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1950s Memories From Our Visitors

When we look back in time small things or words can jog our own memories

TV's in The 1950's U.S.A.

Memory Posted By: Frank

Today I went and bought my new plasma TV and because it was so big and SO LIGHT it reminded me of the first TV my parents bought.

It was about 1955 or so and a 12" screen black and white Majestic. It was a realy big deal and my parents were more protective of the TV than anything else in the house , It was very heavy and whenever you stood near it you could feel the heat it generated, it was a solid wooden cabinett and pretty sure it had valves inside.

All the TV stations would close down about midnight and return at five or six in the morning. We'd get up early saturdays and watch the test patterns, and I think we had 2 channells to choose from and they closed down with the star spangled banner .

It was 10 years later that we got the first color TV with 3 channells to choose from which spent more time broken down than working but when it worked it was cool.

Comment From graham

we had test patterns in england at about that time if i remember it was a girl inside a circle , so long ago I am not completly sure though

Street Vendors in the 50s

Posted By Sable

Street vendors...I remember the rag & bone man with his horse & cart, shouting any old rags'n bones. Mum would send us out with some rags or metal & he would give us a balloon or a goldfish! Also the milkman with his horse & cart. To the sound of the milkman's click, the blinkered horse would go along to each house and stand with one foot bent until he got the next click from the milkman. The other horse & cart vendor was the coalman. Black as night & covered in coal dust, he would have a big earthen sack across his shoulder & back on which to heave the coal sack.

Comment From Anonymous

I do remember the coal man I must have been about 5 at the time and my mum would not let him walk through the house to deliver the coal because of the mess and used to make him walk all the way round the back to the coal bunker carrying the bags of coal on his back , he must have been fit

1950s great time to be growing up in the UK

Memory Posted By: Joe Soap

The 1950's were indeed a great time to be growing up, I had 6 brothers and 5 sisters yeah really! and it hold many fond memories like making do with what you had, most people were in the same boat and helped each other.

We played for hours outside, the sun always seemed to shine longer back then we had games like Kick-the-Can and follow the arrow and you can't cross the red river and chap door run fast and boagge racing and cowboys n Indians.

One of my most cherished memories is standing under the street light in the long summer nights just chatting with friends for hours or until we were called in by our parents.

I have children of my own now( only two though) and I cant help but feel sorry for them because they missed out on all that was good about the 50's all they have now is computer games and the like, we had no tv in those days, only one boy in the street had a tv and we were invited in on a Saturday morning to watch such things as The Loan Ranger or Flash Gordon.

There were very few houses with drive ways and even less people with cars you could play on the road and never see a car for ages.

I can also remember being able to go to the co-op with empty milk bottles and getting sweets back in return for them and I have been told recently that the gov are to bring that back to encourage green issues.

I recall the smell of fresh rolls being made in a little back street bakery, we used to be sent to buy the rolls the smell was fantastic and you could smell it all over the town, we could watch the baker as he made the rolls for us and they stayed piping hot till we got them home.

I have many many fond memories of that time in my life but they pass all too quickly, getting older is sad fact of life so I am grateful that I have my memory to relive the 50's All the things they tell us are bad for us now we did them all back then and they never did us any harm, I hate what progress has done today because although we did not have as much money then we were much happier then I reckon if we did not move on I would not be able to share the memories with you because this computer that I am typing very badly on would never have been invented. That's all for now, but I am off to bed now and I will lie awake for a while reliving my childhood days

Oh I have just remembered at few more games but I will leave in the memory bank for next time. take care kind regards from joe soap

Comment From Steve

remember the glass bottles, I think we had a milkman deliver them and my mum was strict that the bottles had to be clean when we put them out , If I remember correctly we had some sort of carrier we put them in so they did not fall over

Comment From joe

thanks for helping to bring back some of my own great memories from growing up in the 50s



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Remembering th 1950s

The 50's were the boomer years and the children from those years are now the parents and grandparents who caused that boom in the birthrate

The 50's also were one of the last decades where the traditional roles of the woman staying at home and being a homemaker and the man as the sole breadwinner for a family.

Due to these family dynamics it was also the heyday of the TV daytime soap opera which a drama shown during the day when the man of the family was at work and the ( Soap Manufacturers )advertisers could target a very specific audience " the stay at home mum.

