Does anyone remember the lamp lighter who used to cycle along Parliament Road and Newport Road riding his bike and carrying a long pole lighting the gas lamps at dusk and extinguishing them at dawn? There was a famous song written at the time about him sung by Bing Crosby. What about spam, powdered egg, bread and beef dripping, cleaning one’s teeth with salt instead of toothpaste, castor or cod liver oil on Friday nights as that was bath night, food rationing, etc. The h’apenny bridge over Saltburn’s valley gardens, the opening of Children’s matinees at the Regent Cinema in Redcar on Saturday mornings, the roller skating rink at the Coatham Enclosure in Redcar, the Pierrots on Redcar beach, people digging up their flower beds and lawns to grow fruit and vegetables because of the shortage of allotments? Outside toilets at school usually frozen up in Winter, Air raids over Teesside, gas masks and some people think wearing face masks today is a nuisance?

I could go on, but in some ways the coronavirus pandemic and the approach of Armistice Day has brought out the nostalgia in me as I hope to survive this second wave of self isolation and who knows if I will be able to share these memories in 4 or 5 months time. So forgive my self indulgence as it’s too late to write a book now about the initial post war years, but in some ways they were happy times and nostalgia is wasted on the young.

@ken

The past does indeed sound like a different country and you've certainly put into context the inconvenience of Covid compared to what is for me the unimaginable time of six years of war and the hardship that followed. Although even I at the relative youthful age of 56 experienced the frozen outside toilets at Linthorpe school and remember when the luxurious new inside ones were built with the novelty of hot running water.

Incidentally, I used to remember that we played football in the playground with a marble as nobody had a football back then. Also the school playing fields still had underneath them the old air-raid shelters. Although, I recall we spent most of the lunch break wandering around chanting 'all join on if you want to play japs and commandos' and forming huge chains of linked arms before a brief shootout before the bell - which was indeed a real bell that somebody came outside to shake.

btw did I mention the short trousers that were mandatory 12 months of the year in what were back then real winters - I was I think eight or nine before the wearing of long trousers were allowed in schools. So I'm inclined to agree that life now even under Covid is much easier - though I think before I turn into a Monty Python sketch I'd better stop! Kids today don't know they're born, which as I speak while my son is currently playing some WII Sports video game after earlier playing Minecraft on his own tablet before listening to an audio book!

Yes, one was only allowed to wear long trousers at school when one reached the age of 14 yet strangely today some grown men choose to wear shorts in November although most of us have wall to wall carpets and central heating now. My childhood was lucky because we had a bathroom and indoor toilet, but some kids would use football rattles to scare away the rats before using their outside toilet. It’s almost unbelievable, but that was life for some folk until prefabricated houses were built in places like Dormanstown. 

Ken,

There were some post war prefabs near St Chads, Keith Road/ Emerson avenue by Saltersgill Beck that the owners didn't want to leave when demolition time came because they were so warm and cosy compared to the old housing. How times change. I think the bulk of the construction material was asbestos, inert until it was damaged.

Stay safe,

UTB,

John

Posted by: @werdermouth

 

Although even I at the relative youthful age of 56 experienced the frozen outside toilets at Linthorpe school and remember when the luxurious new inside ones were built with the novelty of hot running water.

Incidentally, I used to remember that we played football in the playground with a marble as nobody had a football back then. Also the school playing fields still had underneath them the old air-raid shelters. Although, I recall we spent most of the lunch break wandering around chanting 'all join on if you want to play japs and commandos' and forming huge chains of linked arms before a brief shootout before the bell - which was indeed a real bell that somebody came outside to shake.

btw did I mention the short trousers that were mandatory 12 months of the year in what were back then real winters - I was I think eight or nine before the wearing of long trousers were allowed in schools. 

Wow, that takes me back as a fellow alumnus of Linthorpe school from a slightly older period - I am now 67. Can anyone else remember the leg cricket that we used to play in the playground. We always seemed to have a tennis ball available to play. I’d also forgotten the short trousers. Now, living here in Oz, I complain if it gets much under 20 degrees. 

thanks for the memories.

@selwynoz

While I'm not aware of the Linthorpe old school tie opening many doors (mainly because there wasn't one) it still made us who we are 🙂 Though I seem to recall the old headmaster only had one leg - I think he was called Mr Misen (though not sure of the actual spelling). As for leg cricket, I'm struggling to remember playing that one - what were the rules?  Anyway, today is most definitely not shorts weather over here with a rather dull and chilly 7 degrees!

I remember leg cricket although for some reason we called it French cricket. It was a mixed sport for girls and boys played with a bat and tennis ball with a cordon of catchers in close proximity, usually on our annual Sunday school outing to Saltburn or Crimdon Dene. The underarm thrower who hit the batters legs replaced the batter, as did the catcher. I think the batter who avoided being out scored 4 points for every time he survived being out,  the bowler who managed to hit the batter’s leg scored 2 points and the catcher 1 point, but can’t remember if there was a limit of the number of throws, but the winner usually got a small prize. However it was great fun. Maybe it might become an Olympic sport one day!

