And I remember a white cat with no tail

[venta]

I am invariably annoyed when people write articles about things remembered from childhood which "you don't get nowadays". For a start, they always seem to include things like "milk arriving on the doorstep" which you do get nowadays (or I do, anyway). Or "children playing in the road"; if you believe doesn't happen these days, drive down Swinburne Rd at teatime. Ask zandev for details.

These lists often seem to be pointless nostalgia-fests - wasn't the world great when you could buy ten rhubarb-and-custard chews for ten pence and play out til teatime? Well, yes, it was; but surely that's the cry of each succeeding generation since Cane first wailed to Abel that chocolate fruit-of-the-tree-of-knowledge wasn't a patch on the stuff you could get when they were kiddies.

Now, maybe it's just one of those things that one person's harmless nostalgia is another's sentimental wallowing. I do find myself fascinated, though, by the everyday things which just silently drop out of life - and which you don't notice at the time, until suddenly you hear a phrase which catapults you back twenty years.

The phrase "dial 01 if you're outside London". Going out for a country walk and finding rabbits dying of myxomatosis. Hearing news reports attributed to "the Soviet news agency, TASS". The little square plastic tags which held bags of sliced bread closed.

Unlike long-forgotten things like adverts and one-hit-wonders, they're things which seemed incredibly permanent at the time. By definition, they're hard things to think of, because they're exactly the things you don't think of from day to day, and which are rarely marked in museums in the way that other obsolete things might be. They're not missed, or necessarily remembered with any great fondness. I suppose their seeming permanence might just have been an artefact of me being little - TASS probably didn't seem so inevitable to someone who remembered the forming of the Sovet Union.

Some things, like the mentions of TASS, disappeared as the result of momentous events. Others, like the bread tags, were just replaced by a technological development which rocked nobody's life (and you just try putting those little bits of tape round the spokes of your bike wheels). I'll happily consider submissions for other examples.

Some things which I thought had quietly shuffled out of existence seem just to have retreated further north with time. A year or so ago I was at home in Darlington and was delighted to hear a strangely, unearthly shout from the far end of the road:

"Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag-bn Nyag-bn"

These days it's a pick-up truck, of course, with a second guy walking along side it. When I was little it was a man in a horse and cart. But my parents' road still occasionally gets visits from the rag-and-bone man. Given the number of old fridges, microwaves, sofas etc which haunt the side roads of Cowley, we could do with one down here. Whether they would still make the same unintelligble noise is an interesting question.

Comments

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

I share your annoyance with certain sorts of nostalgia - the "we didn't have muggings in my day" kind. In my view you'd have to be mad to think that X category of human activity didn't exist at Y time, for most values of X. Things just don't change that much.

The more specific "do you remember Z twiddly flange thing" can be more enjoyable. I'd forgotten all about the bread tage until you mentioned them here, and now I find myself wondering when they disappeared, and whether there are still any out there. TASS on the other hand went over my head - I must have been old enough to hear about them but not to clock their existence in my long term memory.

Anyway, I should return the favour, so (without knowing whether it still exists - probably it does) I shall remind you of the existence of banana-flavoured cough(?) medicine. Ahhh, them were the days.

[venta.livejournal.com]

banana-flavoured cough(?) medicine

Antibiotics ? That's Amoxil (active ingredient Amoxicilin) (why do I remember such useless trivia?) and unless any of the medically qualified types round here want to correct me, it's still the generic catch-all antibiotic of choice. No idea if it's still 'nana-flavoured, though, they give boring old capsules to so-called adults.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Junior Benelyn cough mixture, however - now you're talking. Worth having a cough for.

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

mmmmm Calpol!!!!

[chrisvenus]

CAn you remember what flavour the vodka was that I decided tasted just like kiddie cough mixture?

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

Bakewell Tart?

[chrisvenus]

I'm not sure that was one of the flavours we had. I may be wrong though. Clearly we just need to go back to do further experimentation... :)

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

Mmmm flavoured vodka, almost as nice as Calpol!

[venta.livejournal.com]

They changed Calpol flavour - it's now orangey and most unpleasant.

