the cupboard under the sixties sink

Our old kitchen when I was a kid was full of stuff I remember vividly even now.

We had a cupboard under the sink for instance. It always had a funny musty smell like a Grandparents' pantry. It was full of cleaning products with strange names. Vim was a tall card tube of white powder. Not sure what it cleaned but it fizzed a bit when water was added. A similar card cylinder was called Ajax. I mixed Vim and Ajax to create Vajax!

Star Drops was a bright red liquid in a curvy glass bottle. Not sure what Star drops did. It can't have been a drink if it was kept under the sink next to Domestos. How did they bottle the smell of public swimming baths like that!?

Another bottle contained Jade or Jayzal [maybe they were different?] I think it was a pine scented disinfectant and smelt like a Norwegian wood full of big brown logs.

There were also J-Cloths, scouring pads, wire wool pads, shoe polish tins in a plastic hold box, brillo pads and really odd oven cleaning pads shaped like muffins with pin stuck in. At the back in the dark webbed recess were things like Brasso, Silver Polish and Ant Powder [maybe it was just Vim as well!]. At the side were boxes of washing powder called Dreft and Surf and sometimes Persil. There was also a stack of soap bars like coal tar and huge beige soap blocks like bricks. There was also something called Dolly Blue, which would have been a good name for Action Man's saucy girlfriend!

Going back to the shoe stuff, I adored those little round tins of solid creamy polish. There was black, tan and dark brown. I really adored getting some on a soft cloth and cleaning my Monkey boots and buffing them up with a second clean cloth. Oh yes, I was an expert at buffing. I thought the opening fastener on those round tins was thing of genius. Just turn and the lid lifted as if by magic. I once polished a neighbour's sausage dog called Fritz but I just don't remember doing it!

At the front of all of this was a little brown glass bottle of Baby Bio. It was shaped like an Orangina bottle. I think it was a plant food for indoor plants. Like Worcester sauce for aspidistras. It was quite cute.

Finally there were weird utensils. Well at least they seemed weird at the time. A huge rubber sink plunger like the antenna off a Dalek; a stack of stiff shammy leathers which looked like popadoms for cleaning Dad's Zephyr 6, Turtle Wax kits, large sponges, a rubber hose with a shower head, long rubber blue and red nozzles for the taps shaped like carrots and last but not least rubber hot water bottles, which were constantly in use to ease three boys' bruises and sprains.

The funny thing is that we have a cupboard under the sink just like it even now in our own house. Maybe they are all like this and always have been!

Did and do you have a similar sink cupboard readers?