S Smell:
Sooty, smoky streets - Sometimes I walk down the street and catch a vague smell of someone burning a real fire. In the 50s everyone had fires and it was a constant winter smell.
Sweets - Rationing ended in 1953 and, although I was too young to understand it, I do remember there being a certain excitement around buying sweets. A twisted stick of barley sugar was a favourite. I also loved Fry's Five boys chocolate bars and Fry's Five Centres. And then there were sherbet dips, and aniseed balls, fruit salad chews, and Spangles, pear drops, and love hearts, Bluebird toffees and what about sweet cigarettes with the little red tip to make it look as if it was alight! I used to walk around pretending to smoke! And liquorice pipes with red sugar strands on the end! And as for gobstoppers, Health and Safety would be having a hundred pink fits.
| The faces represented desperation, pacification, expectation, acclamation and realisation. Hey! I've just got what it means! The boys were asking for chocolate! |
Steam trains - We used to take the train from Leicester to London to visit family. When we went through tunnels the smoke poured in through the little sliding window that had the instructions, "Do not open beyond these arrows" printed above it. The smoke made my eyes sting and it hurt so much it made me cry. We sat in individual carriages with a corridor along one side and the train made a lovely clickety-clack noise with the occasional woo-woo from the steam whistle.
I thought you might like to have a quick trip on a steam train for yourselves. London to Brighton in four minutes, the film having been speeded up, of course. It takes about an hour and a half even now. It was another of the Interlude films but I decided to save it for today.
 |
| The Saint with a young Roger Moore as Simon Templar |
On TV:
The Saint
Stingray
The Sooty Show
The Phil Silvers Show
Steptoe and Son
On Radio:
Saturday Club with Brian Matthews
Sing Something Simple
S Names:
Helen Shapiro singing You Don't Know
The Saint
Stingray
The Sooty Show
The Phil Silvers Show
Steptoe and Son
On Radio:
Saturday Club with Brian Matthews
Sing Something Simple
S Names:
| Omar Sharif |
Peter Sellers
Graham Sutherland
Dr Spock
Phil Silvers
Omar Sharif
Jimmy Stewart
Small Faces
Supremes
Eric Sykes
Frank Sinatra
Tommy Steele
Del Shannon
Dusty Springfield
Sandy Shaw
The Searchers
Neil Sedaka
Helen Shapiro who provides the...
S Music:Helen Shapiro singing You Don't Know
There must be more sweets but have I missed anything else?
If you're enjoying these memories then pop over and visit Anne Mackle's blog at Is Anyone There? for her A to Z Challenge about memories of the 1960s and 70s.
