SLANG FROM LANCASHIRE IN THE NINETEEN SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES

Here are a few slang words and activities I've dragged up from the chlorinated deep end of my Youth in the Sixties and Seventies. You'll know many more and have your own from your country. These are all from growing up in Lancashire, England. There are some that are too unsavoury to print but these are what's left!

Loo, Khazi, Bog, Throne room - toilet

Privvy - outside loo

Rag - newspaper

Cow Bite - a firm grip on the inner thigh, the then hard squeezing was agony! My brothers' favourite.

Snake Bite - two hands gripping the forearm and a counter twist created excruciating pain! The other older Brother's favourite!

Rib Drill - whilst being pinned down on your back, a single knuckle would be drilled into the middle of the breastbone. A killer! Both older brothers' specialty. 

Hickey, Love Bite - extreme mouth suction on one side of the neck creating nasty-looking bruised circles. A token of love that was everywhere in my school! Yuk!

Greeny, Grolly - a large blob of  verdant phlegm plastered on the ground

Bogey - nostril waste - as in Pickit, Lickit, Rollit, Flickit!

Crusty - hardened nostril waste

AA, Business, Biz, Numbers, Kack, Sh*t, Sh*te, - a poo, poo

Meat and Two Veg, Short and Curlies, Goolies, Gonads - the male testicles, to be protected at all costs during a skirmish with bad 'uns!

Shreddies, Underkecks, Grundies, Y-Fronts - underpants, usually white.

Skidmark - an unsavoury streak in the middle of your usually white shreddies

Tidemark - an unsavoury line on the neck denoting a lack of washing either above or below it.

Kick the Can - a game in which cans or footballs where kicked and collected whilst everyone else ran off never to be seen again.

Right on - righteous, as in Right On Man! That's groovy!

far Out - astonishing, as in That Tank Top is far out Mate!

Mate, Flower , Darlin, Love, Chuck - terms of introduction and endearment [ In Yorkshire: Cocker]

Pencil pusher - office worker

Lazy B*stard - a fellow prone to slacking

Idle Swine - a Lazy B*stard

Tosspot, W*nker, A*sehole, A*separt, Tw*t, See You Next Tuesday - a bad 'un or very nasty person

Cretin, Idiot, R*tard, Spaz, Sh*t for Brains, Twerp, Berk, numpty, Dope - all suggesting a lack of grey matter

Docile, Dopey - not one for fast movements.

Scalliwag - skeleton

Twit - a scatterbrained fellow

Talent, Crackling - the opposite sex, usually at the school disco.

Honey, Honey Pie, Sugar Pie, Tata Pie, Kidney Bean - what my older Sisters called me

Squirt, Little Squirt, Worm, Annoying Little Turd, Sp*nkbubble - what my older Brothers called me

Wiz, Waz, Pee, P*ss, Slash - to urinate, usually at the back of an old building in the Seventies

Spuggy, Bubbly, Chuddy - chewing gum, Anglo Bubbly being the go-to chew for kids my age

Clobber - clothes

Kecks - trousers

Herbert - an annoying person, as in He's a right Herbert

Belm, Thomas - a lie

Prannock, Pillock - a very annoying person

Bovver, Aggro - hostile goings-on

Cake Hole, Mush, Gob - the mouth

Soft, Mighty - a good thing

Split, Skidaddle - as in, to leave the school disco quickly because you've danced with someone else's bird!

Kaboodle, Tackle - stuff

Fettle - to sort something out

Second Shelf - hidden away, as in Up my A*se, Second Shelf

Pushiron - bicycle

Pad, Joint - a place, as in You're Wrecking the Joint.

Fleapit - old cinema

Flicks - cinema of any sort

Flick - a film

Wrinklies, Giffers, Oldies, Geriatrics - old folks, like me now!

TV, telly, box, Tellybox - the television

Wireless - the radio

Nosh, Scran, Tuck, 'Owt Yummy - food of any kind, preferably steak pudding and chips.

