HOUSEHOLD TIPS NOT FOUND IN WOMAN'S WEEKLY

[Marilyn]

I have a Tupperware biscuit container that I've had since Adam were a lad.
I've never liked the look of it ( one of those pleated lid things) but there is no denying it keeps biscuits beautifully. Currently housing some shortbreads I made on Friday...
My son remembers it from his early childhood and it must be just about the only bit of Tupperware that didn't end up in the sandpit!

[Stanley]

You are in good company, the Queen still uses them on the breakfast table at the palace to hold the breakfast cereals....
I recently purchased the latest version of Tupperware, clear containers with fasteners on the lids, I use them for holding small and valuable tools in the shed. Very expensive for what they are but superb design....

[Tizer]

I use the perspex boxes from Ferrero Rocher chocolate packs to hold and display my mineral specimens. They are as clear as glass and can be stacked....and I like the chocolates! If you buy the boxes from a supplier they're as expensive as buying them with the chocs in, so it's a no brainer (especially when Christmas offers are on).

[Stanley]

That's an old fashioned cabinet of curiosities! I'd love to have a guided tour, geology is something that has always fascinated me but I never got round to studying it....
In the days when tins were routinely used for packaging retail goods they were often highly decorated and re-used for everything from storing cakes to holding the button collection. My tea bags still live in a tin that I bought in 1995 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of WW2, it had NAAFI tea bags in it....

[Stanley]

It's hard to imagine the days when we had no refrigerators and everything had to be stored at room temperatures or outside. It was an advantage to have an unheated pantry or cellar for food storage. Zinc mesh 'meat safes' used to be very popular, they kept the flies off the meat. In summer a wet cloth was hung over them to lower the temperature a little by evaporation. This was the reason why most food buying was done on a daily basis and the nearby corner shop was so popular. You bought perishable items as they were needed. Milk was a big problem in summer. It was not as clean then and most was raw, straight from the cow and delivered by a producer retailer. In summer it could go off in a few hours and so twice daily deliveries were the norm. Today I can buy fresh milk and it will keep quite happily in the fridge for a week....
This is why home preserving was so popular. Potted meats sealed with melted butter, eggs preserved in isinglass, salted meat, salted bacon, vegetables pickled in vinegar and fruit preserved by boiling in syrup.

[Stanley]

If you have a pin hole leak in the radiator of your car, mix a tin of mustard and two eggs in water and pour in. This will temporarily seal the leak.

[Tripps]

Or get your mobile phone out, try to remember how to use it, and call the rescue service.

[Tizer]

Or you try the mustard and eggs and it doesn't work and you then have to call the rescue man and have to explain why there's egg and mustard in your radiator..and get egg on your face!

[Stanley]

In those days there were no mobile phones and no rescue service for wagons. You can laugh but it got you home.....

[Stanley]

Housewives should save seemingly irrelevant items like candle ends, empty cotton reels, remnants of knitting wool empty containers. elastic bands etc. These can be used by children to make their own toys and pastimes on days when they can't play out.
Can anyone remember making 'tanks' out of a cotton reel, a laggy band and a spent match? French knitting on a cotton reel with four small panel pins driven into the end?

[LizG]

I have a friend who manages an after school care program. she collects all our empty bobbins, cardboard 'bits' etc. The kids make amazing things with them. I'll download from my phone and post some of the things they make.

[PanBiker]

Reel and candle tanks, indeed, with my mum being a dressmaker I had access to loads of stuff like you mention. The very best bobbins for tanks used the large capacity Sylko reels that looked a bit like a diabalo when empty. They were larger than standard cotton reels. I used to notch out the edges around the rims to give grip and it represented the track on a real tank. You could use a thicker rubber band for the drive as well. You could get those particular marques of tank to go places ordinary little un's wouldn't go.

[Tizer]

I've recently mentioned somewhere about how railway modelling provided boys with early experience in making things, using tools, doing geometry, learning about electrics etc. It also was a great way to use up waste materials and railway modellers have pioneered recycling. They find a use for just about everything and have the `never throw away' philosophy! Of course, there has sometimes been marital distress when they raided the wife's sewing box or took things before they qualified as waste! (I'm writing here as if they are all men but the world has changed and there are now some women railway modellers...and working as couples is more common too. Usually the women choose to do more of the scenery and buildings and some of them are putting the men to shame!

[Stanley]

Ian, I notched the rims as well..... and a bit of butter smeared on the end of the bobbin increased performance.
Tiz you do well to add the rider about women. I once found a lady in Barlick who used to watch Johnny Pickles in his shed and got her own Myford lathe. She did wood-turning and only gave up many years later when the dust started to affect her lungs....

[Tizer]

It's good to see that there are also some children still going into railway modelling and the clubs try to encourage them, but they are faced with the usual need to prove that they are not a bunch of perverts wanting to entice kiddies in for nasty stuff.

[Moh]

I tried to teach my great granddaughters to 'knit' with a bobbin with pins in it but they lost interest, although when we had them for a weekend they loved learning to knit properly.

[Tripps]

Is this the more modern version of 'bobbin knitting'?

kumihimo

[Stanley]

We used to call it French Knitting, the result was a circular plaited rope of wool that could be shaped into almost anything. Table place mats were a favourite. My mother taught me to knit as well and I made myself a scarf.

[Bodger]

We were taught to knit at Hepworth primary 1943/4 , large wooden needles with "string" used to knit squares for dishcloths

[Tizer]

I learnt to knit from my Mum, although I wouldn't remember how to do it now. Of course, soldiers and sailors all learnt to darn, sew and fit buttons.

[LizG]

We used to call it French Knitting, the result was a circular plaited rope of wool that could be shaped into almost anything. Table place mats were a favourite. My mother taught me to knit as well and I made myself a scarf.

The bobbin is called a 'Knitting Nancy' in Oz. Couldn't tell you why.

[Moh]

Was called that here too.

[PanBiker]

We used to call it French Knitting, the result was a circular plaited rope of wool that could be shaped into almost anything. Table place mats were a favourite. My mother taught me to knit as well and I made myself a scarf.

The bobbin is called a 'Knitting Nancy' in Oz. Couldn't tell you why.

According to Google the traditional French bobbin is not just a normal reel but a hand held bobbin fashioned in the shape of a doll. I assume at some point given the name Nancy, kind of rolls off the tongue when combined with Knitting.

[Stanley]

Bodge, you've reminded me, we knitted those dish cloths at school as well. I wonder if they were for the war effort?
I think I can remember more fancy versions of the bobbin shaped like a doll.

[Stanley]

Scatter para-dichlorobenzene under carpets to prevent moth damage. We used it at Hey Farm in the late 1950s, I'll bet it's illegal now!