Thursday, 23 March 2017

A Lino childhood

When I was a kid in the sixties there was Lino everywhere.

It was a world of linoleum.

We had black and white chequered lino on the kitchen floor in our home growing up. It had little bumps in it where it had covered imperfections when it was laid. I dread to think what they could have been? Dried peas? Yorkshire puddings? Family members?

There was occasionally lino on top of things as well. Pieces were used like mats to work on although Formica had cornered the market for tables and work surfaces really. Lino was strictly flooring in the shops.

I got to lay my own lino floor when I took over the family cellar in the early Seventies. I converted it into a Kung fu dojo and lino was the perfect solution. I could cut it with a few flourishes of my samurai sword Stanley knife and cover all the dead woodlice and beetles in one neat run.

One of the best uses of lino was road testing die-cast cars. Whizzwheels and hot wheels would zoom forever down a cold shiny flat of linoleum. Whoosh! Super fast!

My life is now lino free sadly. I haven't seen any for years.

Was lino in your life readers?

4 comments:

  1. Carpets in our house. My parents called lino 'oil cloth'. We had red formica on the kitchen worktops though.

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    1. Oil cloth! I like that! ha ha. What was in your kitchen? Oddly enough we had carpet in the bathroom, the one room I thought Lino would be best. The carpet always smelt mildewy!

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  2. There were vinyl tiles on the kitchen floor when we moved in but Mum had kitchen carpet fitted.

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    1. vinyl tiles! I'd forgotten about them Kev. We carved patterns into them in O Level art for making prints. I printed the characters for Kung Fu more than anything!

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