Dosh, Spondoolis - cash for things like Led Zep's latest LP

Schrapnel - small change for things like vending machines and bus fare's up town

Dweeb, Dork, Nerd, Geek - all words that came much much later from American TV.

Poser - someone showing off, usually with some very nice 'clobber' and a decent hairstyle

Bird - girlfriend

Get Stuffed, Get Lost, Get Stretched - as in No Way, You're kidding!

Pitch n Toss - chucking coins or cards against a wall to see who could get closest to it

Garden Hopping - sneaking through neighbours' gardens at night

Skool, Skoo - yep, school. the best days of your life and all that.

Deck - record player

Tunes, Sounds - music

Sound - good, as in He's Sound as a Pound that Jimmy Page.

Chavvers - young lad

Kushti - as in its all good

Toerag - a rotten person

Tw*t him - as in give him a good whalloping

A Good Hiding, A good Pasting - being beaten up, being tw*tted.

Clip round the Ear - a swift smack on the lughole usually by Mum or Dad, but basically anyone in the Seventies, as all adults seemed to smack us poor kids!

Lughole - ear

The Strap - corporal punishment in School consisting of a length of rubber brought down fast on the open palm .... at least it wasn't the cane or birch at our school, maybe because it was Catholic!

Redneck - catholic

Proddydog - protestant

Gaffer - boss

Elbow Grease, Hard Graft - all forms of toil and irksome work

Kip - sleep

Forty Winks - a short nap ....

Good idea, I shall have forty winks myself right now!

Which of these and other words do you recall readers?

DUNKIN MY MEMORY IN KUNG FU

 I've been basking in nostalgia looking at Dunkin martial arts gum cards  this morning.

I had a small collection as a teenager back in the mid-Seventies.

I so remember the orange packet with the two kickers in front of the Torii gate.

I'm hoping I still have a couple of these cards in my Kung Fu box.

Seeing Bruce Tegner's books took me right back too.

Bruce was an early American pioneer of paperback pugilism. He covered virtually all the martial arts back then between those soft covers and always opted for a distinctive single colour cover like this red Complete Book of Karate.

and the fabulous Aikido Holds and Locks, which I devoured back in the day.

Probably most nostalgic of all for me was seeing these Kung Fu slippers again. Available aplenty still on Amazon no less, I wore mine out as a youngster! 

After seeing Enter The Dragon in the early Seventies aged 13 [yes, an X certificate film!] I had them on all the time in the house and garden and the Wing Chun class I'd joined. So comfy back then, I doubt I could wear them now. I have an excruciating corn, which I have to pamper with padding. I really must deal with it! Hi Ya!

Anyways, happy days back then Kung Fu fighting!

Were you part of the craze readers?

The Garden of the Terracotta Roof Tiles

 Currently plagued by a trapped sciatic nerve I'm basically seat-bound assisting Junior in his garden pursuits as a budding Indiana Jones.

The dig site garnered a whole tray of finds, mostly terracotta, some fossils (he smelt a rat there!) and a 1936 George V One Penny ( he should have smelt a rat there!).

Junior was most excited about four big pieces of old roof tile he dug up. They were really in situ.

With some help from the Seated One he glued them back together. It says Rowley on it quite clearly.

Using a mix of brick dust and PVA Junior filled in the biggest cracks and set it to dry.

No longer a good roof tile, it'll make a fine display item for Junior somewhere out of the rain in the garden. 

Have you ever dug up anything?

What did you want to be when you were a kid?

It had a Deep Impact on Me

 Me and the missus watched Deep Impact last night. After trying a couple of Harlan Coben crime series' intros, which the Missus didn't like, I opted for pure nostalgia.

I have to say I love Deep Impact. There's no point denying it. That Wolf- Biedermann comet takes me right back to the 1990's. We were in our thirties, the prime of our lives, a young family and our daughter, just a kid, lived at home with us.

Yep, Deep Impact is memory lane, wending it's way back to that nostalgic sunlit valley where our youth lingers.

Those rose-tinted glasses are powerful things. Seductive, alluring and the films we saw back then are windows into that distant land.

