This thread is going down the pan Ladies Jewels and such. Starting my High School on crutches which started some bullying from upper forms I told Dad school was finished not going back. He burst out laughing, you have a pair of crutches a large cast with an iron on your foot, belt them in the Testimonials they will not come back twice. Belt them in the testimonials??? "oh we were so innocent" I thought it meant kick their school satchels all over, they must keep their testimonials in them? A week or so later I had to take a letter home it read "Please ask your Son to refrain from using his crutches as deadly weapons", end of bullying.
My first memory was the wooden Poss tub with wooden peg posser in the wash house a massive cast iron Mangle and the pot bellied boiler. Monday was wash day sunny or wet winter and summer, in the low roof racks for hanging clothes to dry you lowered them on ropes then hauled them up to dry and with the big boiler with open fire dry they did. Then she got all new, a nice new metal tub, new copper poss stick with a bell shaped end with holes in it certainly stirred the sunlight soap into foam, the tub sat on a frame of a lightweight ringer with rubber rolls and that was it until well after the war. I remember scraping huge blocks of sunlight soap with a grater to make flakes for the wash.
On the same day Mother made the bread, the steam in the wash house made it rise then I would help knead it roll it cut it and put it into the bread tins, the best bread I ever ate.
They were not women back then but Amazons, full of life and never wasting a minute right up to 83 when she passed on.
My granny had linen sheets and she proudly boasted that on a good drying day she could have them washed, dried and ironed before she got my dad and his sister up for school. Her sisters were the ones who took me away to the house with the tin bath. By crikey those women could work!
My first primary school (Huncoat, Lancs) had outside loos across the schoolyard. We also had slates and chalk to learn to write and do sums. Miss Demaine was very good and very strict and nobody left her class unable to read, write, tell the time and do their tables up to 12 plus 13, 15, 17 and 19 which she insisted were essential too. Amazing teacher.
By the time I left school at 18, teachers had decided teaching grammar was old-fashioned and boring and unnecessary so I've met people here just 2 years younger than me who have no idea how a sentence is constructed which makes it nigh on impossible for them to learn French as you really need to know about subject, object, indirect object, adjectives, past participles and subjunctives and so on to get agreements and tenses right.
It's also basic to being able to write coherent English that is not a chore to read - a basic skill for many jobs as well as simple communication between friends, colleagues, service providers etc. The English language is rich in vocabulary and can be direct, elegant, beautiful in its simplicity but also in its capacity to use precise words and elegant structures to communicate complex ideas.
We should embrace it and not fall into the lazy traps of imported Americanisms or ugly structures.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
"J" you made me laugh as a picture of your Gran whipping the sheets out from under your Dad and his Sister without waking them, and even more so imagining her sneaking them back.
I always thought that hamsters smelt just like je reviens perfume. it was a good few years later that I realised that my teacher, Miss Fitzgerald, used to douse herself in it and , apparently, poor Woodford.
The sock swallowing thread is on "companions" and I was regaling the assembled few with tales of my dog. She eats socks at my mums and then throws them up when she comes home! All very distasteful!!!
It was named by my teacher in primary school - she of the cloying perfume. Its full name was: Woodford Mornington Esquire. She named him for reasons lost in the mists of time. (The middle of the last century, to be imprecise)
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This thread is going down the pan Ladies Jewels and such. Starting my High School on crutches which started some bullying from upper forms I told Dad school was finished not going back. He burst out laughing, you have a pair of crutches a large cast with an iron on your foot, belt them in the Testimonials they will not come back twice. Belt them in the testimonials??? "oh we were so innocent" I thought it meant kick their school satchels all over, they must keep their testimonials in them? A week or so later I had to take a letter home it read "Please ask your Son to refrain from using his crutches as deadly weapons", end of bullying.
Frank
My first memory was the wooden Poss tub with wooden peg posser in the wash house a massive cast iron Mangle and the pot bellied boiler. Monday was wash day sunny or wet winter and summer, in the low roof racks for hanging clothes to dry you lowered them on ropes then hauled them up to dry and with the big boiler with open fire dry they did. Then she got all new, a nice new metal tub, new copper poss stick with a bell shaped end with holes in it certainly stirred the sunlight soap into foam, the tub sat on a frame of a lightweight ringer with rubber rolls and that was it until well after the war. I remember scraping huge blocks of sunlight soap with a grater to make flakes for the wash.
On the same day Mother made the bread, the steam in the wash house made it rise then I would help knead it roll it cut it and put it into the bread tins, the best bread I ever ate.
They were not women back then but Amazons, full of life and never wasting a minute right up to 83 when she passed on.
Frank.
My granny had linen sheets and she proudly boasted that on a good drying day she could have them washed, dried and ironed before she got my dad and his sister up for school. Her sisters were the ones who took me away to the house with the tin bath. By crikey those women could work!
My first primary school (Huncoat, Lancs) had outside loos across the schoolyard. We also had slates and chalk to learn to write and do sums. Miss Demaine was very good and very strict and nobody left her class unable to read, write, tell the time and do their tables up to 12 plus 13, 15, 17 and 19 which she insisted were essential too. Amazing teacher.
By the time I left school at 18, teachers had decided teaching grammar was old-fashioned and boring and unnecessary so I've met people here just 2 years younger than me who have no idea how a sentence is constructed which makes it nigh on impossible for them to learn French as you really need to know about subject, object, indirect object, adjectives, past participles and subjunctives and so on to get agreements and tenses right.
It's also basic to being able to write coherent English that is not a chore to read - a basic skill for many jobs as well as simple communication between friends, colleagues, service providers etc. The English language is rich in vocabulary and can be direct, elegant, beautiful in its simplicity but also in its capacity to use precise words and elegant structures to communicate complex ideas.
We should embrace it and not fall into the lazy traps of imported Americanisms or ugly structures.
A primary school tip, which I've never forgotten, is that when multiplying by 9(up to 9x10) is that the answer adds up to 9.
"J" you made me laugh as a picture of your Gran whipping the sheets out from under your Dad and his Sister without waking them, and even more so imagining her sneaking them back.
Frank.
HaHa. We are a family of sound sleepers Frank. Maybe that's why!
Hear hear obelixx.
So what she said...innit!
I always thought that hamsters smelt just like je reviens perfume. it was a good few years later that I realised that my teacher, Miss Fitzgerald, used to douse herself in it and , apparently, poor Woodford.
The sock swallowing thread is on "companions" and I was regaling the assembled few with tales of my dog. She eats socks at my mums and then throws them up when she comes home! All very distasteful!!!
As for Woodford....I'm waiting....
It was named by my teacher in primary school - she of the cloying perfume. Its full name was: Woodford Mornington Esquire. She named him for reasons lost in the mists of time. (The middle of the last century, to be imprecise)