A to Z 1950s/60s Nostalgia: T

T Smell:

Tar - I've always loved the smell of tar but as a kid our Mums would stand us beside road repairers because they thought it fended off whooping cough.

T Memories:
Television sets - Some idiosyncrasies of the 1950 TV.

• It was a big square box with a tiny screen that had to be turned on at least 10 minutes before watching to give it time to warm up. 
• When turned off the picture would disappear into a dot in the middle of the screen.
• When the linehold went the picture kept scrolling up and off the screen. We had to fiddle with knobs on the back of the set to stop it.
• There were no remote controls so you had to get out of your chair to turn over - assuming you had ITV which didn't start transmitting until 1955 and was only received by a small number of households until the early 1960s.

Telstar - Although the first man-made satellite in space was Sputnik in 1957, it made little difference to our lives. It wasn't until Telstar was launched in 1962 that we started to receive live transmissions from America. I can remember that even though the reception was poor, we all marvelled at how unbelievable it was to see someone from America talking live.

Toys - Very few toys were battery operated and the only toy I can think of that needed to be plugged in was my electric train set [I loved my train sets. I had a chunky Hornby clockwork one and a smaller electric one.] We had plenty of wind-up toys with clockwork springs that pinged and broke if you over-wound them but nothing like kids play with today.

Some of my other favourite toys that come to mind [and I know you'll think of more] are:

• A jack-in-the-box which frightened me. [I was a sensitive little girl.]
• My plastic dolls with fixed joints and head but they came alive in my mind all the same.
• Many of you have already mentioned paper dolls. I loved my bag of paper dolls.
• Colouring books with crayons or coloured pencils. We had no felt tips.
• Yoyos made of wood
• Kaleidoscopes that you looked through and saw a myriad of patterns. I used to think they were magic.

T Programmes:

On TV:

Torchy

Take your Pick, Michael Miles and shouts of "Open the box!" "Take the money!"
Torchy, the battery boy
This is your Life, Eamonn Andrews and that infamous red book.
Thunderbirds
That's Life, Esther Rantzen and dogs who said, "Sausages!"
Tomorrows World




On Radio:

Take it from here
Twenty Questions, animal, vegetable or mineral?
Top of the Form

T Names:

The Temptations who always looked so smart

Harry S. Truman, USA

Fred Trueman, cricketer
Shirley Temple
Mel Torme
The Temptations
The Troggs
Tammi Terrell
Traffic
The Tornadoes who provide [no surprises here]...

T Music:
The Tornadoes playing Telstar which includes a tribute to NASA. I'd forgotten how noisy this piece of music is at the beginning.

Any more Ts anyone?

If you're enjoying these memories then you'll also enjoy

Anne Mackle's blog at Is Anyone There? 

Her A to Z Challenge is about memories of the 1960s and 70s.