Deep Impact has a surprisingly low score on Rotten Tomatoes. 38% I think. I would have have scored much higher but then again nostalgia would drive my vote.

The central character, a TV reporter played by Tia Leoni, is the perfect neutral foul for the apocalyptic action around her. I read that Hollywood insiders think she never lived up to her potential as an actress. I saw her in a Jurassic Park film I'm sure. It's true, she sort of disappeared. A shame. Like everyone in Deep Impact, she's getting on in years now.

Robert Duvall, one of the films elders, is 93 these days! All that olive oil and good vino in three Godfather films paid off! His character in Impact, Spurgeon Tanner, the aging astronaut, is played in characteristically reserved Duvall fashion, which I really like. His clean-cut old-timer says one of its best short lines when sees the comet close-up for the first time,

'Mary Mother of God!'

Or something similar. 

Captain Tanner goes on to lead his young crew into the film's heroic heart with an act of selfless bravery as they head into the comet and oblivion. Humanity is saved by altruism. Has that idea had it's day in Hollywood?

My favourite line in Deep Impact, from an albeit short  role, comes from Dr. Wolf at the start of the movie. He's just received Leo Biedermann's astronomy query and is reading through it whilst eating a particularly floppy slice of pizza at the observatory. Punching in the coordinates, he pizza- mutters,

'Well, hi there little fella, where are you going in such a hurry?'

A moment later, staring at the screen, Dr.Wolf drops his food and the rest, as they say, is a disaster film.

But boy I still so want a slice of that pizza! 

Do you have a movie you just love readers?

THE REAL CORGI ROCKET!

I saw this sleek blue vintage Jensen Interceptor on Ebay recently and I think I died and went to Heaven!

Being my favourite car, ever since I held the gloriously sleek miniature Corgi Rockets version as a kid, I very nearly pressed Buy It Now, but at over £35K I would have had to sell our house!

I'll just change my name I think. To Jensen. Jensen Interceptor!

What's your favourite car readers? Do you own one?

The Cottingley Fairies

Today we drove through Cottingley near Bradford. I instantly recognized the name from reading about it as a kid in my massive Readers Digest book of myths and legends of Britain, which I adored and still have. Do you, did you have it too?

Cottingley was famous for fairies. Photographs of them. Five.

They were taken over a hundred years ago by two youngsters and became world-wide sensations. You might say they went viral.

Only 70 years later did the youngsters admit they were fake. However, the fifth one, continued to be deemed genuine.

See what you think. Here's an original set that sold at Sotherby's. The fifth photo is the last [images: Sotherby's].

I couldn't believe we were in Cottingley 50 years after I first read about it's fairies. Such a small world of time and place.

WHERE TO EAT ON MEMORY LANE

Nostalgia is a funny thing. Memory Lane. And that lane is full of old eateries from yesteryear. Like Berni Inns and Beefeater.

These were the kinds of restaurant chains our parents went to. For some reason they always make me think of thick chips, steak and peppercorn sauce, although I have no recollection of eating there ever. Warm log fires, large glasses of rum and woollen cardigans is another image I have of them.

Oddly enough I think Beefeater is still going. Its linked to the Premier Inn chain of hotels. Brewer's Fayre too. Maybe I have eaten at Beefeater after all!

Other eateries of yore include Happy Eater, that motorway chain with fab pancakes; Pizzaland, where I had my first slice of pizza ... with coleslaw!; Spud-U-Like - this may still be baking somewhere; National Milk Bars - I went to one for a milkshake in Barnard Castle about 20 years ago.

Can you think of any more long gone food joints?

DID YOU LEAVE YOUR ACTION MAN IN THE BATHROOM?

 At my Grandkids' house their bath toys are piled up in a plastic box in the corner of the bath.

I've been trying to remember if mine were too back in the 1960's. It's all terribly fuzzy. 

I know I played with Action Man in the bath; the Deep Sea Diver and the frogman were favourites and I have a feeling that the plastic boats, dinghies and shark ended up in the tub too. I adored the Explorer boat with the outboard motor!

