A 1960s Childhood: From Thunderbirds to Beatlemania (Childhood Memories)

by Feeney, Paul

  Playing Out

  Television’s much-improved children’s programmes and early evening pop music shows were very popular and some became essential viewing for children of all ages. This made it easier than it had been in the past for mums to rein in their children for early evening tea. The magnetism that such television programmes had over kids was such that they would actually keep track of time so as not to miss the start of a programme. By the mid-sixties it was becoming increasingly rare for kids to disappear in the morning and not come back until after dark, as they often did on non-school days in the past, but most kids still preferred to play outside with their mates and they would take every opportunity to do so, just as long as it didn’t interfere with them seeing their favourite television programmes.

  There were lots more toys and games available in the 1960s than ever before. Young boys were ditching their Davy Crockett fur hats and Roy Rogers’ silver six-shooter cap-guns in favour of the very latest sparking space guns, while girls were proudly dressing, grooming and accessorising their new best friend, the Sindy fashion doll. And, much to the surprise of older kids and grownups, young boys were being persuaded by television advertising to put down their tin soldiers and instead play with their very own dolls, in the form of action-hero figures like Action Man, Tommy Gunn and Captain Scarlet. Fortunately, as had always been the case, most of the best outdoor games and adventures could be played without the need for any manufactured toys. The outdoor rough-and-tumble activities and chase games were taught and handed down to you by the older kids, and you learned how to modify them and to make up new games as you went along. Because they played outside all the time, kids became streetwise – again, learning from the older kids. You got up to mischief, but there always seemed to be a policeman, park keeper or warden round every corner to keep you in check. These were the days when a child could expect a clip around the ear if they were caught misbehaving. Policemen were respected and feared; you might give them a bit of cheek, but it would always be from a safe distance. They were all on foot or bicycle back then, so kids, being fit and full of energy, could easily run away from them. If you did get caught and given a ticking-off by someone in authority then you wouldn’t dare go home and tell your dad – there was the fear of being in even more trouble for having been up to mischief in the first place, and woe betide you if you got into any trouble with the police.

  Spring and summer were great because of the mild weather, long days and light evenings. A single day could encompass a great number of activities. Nothing was planned for; what you did was dependent upon who was around. If you lived in an ordinary street then the local streets, parks and back gardens were your playgrounds. New high-rise blocks of flats and office blocks were springing up everywhere like uncontrolled weeds. Mostly, they were giant ugly boxes that were constructed using prefabricated concrete cladding and loads of glass. The initial joy of moving from a damp, dilapidated terraced house into one of these modern flats was often short-lived, with many residents having to contend with water ingression, condensation and noise from the neighbouring flats and walkways. The council estates had designated play areas for children, but these were often spoilt by the presence of unruly teenagers, and so again the younger kids often ended up on the streets or in the park. In the early sixties, when it was still considered safe to play in the streets, kids would join in with the games others were playing as and when they came out to play. Skipping, ball games, hopscotch and variations of run-outs were the favourites, and there were lots of pretend games played by the younger kids. Then there were all the doorstep games, like lolly sticks, five stones, jacks and marbles. All of the popular board games were also played outside, on doorsteps or in front gardens; games like draughts, snakes and ladders, Monopoly, Cluedo, Scrabble, dominoes, Mouse Trap and Ludo. And there were loads of card games, often played using things like lolly sticks, stones or marbles for stakes instead of money.

  Bicycles had always been a popular means of transport for people to get to and from work and school, but there seemed to be a lot more of them being used solely for enjoyment in the 1960s. There were lots of small-wheel kids’ bikes and shopping bikes, like the Moulton with front and rear carriers for baskets and bags. In 1965 the cheapest Moulton was £24 19s 6d, and the most expensive deluxe model was £31 19s 6d. There were also plenty of traditional straight handlebar Wayfarer-style bikes that cost about £18–£20, but the most sought after were the drop handlebar racing-style bikes, like the Triumph Sportsmaster and the Raleigh Rapide, which cost £18–£31, depending on the size and number of gears. It became more common for kids to go bike riding in groups and to have races and show off by doing wheelies and other tricks on their bikes. Bicycles began to routinely appear on children’s Christmas wish-lists as kids’ expectations of Christmas presents went up in the freer-spending decade. Whether you had a bicycle or not, there was always the desire to have ‘wheels’ and everyone enjoyed playing on homemade wooden go-karts, made out of old crates, blocks of wood and discarded pram wheels. You fixed an upright stick to the side, which you pulled back to scrape against the wheel and act as a brake, and there was a piece of rope tied to the front axle for steering. In winter, if you had snow, you would turn your hand to making wooden sledges and head for the nearest hill.

  There have always been young ‘anoraks’ around and it was no different in the 1960s; you could see them at holiday time and weekends standing by the side of the road collecting car registration numbers or trainspotting at draughty railway stations. They always looked pasty-faced and cold, clutching their notebooks and pencils with numb fingertips poking through fingerless woollen gloves, and their trusty fish paste sandwiches and flask always by their side.