Following on from the end of World War the cold war became a grim reality because both sides had the power and technology for a Nuclear holocaust, but equally both knew any war could not truly be won.

This is also the first decade where the worlds economy was driven by consumer demand for the goods that were now available and were produced in large numbers in Japan for consumption by the rest of the western world and many of the household names that are part of our daily lives including Sony date from that period.

This is also the decade that many of inventions and technology developed during war time could be adapted for peacetime including harnessing nuclear energy for use as electricity with first nuclear power stations built towards the end of the decade and the groundwork for today's digital revolution with the invention of the microchip and the computer modem.

Towards the end of the decade the cars continued to get larger with bigger front and rear fins and nobody worried about MPG gas was a mere 25 cents

Music: At the beginning of the decade the crooners were still popular but by the end of the 50's a new genre of music was born and some of the greats who started at the end of the 50's included Elvis ( the Pelvis ) Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley and the Comets setting the stage for the groups of the 60's

This was also the decade where the Television became a major part of most families lives and the birth of "Rock N Roll"

Please try to speak to parents and grandparents to try to understand how different it was in the 50's where after the war years many families were started while sharing a home with parents because of the lack of housing and the boom in children , if your parents are willing to share memories on The People History please do but if not at least they will have been passed on and not lost.

How did we survive 50 years ago?

Memory Posted By: Boomer Boy

We drank water from the tap not a bottle and nobody knew about the dangers of lead poisoning so even cribs were painted with brightly colored lead based paint. Medicine and Bottles with tablets did not have child proof lids

No seat belts or air bags in cars, nobody knew or if they did told our parents smoking and drinking was bad for the baby, kids shared coke from one bottle, soda had masses of sugar and we ate real white bread and butter and everything else including full fat milk that we are now told is bad for you

Parents couldn't reach us ( no mobiles ) and most of the day we would be out playing with friends and parents knew we would be safe with hardly any weirdos wandering the streets. If we got caught doing stuff we shouldn't the cops would take us home and we may well have a got a hiding for breaking the law ( but no do gooders saying mustn't smack children ). And if we played up in school the same applied.

While playing we got cuts and bruises and the occasional tear in jeans but it was just part of being a kid and no visit to the hospital.

We had no fancy games but could play for hours making a Go cart or a new tree swing and for other games most times we would find a ball and whatever we could use as a bat. or in the summer all jump into the nearest place we could find and if the water wasn't that clean we just didn't swallow it.

We rode our bikes with no helmets and doing whatever stunts we could ( bikes were so much heavier and hard waring ) and always had punctures to repair or get dad to help with.

If we didn't get in the team we were not good enough and that was that.

But most of all we were allowed to be kids

To dream, to invent and to play.

It's no wonder that the generation that grew up then created some of the most innovative and exciting technology we have today

Thanks for those years and all those "BAD THINGS" that is why we are who we are today

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Childrens Toys From The 1950's

Childrens toys offered a much wider range following the boom in babies born, but toys were very much gender designed with dolls, prams, dressmaking for girls toys and Cowboys and indians, cars and construction sets for boys.

Part of our Collection of Toys from The 1950's

Kids Toy Examples From The 1950s

1950s Music

A new generation of pop stars including Elvis Presley were created whose main target audience was teenagers.

From our 50's Music Page

Fifties Music

Early Memories From School in The 50's UK

Memory Posted By: Jane

I am getting ready to take my daughter for her first day of real school and it made me think back to all those 30 years ago and remember my early time at school.

Looking back I think I enjoyed every day and all the things we did

Painting great works of art which my mother had to tell me were wonderfull ( and I always wanted my mum to display them )

Pretending to Sleep during rest time with my head resting on my crossed arms ( now I wonder was it to give teachers as much a rest as the children )

Listening to the teacher reading a story

Learning to write my ABC

Opening up my desk where I kept my colouring pencils

All having our own coat racks where we had our name tags on

Running our little shops

Playing with building bricks

Learning to read the first books

Our small bottle of milk we were given each day ( I think the Government Paid for it not parents )

And then the special times like Christmas Plays and Carol Singing, Sports Day, Easter

Many years later I went back to a school with my niece and can remember looking at the little tables and chairs realising just how little we all were They say school years are the best years of your life and looking back I think they were

Comments Anonymous

Mum Sewing in name tags on all your clothes

Your Birthday when all the other children would sing happy birthday

Playtime in the playground

and pulling the little girls hair who sat in front of you and pretending it wasn't you

Comments Kevin67

I was born in 67 in the US and all of your memories sound very familiar. One big one I remember is the metal lunch boxes that we had. Which ever one you had said a lot about who you were.