But whether they then sat around on the edge of the bath drying out waiting for the next soak is unlikely. Equally I can't imagine I chucked them all wet and soapy in a plastic box next to the bath. I adored my Action Man. It can't be good for them all that scum!

The clincher though has to be how busy our bathroom was. My parents had a big family; two of them and five kids, me being the youngest and the least likely to be in the bathroom! At some point in the Sixties we also had 2 or 3 lodgers as well, who all worked for the national Telephone company [GTO I think]. Even though they had their own sink in a shared bedroom they must have had a bath now and then.

Certainly no-one showered. Not in our house. There was a rubber attachment for the bath taps, which was a sort of shower head for rinsing hair. I remember it reeked of rubber! No, bathing was the order of the day.

So, with all this evidence, I don't think I will have left my Action Men in the bathroom hung out to dry. Maybe a few rubber ducks and a Matey bottle but not Palitoy's Fighting Man! Never!

Did you readers?

ZOOM CLUB

 

I love this old American TV commercial from 1983 on YT.

Pure Hot Wheels pleasure on a smooth floor with your mates including smashing cars and book ramps too! Just like I did as a kid with mates nearly twenty years earlier!

A great ad capturing the simple joy of childhood play I think. You?

And all Through the House

As Advent wends its incensed way towards the Big Day I've clocked another of my fave Chrimbo films, Tales from the Crypt from 1972.

Inspired by the 1950's EC comics, the movie was made by Amicus the anthology kings at Shepperton [a place I've only just realised I lived not too far from in the 80's when a mature student in Farnborough!], Crypt is a classic of the portmanteau format and like its stablemate Vault of Horror follows a group of five strangers brought together in eerie circumstances all with salutary tales of greed and the punishment thereof.

My favourite section without doubt is the first, And all Through The House. Starring Joan Collins and horror wunderkind Chloe Franks, it tells a story of foul deeds on Christmas Eve when a homicidal maniac is on the loose in 'Burley'.

Despite the horror, this segment says Christmas to me like nothing else. The contemporary set Amicus created might as well have been my parents' house in the late Sixties; the garish wall hangings, the mini-bar, the thick-cut glasses, the huge table lighter, the big radio in the middle of the room, the sparkling tree and the paper Fez hats. Its like a time capsule of my past with other people in the starring role! Simply fabulous film-making and a special treat every December when I watch it.

Here are a few shots of our own tree at Moonbase and the tree in the segment [I couldn't resist], the unfortunate husband placing a tag on a special Christmas gift for his beloved Wife, which he reads aloud before sitting down to browse the last newspaper he'll ever read, the Burley Observer!

And all through the house ..... is Tales from the Crypt a film you like readers?

TERRANOVA47'S OLD TINS OF BADGES AND PINS

True to Murphey's Law, in searching for something specific, something else turns up instead.

I was looking for the remaining tobacciana items and found two tobacco tins, which on opening contained the remains of my childhood badge collection with updates to the early 70's.

So for readers enjoyment and possible recognition:

• An Air Lingus pin given to me when I was in a publicity shot for the airline
• BEA pin from the airlines' stand at an Earl's Court Schoolboy Exposition.
• TARDIS COMMANDER from an BBC Dr Who exhibit at London's Science Museum
• Badges from staying at Butlin's Holiday Camps.
• 007 from the first Bond movie, sadly suffering from being next to a rusty badge.
• Eric Winston was the orchestra conductor at a Butlin's Camp.
• Civil Liberty from a High School club
• The Blue badge was for my Primary School Marvell House. Which is strange as I was in Coleridge House which was red? The Houses were named after poets
• The Empire State Building is the kind of metal badge given out in the USA to show admission has been paid. This is from a trip to the USA in 1959.
• Tonibell Ice Cream was from one of their vans.
• League of Oveltinies is from the days when Oveltine sponsored Dan Dare stories on Radio Luxemburg.
• Castrol and Birds Eye from an Earl's Court Schoolboy Exposition.
• Robertson's Golliwog from senidng in labels on jars of jam
• Uncle Holly was from waiting inline for hours to see Santa at Selfridges Department Store in London. Uncle Holly was Santa's cheap understudy.
• Dr McCoy must have been in a Kellogg's cereal box
• Methodist movement's John Wesley was from visiting his home
• Matchbox Collector was in with a toy army truck
• Desert Commandos was from a brand of dates that had great French Foreign Legion promotions
• Esso Safety and Wall's Curb Drillers are from Police road safety demonstrations in school playgrounds.
• Potato Puffs, Noddy and Murray Mints are mail in promotions
• A Knight of the Banner is from Banner schoolboy shirts,
• The QEII medal was given to me by my Grandmother for the Coronation in 1953
• The Muffin Club was from the BBC children's programme, Muffin the Mule
• Dan Dare was with a Dan Dare licensed belt.