  Shopping

  Britain was renowned as being a nation of shopkeepers and our high streets were full of them. There were very few boarded-up shop fronts and no charity shops; instead, high streets were thriving with retail businesses selling tangible goods. There were, of course, no computer, DVD, video game or mobile phone shops in those days, and DIY superstores were still a few years away. There were very few restaurants, takeaway food shops, travel agents, health shops and licensed betting shops on the average high street. In between the butchers, bakers, florists and newsagents there were all the big name retailers, like Boots, Fine Fare, MacFisheries, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Victor Value, Timothy Whites and Woolworths. Television sets were quite expensive to buy and they weren’t very reliable, so it was popular practice for people to rent televisions rather than buy them. Therefore, the high streets were full of competing television rental companies, like DER, Rediffision, and Radio Rentals. There were also lots of specialist shops, like ironmonger, handyman and hobbies shops, with most high streets having at least one shop selling knitting wool. It was quite common for girls and women to make some of their own clothes and so there were a lot of shops around to supply their sewing needs, with Singer Sewing Machine shops being a familiar sight in many high streets. And, with so many smokers around, there were tobacconist shops and kiosks everywhere, with recognisable names like Finlay. Many of the shop names that were so familiar to us all in the 1960s have, for one reason or another, long since disappeared from our high streets. Some of these have already been mentioned, but there were many others, like Broadmead Radio, Laskys, Chelsea Girl, Cyril Lord Carpets, Times Furnishing, Willoughby Tailoring, Hepworth’s Tailors and the Green Shield Stamp catalogue shops. There are hundreds of such names that sadly no longer adorn our high streets, but not all of the missing names belong to retail shops. After all, at one time or another, your mum probably took you to one of the Lyons Tea Shops for afternoon tea, or, if you lived in London, you might have even been treated to something a bit classier at one of the art deco-style Lyons Corner Houses. You probably had your first grownup meal out in a Berni Inn, with prawn cocktail to start and Black Forest gateau to finish – very sophisticated! Or perhaps you just drooled over a scrumptious Brown Derby at the local Wimpy bar.


  This mid-sixties Tesco advertisement shows cut prices being offered on a range of food products. The Green Shield Stamps sign was added to Tesco advertisements in 1964, which was the year they first started to offer these stamps on customer purchases.

  There were some small arcades around, mostly with little open-fronted lock-up shops and kiosks, but nothing anywhere near as grand as the shopping malls we have today. People did all of their shopping in the high street shops and from stalls in street markets. There was very little covered shopping and so topcoats and umbrellas were a must in the winter. Sometimes, in the big street markets there would be ‘Del Boy’ characters literally selling things off the back of a lorry. All sorts of stuff for the home: electric blankets, sheets, towels, cutlery and, the favourite, crockery. The front man, who always had the gift of the gab, would stand on the rear section of the lorry trailer spouting his sales pitch at full volume so as to pull in as many punters as possible. From a few feet away, his assistant would chuck plates for him to catch one at a time to build up an unbelievable bargain offer. ‘Here you are ladies, one, two, three, four, five, six dinner plates.’ Then, one at a time, his assistant throws him six small side plates, which he adds to the pile of dinner plates already in his hand, and fans the lot out to display them to the assembled crowd. ‘There you are ladies!’ (it was always a crowd of ladies). ‘Six dinner plates, and six side plates, all the best bone china. And, hang on a minute, I’ll throw in a set of six matching cereal bowls.’ Again, his assistant throws him six cereal bowls, one at a time, which he catches and adds to the front of the fanned-out display of crockery. ‘There you go ladies, a bone china dinner service like this would set you back £20 on the high street, but I’m not going to ask you to pay £20, I’m not even going to ask you to pay £15, or even £10. No, hang on a minute, today I feel generous and I’m going to chuck in six matching cups and saucers, and I’m still not going to charge you £10. Not £10, not even £8! No ladies, today I’m going to let you have this thirty-piece set of best bone china at a giveaway price of just £7 for the lot.’ By now there are many outstretched hands waving money in the air, with lots of punters desperate to get a set. ‘Take the ladies’ money’, are the front man’s parting words as he moves away, and four of his previously unseen helpers appear from the shadows, laden with factory-packed boxed sets of the crockery. ‘No, we don’t take cheques lady. If we wanted to take cheques then we would have opened a bank account and told the tax man.’ Throughout the sale, the front man regularly hints that the consignment is not legal and has fallen off the back of a lorry, but the police were always watching from a distance and the more likely scenario was that these traders dealt in bankrupt stock, which they bought for next to nothing at auction. ‘Come on ladies, I’ve only got six left, who’s having them? When they’re gone, they’re gone!’ The final six are snapped up in seconds and ‘Del Boy’ and his helpers start to present another bargain offer to the assembled crowd. This time it’s a set of top-quality cotton towels.

