come and collect money door to door for the mortgagae (I think)

Few years later on the pushbike selling papers and every friday 5 cents worth of chips from the tips.
Street cricket every afternoon with the other boys from our area.
How good was cracker night with bonfires and crackers.
Good times

STC's, Did you live in Geraldton late 50's, what you have written has brought back exactly memories of life in Hutchison Street, Geraldton, WA.

Nightjar

Nope that was Shortland in Newcastle NSW Early 60's

 

[StoneTheCrows]

Geez Now I remember another time when about 10 years old.
My brother and I were shooting dads slug gun in the backyard
Special slug gun cause as soon as you loaded the slug and snapped the barrel in place it would fire - so when snapping the barrel you had to be aiming at what you wanted to hit.

One day my brother shot a pair of my pants that were hanging on the clothes ine.
On inspection the slug did not make a mark on the pants.
So he ordered me into the pants and then lined up the slug gun on my leg - snapped the barrel closed and bang
Slug straight into my pants.
Did not go throught the pants and did not break the skin on my leg BUT bruised from hip to knee which lasted about two months.
I had to hide it from the folks so we did not get into trouble

Freaking ratbags the lot of us..

 

[BigWave]

My favourite terrorism act was filling an empty matchbox with cut up table-tennis balls (cellulose), lighting them, then shutting the box. Put in a Melbourne tram end compartment then shut the end door and watch the whole room fill with smoke. I got quite a few detentions for those.
The other one was soaking iodine crystals in ammonia, then letting the sediment nearly dry (to a thick paste).
I'd paint the residue on school door handles and drop some on the classroom wooden floors. When it dried it became touch-powder (amonium tri-iodide I think it was called) and would explode on vibration of students touching the door handles or walking on the wooden floors leaving class. I only got one detention for those.
Final week of school we manually lifted a masters VW on it's side and took it through a narrow opening into the school's central quadrangle and set it down. Took over a day till someone figured out how to remove it.
I also heard that climbers painted their feet and ascended the clock tower with footprints all the way up. The headmaster was furious and said that the culprits' foot prints must come down - you guessed it - the next day there was a set of footprints coming down. That wasn't me.
Damn, I had a great time at school

 

[Bjay]

We used to go eeling and sell them to the local smokehouse for $2kg. Used to make good pocket money there. Only problem was it was about a 15km round trip on the treddly, steep windie track carrying usually 10-20kg of dirty rotten eels. Dont know why anyone would pay for them but glad they did :lol:

Smoked eel is bloody tasty.

 

[Jaros]

My father used to go eeling out the front of the house at night. Yarraman creek used to be there and now runs under the back yard. It was an excise to take few VB Longnecks and lay in the grass waiting for the to commit eelicide. Only he ate them. I couldn't stand the smell of them cooking. That's probably dislike crabs, crays etc. Never been a big fish eater. I don't mind crumbed flatty's or cod with chips and salad. :beer:

 

[Mackka]

Reminds of the day a mate and I went fishing in Mullet Creek, to catch Blackfish, anyway, I ended up catching an eel, took it home and my Dad was over the moon. He hung it up in the bathroom over the tub and skinned / gutted it and a bit of flour to dust it and into a hot buttered pan. Oh the eel was cut into steaks prior to cooking. Yummo
Dad took some cold to work the next day.
He was one happy fella.
Thanks for reminding me Jaros.
Mackka

 

[DrDuck]

Anyone remember that old WW2 TV show Combat, starring Vic Morrow?

Back in the '60s we used to like Combat a lot, and around cracker night used to incorporate various explosives and rockets into our play, usually penny bungers for grenades and penny rockets as general purpose projectiles. A friend had a rock retaining wall at his place that we used as a trench.

One day we had a candle set up on the top of the wall to light the bungers. I swiveled to throw a grenade bunger, and thought I saw a flame. Next throw I saw it again and deduced that my flannelette shirt had been ignited by the candle.

Not thinking too clearly, I took off yelling and running around in circles (I would have only been around 8 at the time). My mate's mother heard the noise and came out with a blanket and put me out.

Despite a trip to hospital and moderate burns to my back, there was no ban on crackers or playing combat. Such things were regarded as part of growing up back then.

 

[Tathradj]

Silver eels are very nice cooked in hot butter and flour.

Forget about the conga eels and such. tried to boil them first before cooking to get
rid of the oil.
Threw the whole lot out. :N: :N:

 

[Redfin]

Anyone remember that old WW2 TV show Combat, starring Vic Morrow?