In with the badges were these four US packs of safety razors. Part of another of my eccentric collections.

No doubt the DUREX one will send shivers down any UK readers spine!

Stay well,

Terranova47

NYC

BIN TO THE STARS

I saw this auction item and thought what a great bin! I had a few bins as a kid, vintage cars mostly. I would have loved this space bin with its amazing graphics.

Anyone recognise the artwork?

Did you have a good bin when you were a kid?

Life with Loofah

Junior and Lil Miss are staying with us Oldies for Half Term.

The subject of Loofahs came up. The kids had never heard of one. The Missus knows the name but never had one.

I grew up with Loofahs. That long springy tube like a sackcloth leg that lived in the bath next to its mates, sponge and pumice.

Good for scrubbin backs and other rear gear, Loofahs were sensitive graters that dried out in between jobs.

I had no idea where they came from as a kid. I didn't even know what they were. As mysterious as capers and baby bio, they were just there.

I imagine it's not environmentally friendly

Did you grow up with a loofah?

THERE'S A TOY CELLAR IN US ALL!

I had another blast from the past at my Daughter's house over the weekend. She returned a plastic box I hadn't seen in years. 

This green box was one of many I had on shelves in my big old sunlit  'toy cellar' back in the 90's, when I used to trade stuff from there and do mail order as well. It was called Moon Zero Toys and I actually had regulars!

Having a full-time job as well, buying and selling old second hand toys was my hobby back then - it still is! - and these plastic boxes were how I divided up my stock into manageable parts. The one in the picture - TV Action - would have held all manner of oddments from the TV shows listed - James Bond, The Saint, the A Team, Bionic Man and Zorro - ranging from key rings, novels, action figures, jigsaws right up to small boxed toys.

Larger boxed toys and board games were stacked as they came, on a separate shelf and the biggest thrill was to see several of the same boxed item stacked up. I remember having three second hand and excellent boxed Batman Animated Batmobiles on top of each other and it used to make me so chuffed. Like a proper toy shop! ha ha

There were some inspirational toy sellers in the 90's, who took the hobby - for them a business - to a whole new level and it was always a buzz reading their mail order catalogues and sales lists on Model Mart magazine. 

Notable among the many was the late great Jim Star Wars Stevenson and the inspirational Andy Foley and his TV Toy Zone, the catalogues of which are still a treasure of mine as they were really the catalyst, along with Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie, to start looking for old toys and collect the toys I owned as a kid.

My 'cellar' closed in 2003 when we moved and the new house didn't have one. Also with the advent of Ebay in the UK in 2000 my mail order side had already stopped. It was the end of an era and I was sad to leave that cellar behind. It had been a lot of fun.

I don't have any photographs of the old cellar so when I saw this box again this weekend it brought back happy memories of a time before Ebay changed our lives forever. Thanks for listening to an old man reminiscing!

Did you have an old store room, cellar or attic full of your stuff? Did you buy and sell or swap old toys? Do you still readers?

STUFF MUM AND DAD THREW OUT!

 I've been wondering if my parents passed on my old toys when I was a kid. I ask myself this as my Daughter regularly has a clear out and passes more of her kids' toys to us for dispersal to friends kids and charity shops.