  I wonder how many mums struggled home on the bus, weighted down with their unwieldy box of crockery, musing over why they had bought it when they didn’t really need it, and where they were going to put it when they got it home? But it was a bargain!

  The street markets were fascinating places for kids to wander around. All the wheeling and dealing of market traders and lots of joking around, with all the stallholders smoking half-chewed roll-up cigarettes and drinking endless mugs of tea held by cold fingers. It was a real education, but a frightening prospect for any child considering what they will do for a living when they leave school – probably best to find a job in a nice warm cosy office somewhere.

  Pocket Money

  You weren’t doing too badly if you got a half crown for pocket money each week to spend on whatever you wanted. Some kids didn’t get a fixed amount of pocket money, but instead got spoon-fed money during the week for sweets, comics and other treats. It was always best to get a fixed amount of pocket money on a Saturday and then try for extras during the week. The only problem with getting a fixed amount was that you were always under pressure to save some in your piggy bank or to buy post office savings stamps. It did teach you the value of money and how to manage it – when it was gone, it was gone. Mind you, a half crown didn’t go very far in the mid-sixties. The Beano and Dandy comics were still only 3d each, but some of the girls’ magazines, like Boyfriend and June, were 7d each, and boys’ magazines like Meccano cost 1s 6d. If you wanted to keep up with all the latest news and pictures of The Beatles then the monthly Beatles book was also 1s 6d, and the weekly New Musical Express was 5d. By the time you paid to get into Saturday Morning Pictures and bought a few sweets and a Jubbly, there wasn’t much left. Pre-teenage kids of the 1960s were often as keen on music and fashions as the older teenagers were, but their involvement was limited by the amount of pocket money they got. Many relied on older siblings to buy the latest pop records, and that was okay if you had similar tastes in music, but it could be a nightmare if you were opposites. A young boy fan of the Rolling Stones’ music didn’t really want to hear Billy Fury’s soppy love songs bellowing out from his big sister’s bedroom. If you were lucky, you might get the odd hand-me-down piece of trendy clothing to wear. For boys, a well-worn and faded pair of blue Levi jeans was always a welcome cast-off from a big brother, while girls delighted in anything that a big sister might give to them. Of course, there were the inevitable rows between siblings over unauthorised borrowing of clothes and accessories, mostly between sisters.

  Although there were age restrictions and rules regarding employing children, there was much less bureaucracy than there is now, and many young kids earned extra pocket money by doing some form of paid casual work. Early morning newspaper rounds were popular, as was car washing and helping the milkman; the local milkmen all seemed to have young helpers travelling with them on their milk floats, helping to sort out the orders and carry bottles of milk to customers’ doorsteps. It was mostly unofficial and poorly paid work, but kids would grab at the chance to earn an extra few bob for their pocket money. Lifting boxes down at the market, restocking shop shelves, collecting newspapers and rags, running errands, babysitting, returning beer and lemonade bottles to the off-licence to get back the thruppence a bottle deposit. There was always some way of boosting your pocket money.

  To manage your pocket money, you first needed to learn the complicated calculations of pounds, shillings and pence, which most kids picked up quickly from a very young age. The coins and notes that we all used in the 1960s have been referred to as ‘old money’ since decimalisation took place in 1971. The ‘old money’ was written down using the L.S.D. symbols £ s d, which were abbreviations for ‘pounds, shillings and pence’. The ‘£’ symbol was used for the pound and comes from the Latin word librum (a Roman unit of weight derived from the Latin word for ‘scales’). The ‘s’ symbol was used for the shilling and comes from the Latin word solidus (a Roman gold coin derived from the Latin word for ‘whole’). The ‘d’ symbol was used for pence and comes from the Latin word denarius (a common Roman coin). There were some peculiarities about the way we used and spoke about money. Sometimes expensive items would be sold in units of 1 guinea, which was equal to 21s, but the coin itself no longer existed in the 1960s; in fact, the guinea coin had not been struck since 1799. Money was often referred to by slang names such as brass, dosh, dough, folding stuff, lolly, moola or readies. A group of farthings, halfpennies and pennies was called ‘coppers’, meaning a small amount of money, as in ‘just a few coppers’. Something costing ‘one and a half pennies’ would be called ‘threehaypence’ or ‘three-haypenny worth’, as in ‘three halfpennies’. It was quite normal for a shop to only use shillings and pence when pricing low-value goods, so a pair of shoes might be advertised at 49/11d rather than £2 9s 11d. There was no two-pence coin, but everyone regularly used the words ‘tuppence’ or ‘tuppenny’. Money would sometimes be used to describe people, as in the term ‘not quit
e the full shilling’.

  Here is a list of the main pre-decimalisation coins and notes with the old English slang words sometimes used to refer to them:

  Farthing (¼d) (4 farthings = 1 old penny).

  Halfpenny (½d) Usually pronounced ‘Hay-p-nee’.