I must congratulate Werdermouth on this new format of Diasboro which allows us to write about any subject as well as football and the Boro, although I myself steer clear of politics and to an extent religion, although I’ve started watching Songs of Praise as I love a good sing especially hymns. Also it’s a lovely way of seeing our beautiful country and listening to people talking about  their experiences, and like Diasboro itself a way of hearing or reading all sorts of nostalgic stories especially for people like me who live alone. So thank you! Also I’m pleased to report that I’m now fully recovered from my recent fall although my arms, fingers and legs are fairly battle-scarred on appearance but probably no worse than anyone else of my age and it’s lovely to have a shower once more. 

@ken

Yes I do remember playing French cricket but had forgotten the rules so well remembered Ken - I wonder if it's the same as leg cricket?

btw Glad to hear you've recovered from your fall!

French Cricket

RULES

The rules of French Cricket will vary, but here is a list that many a game is based on.

• The game requires one batter and any number of fieldsmen. No stumps or pitch are required
• The batsman makes a stance with the bat held vertically in front of the legs.
• The person with the ball throws it towards the batsman (any bowling/throwing action is OK)
• If the batsman hits the ball, they are able to move to another position (further away from the ball), but most stop and take up the batting stance when the ball is picked up
• If the batsman misses the ball they are not allowed to move position.
• Whoever retrieves the ball becomes the next bowler from the location they retrieve the ball
• The batsman is out when caught or when the ball hits their legs.
• The person who bowls the batsman out, or who catches the batsman out is the next batsman.

Ah, French Cricket. Does anyone know if it really was French?

I too went to Linthorpe School as an infant (I’m now 65) for a short time before we moved to Nunthorpe in 1967. I can’t really remember much about it but I’m pretty sure I didn’t like it. I do recall a fire drill and a girl in our class getting very upset because she’d left her doll in the class and was convinced it would be burnt. 

I once (deliberately) spilled my mixed veg on the floor at lunchtime because I didn’t like it, only to be spotted by another pupil who demanded that he have my pudding in return for his silence! 

I don’t think I ever made it the playing field (maybe that was only for older children) but it didn’t seem to alter my passion for sport, because I settled in really well at Swan’s Corner school in Nunthorpe and was captain of the football and cricket teams. Happy days. 

@werdermouth

@ken

@selwyn

@diasboro.....

..and you try telling that to the young folk today....

The leggie that we played didn’t have a bat. You just kicked it as far as you could. The real trick as a bowler was to bounce it so that you couldnt get a proper swing at it 

@selwynoz

Sounds like a kind of football-cricket-tennis fusion that if it had caught on could have potentially altered the future of Boro blogging as we know it...

@martin-bellamy

Good to hear of another fellow of the less famous Linthorpe Set - btw I still remember my first day at infants when I was still four and at the time being puzzled as to why so many kids were crying - maybe there was something I'd missed. Though as the morning wore on the alpha males (and I dare say some female equivalents) of the class commandeered the sandpit, which was raised on a table and it became a something of a territorial contest. Although, I was more than happy to play on my own with a large wooden spinning top dice as I possibly worked out the probabilities of life and the universe at which Middlesbrough was still at the centre at that juncture!

Other children’s games have just come to mind including ‘nearest to the wall’ with bottle tops, a bit like quoits with the nearest to the wall adding to their collection of bottle tops often scavenged from pub rubbish bins which we used to wear on our jumpers as badges with the cork inside the jumper holding it in position.

Another game was an improvised one of cricket golf. We used to play it on ground too rough for cricket with the stumps placed singularly some 50 or 100 yards apart and using a cricket bat instead of a golf club to bash it along a contrived fairway towards the first stump which in golfing terms was the hole, so depending on how many strokes one took before hitting the stump counted as a bogey, par or a birdie.

Also hopscotch on the pavement marked out with numbers 1, then 2 and 3 adjacent to each other, then 4 on its own, with 5 and 6 adjacent to each other, 7 on its own, 8 and 9 adjacent, 10 on its own. So numbers 1,4,7 and 10 you were standing on one foot, whilst you had both feet astride on the adjacent numbers where you must attempt to pick up your marker thrown at the start of the game without changing your stance. I’ve been reminded of this game on the prelude to the TV series ‘Call the Midwife’.

Wow!  This Blog is clearly much more than a mere football supporters' blog - and all the better for that. I have just logged in because I thought I'd share the message in a Tweet I saw, and I will get to that in a short while.  But then I saw this thread and the others which have received posts recently, since I was last here.

Firstly - a confession. What with work and all that has been going on in the world, football has recently been relegated to a lower-table position in my hierachcy of interests and, secondly, I have been a little busy, though I have followed what the Boro are doing by radio commentary and the live streaming of home games - and I am feeling encouraged by what I have recently seen.   BUT I will not be busy in the work department after the New Year as, by then, I will have hung up my wig and pen.  Age has started to weary me, and I am conscious of that bearded chap in the background sharpening his scythe, so I have decided to put woirk aside and (hopefully) enjoy time doing pleasurable things in retirement.  So, although I haven't been a frequent recent visitor here, I hope to return more often in the New Year.  Maybe in time for some REAL football?

