From Cures To Christmas

A Memory of South Hackney.

Hi Guys , Yet another piece of nostalgia from VickyB , I was thinking the other day about the treatment of ailments , from years gone by and the and the things we were led to believe by our parents , grandparents aunts and uncles , for example , and I am sure you will all remember at least a couple of these old classics , "Swallow that chewing gum and it will get twisted round your lungs " " You keep pulling silly faces if the wind blows you'll stay like it" "When you've been swimming make sure you dry your your hair properly or you'll catch pneumonia" " Eat your greens or you won't have curly hair " and finally " Eat plenty of carrots or you will get bad eyes " which leads me on to , do you remember going to school and hearing through the grapevine that the health inspectors were on the way , you then knew that you were going to get your hair combed with a big metal comb dipped in disinfectant , a large wooden lolly stick rubbed round the inside of your mouth , followed by two cod liver oil capsules and a spoonful of malt which smelt like bad fish , in my case I was quite a fit lad so I didn't have the capsules or the malt , but I did have to go to the local health centre in Cadogan Terrace for an eye test , and to avoid the dreaded Golden Eye ointment , one year I learnt the eye test card which you had to read off by heart , only to have been spotted by the nurse , so when it was my turn , she changed the card , because they thought my eyes were weak I was made to have the dreaded eye ointment , and to be told that I would have trouble seeing clearly for a couple of weeks , now something told me , anyone who smears their eyes with grease every morning is definitely going to have trouble seeing clearly for a fortnight , bloody fools , some poor kids had a large patch of sticking plaster over one lens to strengthen their sight only to wonder why they kept bumping into things , my poor wife tells me when she was young , because she was bronchial her mum and dad would smother her in a substance called Russian Tallow or Goose Fat and wrap brown paper round her chest , you couldn't make this up could you , a close mate of mine gave me a good one to add , He often got a bit chesty in the winter , his fathers great remedy was to get his son to follow the Tar Lorry that was repairing the roads and inhale the fumes , one morning he started out at Hackney Wick and because his chest was bad he followed it to Stamford Hill only to get a clump for being late for dinner. My grandfathers remedy for me was , if I caught a cold , I was to put on two thick jumpers and run round the "Block" three times , I would finally drag myself home soaking wet with sweat and aching legs , this was to build up my "Constitution" or so I was told , all I remember is I slept better and became a good athlete , the other great cure I remember is one my Nan used , if I got what was known as a Whitlow on my finger , I knew I would have to endure the dreaded Bread Poultice this involved my already poisoned finger being dunked into a cup of boiling water, followed by a coating of Hovis then having it wrapped in bandage , this would happen twice a day , the pain endured in the treatment was as worse than the bloody whitlow. So much for cures of days gone by , now onto the Christmases , and our delight of waking up to search our pillow case of goodies , I am sure people of my era (The 40's onwards) will remember the standard Croaking Frog a metal clicker that sounded nothing like a frog , a Magic painting book all you needed was a cup of water and the pictures would come to life in colour, a box of paints was a joy to behold , but with to much use your little box of different colours all ended up with holes in the middle and you would have to use the edges only, but if I remember , you could buy replacement paint squares , everybody remembers a favourite Christmas present even to this day mine was a John Bull printing set which consisted of strips of rubber letters and numbers that you set into wooden blocks , you could then press onto a pad of black ink stamp a sheet of white paper and before your very eyes you became a printer, in those days I saw myself as the future editor of a famous tabloid , my other favourite find was an album , The Dandy , The Beano or The Eagle , if I was lucky I would get a Charlie Buchan football book ,also another gem in those days was a collection of Foreign Stamps , every child became a stamp collector , bloody paper hinges everywhere , little pots of glue or in my case a mixture of flour and water, if you were really lucky some kids got a pair of roller skates but if you had a brother or sister you only got to use one each, Well Guys I could go on and on but I will save some more for another time , Take Care VicB

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