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Friday 19 May 2017

A Wandering Mind....

Since last weekend, the weather has been pretty miserable here in heavenly Devon. In fact, it has been raining heavily every day. 

So, when I should be out working in the garden, I find myself confined to the house.  What to do ... shall I tackle that pile of ironing, get the duster out, or.... write a blog post. Well, as you can see, I opted for the latter option, so here I am to entertain you once again 😳.

Isn't it funny how our mind works sometimes?   Well, this girl's mind anyway and, yes, even at my age, I still think of myself as a girl, albeit a slightly 'worn out' girl. 

Last evening I found myself thinking of school milk, back in the 50s. Ugh! In the Summer, the crates of milk used to sit there in the heat of the classroom until the Milk Monitor (a much fought after position) distributed them among the pupils. Then, in the Winter, the bottle tops would be frozen. 

 
 
Incidentally, who remembers Jack Frost making patterns on the INSIDE of their bedroom windows?  Not forgetting the liberty bodices we wore as little girls. Although I don't remember mine being quite as posh looking as the one in this picture. (All images today courtesy of Google). 
 

I'm including this next picture, again from Google, because this little girl looks exactly like me at that age. In fact, I think it is ME!! 😂

 

My mind then turned to roller skates. Almost every child in my neighbourhood had a pair of these.  I remember them being great fun. As you can see, they were the height of sophistication - NOT!

 

I then moved forward a few years to the navy blue regulation school knickers we used to have to wear when doing PT, or netball and 🏑 hockey. I remember them having a sort of fleece like lining. All the girls hated them and would try to hide in the changing rooms, rather than having to parade around outside in them. Horror of horrors!!  Until the Gym Mistress used to stride in looking for us. Oh my goodness, the Gym Mistresses of the 1950's. My, they were a frightening lot. Just think of the most officious Sergeant in the Army, and you still wouldn't be close!  Bear in mind, this was a totally different era. We were total innocents back then. I'm sure these days, the girls would be taking selfies of themselves and posting the photos on Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat!  

 

Talking of my early school days, I found this photo of my first school class, which would have been taken in 1952.  

 

I hope you have enjoyed my reminiscing today, and perhaps it might have brought back some memories of your own school days. Anytime you want to enlarge a photo from my blog, just double tap on it, and that should do the trick. 

Happy weekend everyone. Look after yourselves. 

8 comments:

Suzanne said...

Gosh, this is one exciting and cute post, Thisisme! I love your school picture, and wondered about the little girl on the front row at the very far right. She looks a lot like little Ruby from my computer. Could that be you? And, I noticed a lot of T-Strap shoes on the little girls. They were very popular when I was growing up also. It is a great photo!

Oooo, about the milk! We weren't served milk or juice in my elementary school, thank goodness! But, my mother would send a thermos with our lunches, and the milk would stay fairly cool for lunch time. What great pictures of the crates of milk and the school boys carrying them.

The roller skates were a lot of fun, then. Our house was on a dead end street, where the traffic was very light, and we could skate down the streets and sidewalks without too much fear of getting run over.

Well, I think it's fair to say that you made the best choice today. I hope your rain doesn't make things too soggy, like you've had in previous years. It's such a mess to clean up afterwards, and we have to watch for mosquitoes that breed in the dampness.

You can feel like a girl all you want, I still do a lot. I have had some stressful moments lately, but, my friends and family bring back the spunk and lift my spirits! So, as they say, "We put our big girl panties on and deal with it!" Have a splendid weekend, Thisisme! ♥

Southhamsdarling said...

Hello there Suzanne. You always take time with your comments and they're always a pleasure to read. Thank you for that, and for being such a strong supporter of my Blog ❤️ . I am, indeed, at the front in that school photo, but I'm the little dark one, right over on the left. I wasn't fair like all three of my grandchildren. Thankfully, the rain isn't as bad as in previous years - just an inconvenience. I'm sure it's probably doing the garden good, but the trouble is, the grass is growing like mad all the time! Believe me, the school milk was horrible when it got warm. To be honest, it put me right off at a very early age, and I have never drunk milk on its own since! Probably why I didn't grow very much! 😂😂. Interesting that you also had fun on your roller skates. I used to love those little t-bar sandals! Hang on in there Suzanne - onwards and upwards. Hugs ❤️

Anne in Oxfordshire said...

Hello Diane..from sunny oxford .I don't remember all of this ..wasn't around for some of it but the school milk I was..chocolate was my favourite ...😊😊 cannot remember it being warm though. I love milk ice cold. So does Thomas ..he always says have you bought milk 😀😁 great to see you blogging ..it does take an effort now . Compared to what we both used to be like . .I couldn't get enough of blogging before. Have a
a lovely weekend. X

Southhamsdarling said...

Hi Anne. Thank you so much for popping over. Always good to see you, and glad you're getting some sunshine up there in Oxford. You're too young to remember much of this ! Yes, blogging is different now. I can't believe that, for the first couple of years, I used to write a post every single day!! Look after yourself xx

Unknown said...

You certainly have a great memory and I enjoyed every bit of this post. I don't really have any memories of school especially the early grades. I mostly remember my early pets like my dog Poochie, my 2 goats Lilly & Billy and loving nature. Of course I grew up in my dad's country store serving full sized glass bottle drinks over the counter for a nickle, 2 good sized Jack's cookies were 2 for a penny. Gas was 19 cents a gallon. Every Friday my dad would kill one of his hogs and BBQ the animal and then chop up the meal on a section of a tree with 2 cleavers and season the meat and put into 1 pound white paper trays to sell to his customers. It was awesome BBQ. My dad died in 1974 from cancer after a lifetime of smoking. It took me until 1981 to quit and they were only 30 cents a pack then. I don't know how people pay the price they are today. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Southhamsdarling said...

Hi Odie. Good to see you, as always. So you've always had pets, and now you've got the adorable little Rocky ❤️ You came up with some great memories there, and I found them very interesting. I can imagine the barbecues were really tasty, with the meat from the hogs! Over here, we have hog roasts now, when there are a lot of people. You must have had quite an idyllic childhood, and I'm glad that these memories came back to you. Take care over there, Odie.

Sally Wessely said...

Oh Diane, I loved this post. I was across the pond when you were experiencing these good and bad outfits and events, but our experiences are almost identical. We didn't call those fancy "Liberty bodices" by that name, we called our similar pieces of clothing "undershirts." We just don't have the same class when it comes to naming clothing as you British do! Our undergarments never would have been that fancy either. Buttons. Wow. We didn't have those.

I loved to roller skate. I should find a pair and take it up again. Maybe I would lose some weight if I zipped around the neighborhood on skates as I did so long ago. On second thought, I'd probably break a hip or crack my skull if I tried to skate again.

I love the photo of your class in school. Oh, those were the days. Hugs.

Southhamsdarling said...

Hello Sally. I can't tell you how lovely it is to see your comment here today! I did smile about you zooming around on roller skates now! I think we would both be looking for trouble if we did that! So we have fancy names over here for clothing, do we?! My friends in Wisconsin find our names for things quite funny sometimes! I've enjoyed looking at the graduation photos you've posted on Facebook. How blessed we are with our grandchildren. I'm so glad you enjoyed this post, Sally.