Anyway, when I logged in, I saw a classical music thread, and other stuff. Well, I suppose that there have been quite a few things going on in the world with COVID-19, Biden/Trump and Lockdown 2.0 (in England) etc.  I haven't read the Classical Music thread yet, but will do so, and look forward to spending more time here in a couple of months.

BUT in the meantime....the thing which caused me to open the blog at all (as I have a rest and a cup of tea whilst WFH) is this Tweet by @davidashprice (Ashley Price, who is a Consultant in Infectious Diseases  and Genereal Internal Medicine, who I guess has been rather busy recently).  I will put it here because I think it poignant:

      "Today in the Ward Round seeing #COVID-19 patients after 11am we reflected on the  

       relatively small sacrifices people need to make to prevent transmission and death v the

       huge sacrifices our grandfathers and grandmothers made during the Wars...."

He Tweeted that before midnight yesterday - ie on 11th November, Armistice Day.  Yes, it is a bind not being out and about, not at the match, not being able to go to the pub or - for some people - not being able to hug grandchildren etc or travel as they would wish.  But 50,000+ dead SO FAR in the UK alone makes you think.  And whilst most of those may be elderly or with serious underlying health conditions, even those younger, healthy people who are unlikely to be susceptible or who would not become seriously ill could (by social distancing, washing hands frequently and wearing a mask when indoors in any public place like shops etc) help to reduce the chances that vulnerable people could become infected in the future.  Some younger unlucky people are dying, but a 75 years old Granny X or Grandpa Y would normally hope for a decade or more without being wiped out now by an infection which might have been very much reduced in its spread if we ALL took those simple measures.  So pictures of people flouting the rules, drinking, unmasked in touch-tight and alcohol-fuelled proximity with crowds of others, are a little annoying.

I suppose if you are working in a hospital, exhausted through long shifts and facing what must seem like an endless a wave of sick people being admitted as a result of COVID-19, it doesn't seem too mcuh to ask that people out there should comply with the Government requirements on social distancing and movement etc.  There will be NEXT Spring, next Summer, Autumn and NEXT Christmas for those of us (hopefully the vast majority) who get through this wave.  But I thought, since he posted yesterday, on 11th November 2020, it was a message that resonated.  Even if not entirely "on the Classical Music piste".

Keep safe everybody.  I hope to return.

My cousin was the projectionist at the ABC Cinema, that meant that when we went to the “ Minors Club” on Saturday mornings my sister and I got in for free, with the added bonus that my Auntie ( his mother) was an Usherette which meant we got a Sky Ray each for free.

He would often let me come into the projection room during screenings, I was always overawed at the size of the three projectors ( films came in several reels, so to facilitate seamless showing they were pre-loaded).

I used to have a collection of advertising pics for the current weeks films that I have sadly lost, probably would be worth a few quid now.

@forever-dormo Welcome to imminent retirement FD. I can thoroughly recommend it. 

@forever-dormo

Excellent post Dormo.

Nothing else that needs to be added to that.

@forever-dormo

A full-time camper soon? Anyway, all the best wishes for New Year and keep fit. Up the Boro!

Many years ago I used to buy a Car interior cleaner (Decosol I think may have made it from dim memory), it was a gloopy orange gel type substance that came in a jam jar type bottle. It would clean everything and anything but in particular I used to use it when I bought a second hand car to clean the inevitable nicotine stained vinyl headlining.

It worked brilliantly (if messily), painted on with a paintbrush and then rubbed off with a clean cloth and regular bucket changes of water. I tried looking for some recently and can I heck as like find it anywhere, the clue probably being that the last time I purchased it was probably circa 1980ish. 

Strange how some things take you right back in time.

That reminds of the green stuff we used to clean our hands with at the factory where I worked as a teenager. cant remember the name of that either.

@allan-in-bahrain

Allan, I think it was called Swarfega. Can you still buy it? Redcar Red, it was called Decosol, brilliant on everything vinyl in a car. Probably a casualty of Health & Safety now.

Stay safe,

UTB,

John

You can still buy Decosol, although now it comes in, spray on foam form.

I have Swarfega in my garage right now. Nicer for your hands than the more abrasive ones. And still good for cleaning your hands.

Up the Boro! 

The smell of Swarfega takes me back immediately to days with my Dad and Brother, trying to get whatever old banger I had at the time, back on the road. 

My Dad was a plater at Dorman Long and in the winter with the fab shop doors open to the icy elements but working with red hot ingots inside he used to have to rub his chapped hands with some compound. Would that be Swarfega,  or am I thinking of something entirely different?

@ken I doubt it would be Swarfega. Swarfega is used as a cleaner, a type of degreaser for your hands.

I think they do an after care product (and also a pre-use one) now although it is possible that they may have also done a hand care cream for use afterwards way back then.