I was the youngest child of our family so any passing on would have had to have been to nephews and cousins, but I've no idea if this happened.

There were no charity shops back in the early Seventies when my toys would have been removed from my room and my Mum and Dad wouldn't have done jumble sales or anything like that. They did have connections to the local Sacred Heart church so maybe some went there.

I still maintain that the vast majority will have been simply binned. The thought of my Colourforms Outer Space Men figures and accessories, never mind a Century 21 Zero-X and Project SWORD vehicles, lying at the bottom of the metal waste bin fills me with horror!

Fortunately I managed to keep a tiny amount of childhood stuff, a couple of books and the odd magazine, but that's its.

What happened to your childhood toys, games and books readers?

Remember Surtsey?

This was going on when I was two years old. I remember it later in books, a brand new island erupting out of the sea!

Do you remember it being news?

https://youtu.be/XiGN2TKEFPc

Plastic Games of the Sixties

Back in the day childhood was full of brilliant games and sets.

There were so many in the Sixties I find it hard to remember them all.

Fascination was one. Two players each got a plastic hand-held maze tray and the first to get a ball bearing to the end would light up a small light on a stand. Oh what fun! Fascination sums up my tender years and I still have a set.

Crossfire was one too. A huge table-top game, in which steel balls were fired at a rolling puck. The balls were loaded into plastic pistols. I remember playing it so much with mates that zi got a blister on my inner trigger finger! I still have a board but no other equipment.

Casdon Soccer was another game I liked. Endorsed by Bobby Charlton, it was a sort of subbuteo on a plastic pitch. Instead of flicking each player twisted knobs to make ruddered players turn and kick. Great fun and a tough chunk of plastic, which has easily survived right up to press. I've owned a few.

I could go on. Which games do you recall?

When Did You Get Up on Christmas Day as a Kid?

Being the youngest of five siblings there were always some older sibs around every Christmas as I grew up in the Sixties.

Even after my older sisters got wed it still left my two older brothers to join me on Christmas morning.

They got me up around 5am to go downstairs on the big day. I bet my Mum hadn't been in bed long, she always went mad at Christmas. 

Anyway, with my two older brothers as escorts there wasn't any need for my folks to get up. We were quite happy digging in on our own for a few hours! We each had a chair full of pressies, so it wasn't a free for all. I must correct that. I got a settee full. I was the baby after all!

Mum and Dad did get up around 8. Mum had the dinner to make and Dad had to get himself ready for the traditional Christmas pint at his local. When they were old enough he took my brother's and eventually it was my turn in the mid-Seventies.

I always felt sorry for my Mum making Christmas dinner on Christmas Day. Not just that, everyone in the wider family - loads - invaded in Boxing Day, so God knows how she managed all that. My two married Sisters may have helped. Not sure.

Anyhow, I have only the best of memories of Christmas as a kid, the very best of times that stay with me to this day.

How did it work when you were a kid? Did everyone get up at the crack of dawn together or did you just do it with your sibs like me and mine, leaving your knackered folks in bed?

Further Glimpses of Childhood

We are still at Juniors place.

Here's the bundle on his window sill. The sarellite dish badge is from Jodrell Bank, a UK space listening post. The tin contains his milk teeth. The Tooth Fairy was broke after that lot!

Wallpaper and mobile

The local playground, a reminder of my own childhood. Cold, wintry slides and empty spaces.

Lonely distant footy fields we used to call recs, short for recreation spaces I think.

Junior's rocket launcher in the playground. His double jump technique sent the foam rockets sky high!

Did you go to playgrounds and recs as a kid readers?

Playing Out

There's a whole bucket full of reasons for modern kids staying indoors more than we did.

Their safety, mobile phones, computer games and social media are a few.

it has to be said that I did stay in to watch telly. Especially after Skool and on Saturday mornings. But I did go out a lot. 

Bikes on the park, going round to other kids' homes and gardens, walks along the canal and longer walks round the docks. There were lots of fun reasons to be out.

Were you out a lot as kids readers?