Sat night lineup, Bonanza followed by Combat followed by Mavis Bramston.
erfect:

 

[Heatho]

My favourite terrorism act was filling an empty matchbox with cut up table-tennis balls (cellulose), lighting them, then shutting the box. Put in a Melbourne tram end compartment then shut the end door and watch the whole room fill with smoke. I got quite a few detentions for those.
The other one was soaking iodine crystals in ammonia, then letting the sediment nearly dry (to a thick paste).
I'd paint the residue on school door handles and drop some on the classroom wooden floors. When it dried it became touch-powder (amonium tri-iodide I think it was called) and would explode on vibration of students touching the door handles or walking on the wooden floors leaving class. I only got one detention for those.
Final week of school we manually lifted a masters VW on it's side and took it through a narrow opening into the school's central quadrangle and set it down. Took over a day till someone figured out how to remove it.
I also heard that climbers painted their feet and ascended the clock tower with footprints all the way up. The headmaster was furious and said that the culprits' foot prints must come down - you guessed it - the next day there was a set of footprints coming down. That wasn't me.
Damn, I had a great time at school

Yeah the iodine crystals and ammonia is a good one. So sensitive that even if a fly landed on a crystal it would explode.

A good mate of mine who passed away about 15 years ago used to mix up this special preparation and fill up the plastic container of kinder surprise eggs with it. Anyway we were having a cracker night at his place and he was letting off all the pretty ones plus a few rockets and then gave me wink, I knew to stand back for this one and put my fingers in my ears. He lights it and tosses it into the yard, everyone is standing around waiting for the pretty sparkles ..... then boom, everyone were left standing there shaking with dirt in their hair, clothes and beards, bloody surprise alright, there was a 2 ft crater in the yard. My mate was a bit of a mischievous bugger.

 

[sand surfer]

bringing your post back to life mackka

i new i had some photo's somewhere

test match cricket at the YCG (yallook cricket ground 1971) family farm

sad but that's all i could find

 

[sand surfer]

not in my day mackka, but i like to look at these old photo's too, hope you don't mind

the first hay baler in the district on the family farm (it is bloody annoying that they never dated or said who was in them)

 

[Mackka]

Thanks for bringing this up again SS as I had totally forgotten about it. Fantastic photos and the cricket scene was the same at my place played on the dirt road out front so the windows were safe, most of the time. Love the old farm machinery, great memories.
Cheers
Mackka :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

 

[Moneybox]

I'm sorry to say but I think I'm in the company of a group of ratbags :lol:

We were good kids compared to you lot. The eel stories brought back a memory. It was stinking hot weather and we wanted to go for a swim. We usually just duck down to the creek or over to Bredden's dam but on this day we decided to get together with a few friends and ride to Bundaleer. It was about 10km from our place at Upper Brookfield to the Bundaleer swimming pool.
Anyway the pool was so crowded we ended up down in the creek and chassed a big eel up into the rapids and caught it. We carried it up to the pool in somebodies shirt and dropped it in the pool. There was a lot more room in the pool after that

 

[Mackka]

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: layful:

 

[Jaros]

Talking about pools. I was in Noble Park Vic. in the mid 60's where they had just openned a new Olympic size pool near the railway line. Someone had taken a dislike to it and sometime thru the night turfed a container of Condi's Chrystal's into the pool. Must have had a strong arm as the pool was 50 or so mtrs. from the footpath outside the fence.
Next morning all of the local schools were notified of cancelled swimming lessons. What a mess. 1 purple coloured pool that had to be drained completely, cleaned and refilled. No-one was ever found guilty.

 

[Mackka]

You putting your hand up Jaros layful: layful:

 

[Jaros]

Not I O

 

[linesman]

Moneybox That post is a blast from the past. I knew that I was in excellent company on this forum. Here is a photo of the dam mentioned in your post before Dad sold the farm in 65 as you would know there were plenty of eels in the dam. Barry

 

[Moneybox]

Moneybox That post is a blast from the past. I knew that I was in excellent company on this forum. Here is a photo of the dam mentioned in your post before Dad sold the farm in 65 as you would know there were plenty of eels in the dam. Barryhttps://www.prospectingaustralia.com/forum/img/member-images/13799/1621158890_dcf585e8-eae0-44f4-9c64-9406bdc4b354.jpg

Wow Barry, what as blast from the past. Good job I don't tell any lies on here :lol:

Where are you now? Allan is down Stapylton way, Colin is in Parlmston Holiday park and Mervyn is over here in WA. The girls (78 yr old) are all spread out over there.