Some of the Red Bull cocktails which Wetherspoons do (did?) taste exactly like Calpol. Sadly, what was nice on a 5ml teaspoon wasn't nice (in my opinion) when it arrived in half pints!

[mr-flay.livejournal.com]

Amen to that!

For obvious reasons, they don't sell kaolin and morphine anymore, though you can still find some if you rummage through an elderly relative's medicine cabinet. I've been told it is an excellent source for reasonable quality morphine, as the ingredients settle out after a while...

[wimble.livejournal.com]

My tute-partner in college had some variety of menengitis as a child, and was allocated kaolin and morphine.

Apparently, it really doesn't take very long at all, to settle out.

[venta.livejournal.com]

When I was little there was a bottle of K&M kept for preventing stomach upsets. You didn't need to take the stuff, just the threat of it was enough to scare you into feeling better. It's vile.

It does separate out extremely quickly.

[marjory.livejournal.com]

My brother, who was prone to ear infections, was always prescribed that stuff. If I ever became infected, I was given some horrid flourescent pink linctus which didn't taste remotely good. I am now reminded of my jealousy of my bro's apparent great good fortune at least...

Spike Milligan on myxomatosis

[(Anonymous)]

Little baby rabbits,
With eyes full of pus.
This is the work,
Of scientific us.

I never saw any, but I do remember TASS.

It was odd the first time I walked through the Hay Street mall without being assaulted by the Daily News seller's nasal cry of Darelynuus. (Western Australia dropped down to one daily newspaper for the state about fifteen years ago)

Re: Spike Milligan on myxomatosis

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Argh - that was me. As if you hadn't already guessed..

What was the nostalgia like when you were young?

[j4.livejournal.com]

The little square plastic tags which held bags of sliced bread closed.

I was wondering the other day whether one could buy those, because the little bits of tape are so un-re-sticky that you can only re-stick them once or twice, and the long-life bread lasts longer than one or two bread-openings.

Then I googled for them, and found someone who collects them, a lovely article about them by an artist, and -- lest we forget their hidden dangers -- a warning that bread tags are potential killers. This last, I suspect, might go some way to explaining why they disappeared (along with biro-lids that you could stick to the end of your tongue by sucking them to create a vacuum, or-was-that-just-me).

I remember the days before Google. You won't catch me nostalging for them though.

biro-lids

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

No, that wasn't just you; that was fun. And yes, they disappeared so that they didn't block airways so easily. Spoilsport nanny state.

I didn't realise that bread tags went the same way.

Re: biro-lids

[al-fruitbat.livejournal.com]

I didn't realise that bread tags went the same way.

They didn't - at least, not if you buy Buckingham Sliced Rye bread from Waitrose ;-) (I've not examined any other loaves particularly closely)

Re: biro-lids

[(Anonymous)]

They're still going strong in Canada, too. In fact, this entire comment was typed using a square tag thingy.

Why are you looking at me like that?

Re: biro-lids

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

You still get them sometimes over here (Australia), but not as often as you used to.

Re: What was the nostalgia like when you were young?

[brrm.livejournal.com]

It wasn't just you!

Jelly shoes.

Re: What was the nostalgia like when you were young?

[j4.livejournal.com]

Jelly shoes: if you mean the squishy plastic sandal things you wear to the seaside (rather than some kind of sweet even more nostalgia-inducing than rhub*rb and cust*rd or even Sp*ngles) then you can definitely still get them, and in much cooler colours and styles than when we were young! I have a pair of clear glittery ones, which I intended to take to Glastonbury but forgot.

Re: What was the nostalgia like when you were young?

[brrm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a quick google after I'd posted the comment (oops) revealed that they do still exist. I'd totally forgotten about them, but they suddenly popped into my mind on reading this thread. I guess I'm not sufficiently in touch with my glittery/translucent side any more. :)

Okay, how about Punch & Judy strawberry/orange toothpaste. That seems still to exist as well. Oh well.

Re: What was the nostalgia like when you were young?

