Povey Prattle

We didn't have a 'phone in my home until about 1960/61.   Dad resisted this modernity.  He believed that home 'phones were only necessary for people in business. My two older sisters and I helped Dad to change his mind, when we said that we would foot the monthly bills. So we did until first one sister, and then another got married.  That left me as the sole payer - which was fine. In due course Mum and Dad, having gotten used to having a home 'phone, took over the bill. Long before the advent of caller I.D, British people answered the phone by announcing the name of the exchange, and the number. In our case it was "Bristol 51769" (later Bristol 551769). We were provided with the standard U.K. rotary 'phone, made with bakelite ( who remembers bakelite?  - one friend thought that it was called "baker light"! This one is a non-working 1940's model, treasured now as an antique. Hence it stands on a bookcase in sitting room. When my family signed...

  Canned Chili Beans in Sauce;   Ground Hot Italian Sausage Meat;  Diced German Bratwurst  (made in Germany, and sold at Trader Joe's - it's pretty durn good!);  served over one half of a Baked Russet Potato.

  The lad on the right resembles my brother Martyn at that age. In 1945 the British Government chose to give every school child free milk every day ( responding to post WWII child malnutrition). We received bottles containing 1/3 pint of un-homogenised milk. (The U.K. (or Imperial) pint is 568 ml; the U.S.A pint is 473 ml) Hate is too strong a word, so I'll say that I strongly disliked it, and often gave mine away .  I, to this day, would never think of drinking a glass of cold milk. Our school milk was left outside in the school playgrund/yard.  If winter temps were below freezing the cream on top would push its way through the foil cap.  In the summer the milk sometimes went sour  (no fridges in schools back then, nor in most homes). In 1971 the Tory Minister of Education ended the free milk for children over seven.   She was for ever to be known as "Thatcher, Thatcher, Milk Snatcher" That may not have been fair.  Recent research indicates...

  Thanks for all the comments and responses to my curmudgeon posting yesterday. It's been fun, and I hope that it took our minds off COVID 19, and The Orange Faced Man for just a wee while. For the record.  Half of what I write on Face Book is with my tongue in my cheek.  50% is with my tongue in the other cheek.

 Photo's from "Old Photo's and Videos of British Life"  These do not seem to be very old! Oxfordshire Dorset Shropshire Yorkshire (1) Yorkshire 2 Dorset, Shropshire, and (North East) Yorkshire are some of the most lovely (and under-appreciated)  rural counties in England.

 . From The Guardian, Monday 28th September 2020 " Paul Lindsley feels much the same way. “Whether Black, Spanish, white, Chinese – all lives matter,” he says in a laconic patois when I find him sitting on his front porch, with a beautiful view of the hills,   smoking a cigarette in a green wool overshirt ."