For me Coolest Period was the 1950s United States

Memory Posted By: Anonymous

In 1952, I was 7. Life was simpler then. Kids could play outside all day and not get snatched off their front lawns by a pedophile.

The crime rate was lower; gas was cheaper; we were happy with simple things (e.g., when we had a birthday party, we only invited the kids on the street, not the entire class.

We didn't go bowling, or to a theme park, or anywhere else. We had cake and ice cream in the kitchen and we (at least girls) were happy with our gifts: Crayons, coloring books, bubble bath, etc.

We didn't get digital wristwatches, DVD players, Game Boy, remote-controlled dinosaurs (if those items had been invented then, we wouldn't have gotten them anyway), etc.

In the summers, we had a clubhouse that a neighbor's father built, and we'd hang out there or under "the big tree" reading comic books and waiting for the Popsicle truck, with our nickels in hand.

My parents would dress me in my pajamas and we'd go to the Star Drive-In for a double feature, and we took our own refreshments.

No, we weren't poor. We just did things that way: Fewer material things, more togetherness. The music of the 50s and early 60s was relaxing: Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Patti Page, etc. all crooning about fnding and losing love.

Whatever movies we saw on Sat. afternoon at the Sunshine Theater, the same stars were always in them: Bob Hope, Debbie Whatever...Movies were OK for kids, with no gruesome bloody bodies, homicide scenes, etc. and we had cartoons in between the features.

We had the first TV on the street and my friends and I gathered in front of it each afternoon at 4 p.m. to watch the test pattern turn into Howdy Doody.

We used to talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up; by the time I was raising my daughter, she talked about what she wanted to be if she LIVED to grow up.

Also during the 50s, it was a time of innocence. Media technology wasn't as evolved as it is now, and there were fewer things to nag our parents for. We saved boxtops. We thought Davy Crocket and Rin-Tin-Tin were the closest thing to Heaven.

Now that I'm 63, I pine away for those sweet, simple songs of the 50s, when life was uncomplicated and people were nice to each other.

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Thanking An American Soldier For Gift Italy

Memory Posted By: bianca

I was born in Italy in 1952. I can't believe it's 55 years ago already. I can hardly remember the days of my childhood but two things I remember clearly. Like many kids in the '50s, I was born at home and next to my mum in labour was the dog that would eventually become my greatest companion. A female dog, called Pilou. She had been given to my mum from an American soldier when Americans freed Rome at the end of the war. I have always hoped to find that soldier one day. Assuming, as I hope, that he still alive he should be maybe in his eighties by now. Well, I would really like to thank him for I was not yet born but that dog was a great gift. I have grown loving animals very much and, thanks to this, with a good character. The second thing I remember is being a very lonely little girl that never got tired of cutting paper and making paper-dolls. While I spent entire days on this, the voices of old people chatting on the balconies kept me company. Well, practically each family in my building had lost one or two sons or other relatives during the war. I think war is a disgrace, I was only a small girl but the tales were so painful I still remember quite clearly how deep was the pain of the mothers that had lost a son. I have a 24 year old boy and I know now how unbearable it would be if anything happened to him and really it would break my heart. Please stop making wars. The pain a war can inflict is simply unhuman.

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1950's Fashion

With the economic boom in the Fifties, glamour become fashionable once again and A-line and pencil skirts were very popular form-fitting fashions. Dresses in the decade would often feature stylish ruffles or lace accents and were usually knee-length or tea-length. Going into the late fifties and 1960s mini-dresses and maxi-length skirt outfits entered the scene. The mid-50's trends in women's fashion changed again. Round-neck styles on sleeveless shirts or long sleeve shirts were popular, as well as polo-necks. Dolman sleeves dominated fashionable tops in the fifties and sixties, The examples below are from Our new updated Fifties Fashion Section, with examples of Ladies, Mens and Children's Fashion Clothes and Accessory examples including dresses, hats, shoes and much more take a little time to browse through them

Ladies Dresses From The 1950's

Examples of Ladies Dresses From The 1950's

Ladies Shoes and Hats From The 1950's

Examples of Ladies Shoes From The 50's

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