[taimatsu]

You could do it with the wrong ends of some felt-tips, too, so you could have several great long things dangling from your tongue. Excellent fun.

Re: What was the nostalgia like when you were young?

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

The wrong ends of felt-tips were certainly what I always used.

Re: What was the nostalgia like when you were young?

[venta.livejournal.com]

or-was-that-just-me

Judging by the comments, only weirdos and misfits didn't do it :)

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

There was a rag and bone man in Sheffield who had a hand cart. 'E wurr proper, 'e wurr.

And now I find myself asking the question (which you predicted would be difficult), what things used to be ubiquitous that I barely noticed them, that are now no longer there?

Ooh, Tonka toys really were all that, but don't seem to be any more. Maybe their perceived durability lead to them being left lying around everywhere, but WIWAL, every garden that had kids had a Tonka toy discarded and not rusting somewhere. Though I do tend to mix with a different social set these days, so I suppose it's possible that there's still a healthy Tonka scene going on that I'm no longer hip to. Or something.

Tobacco tins that were actually tins that came with tobacco in, rather than tins with pictures of foliage, SCHWA alien's or implausible rural montages which are used for keeping a different kind of tobacco in.

These aren't things that have gone so much as things that have receded, I suppose.

[triskellian]

WIWAL
Oo, never seen that before and still able to work out what it means. Cool.

Tobacco tins that were actually tins that came with tobacco in,
I last bought one of those about ten years ago, so they're not that old. Demonstrating venta's point, I hadn't really noticed they didn't exist anymore, which is odd considering I buy quite a lot of tobacco ;-)

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

never seen that before

I just coined it, so you're one of the first users. In the future, when people can't live without it, you'll be able to proudly state: "Oh yes, I was one of the alpha testers, back in '05."¹

and still able to work out what it means.

Would it still have worked with the optional 'E' at the beginning?


[1] '05." looks so wrong, and yet is so right.

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

... when tags go wrong!

[pm215]

Bread tags are still the standard way to seal bags-with-bread-in in Japan. (they don't deserve to be called loaves, I suspect they extrude great big long loaves and then put six slices in every bag.)

As for rag-and-bone-man noises, the Japanese equivalent had a tape recording on continuous loop. (Less annoying than the baked-potato-analogue man, whose recording was of a sort of sung-chant...)

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

the Japanese equivalent had a tape recording on continuous loop

Like an ice-cream van.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

There were still horse-and-cart rag-and-bone men in East Oxford (E)WIWAS.. although actually I suppose that's around the same time you were little <brief age-related gloom>

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

PS. "Nyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag-bn Nyag-bn" sounds like something that should be chanted by cthulhonic cultists at the end of the world.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Mighty White bread, and Calypso cup drinks (which they probably still have in schools to make the children stare out of the windows at the murdering dinosaurs instead of asking awkward questions). And "Um Bongo Um Bongo they drink it in the Congo, the parrot picked the passion fruit the marmoset the mandarin the [something something something thing] it all became the sunny funny one they call Um Bongo". And dogtooth patterned clothes for children.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Um Bongo still exists, but they've very recently made it sugar-free and it tastes absolutely rank.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

I'm not 100% convinced that it was that nice in the first place. The advert made it sound nice though, which is what counts.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

I used to love it, and when I tried it again as a growed-up, it tasted like childhood. Now it tastes of nasty chemicals.

[bloodnok.livejournal.com]

[something something something thing]

"The python painted packets that the whole caboodle landed in". I think that there's another line in there too.

Oh dear, my brain really is full of crap.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4747783.stm

Mentions the Itar-Tass news agency.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

We gave a very old dishwasher to the Middlesbrough Nyag-bn on Tuesday. It was no more than 12 years ago, and quite possibly much less, when he still came around on a horse and cart. Nowadays, inevitably, he drives a van.

[bloodnok.livejournal.com]

Gah, nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

[neilh.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was quite astonished one day while in my flat in Finchley to hear the cries of a rag and bone man, I'd never encountered them before except as something that 'used to be'. Didn't bother doing anything about it, just nice to know he's there.