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Old Posted: 07-11-2008 , 10:24 PM #1
The Mammy
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Location: Clondalkin, D22
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Default The Good Old Green Days

Hi All
I've been thinking about old times and you know....
Recycling and being GREEN is not new, back in the 60’s and early 70’s we were environmentally friendly without knowing it, But really that was the way things were…. We ,as children spent all day Saturday calling to neighbours to collect any old lemonade bottles, we would then take them to the local shop ( on foot…no carbon footprint…) where we would receive If my memory serves me, an old penny for every bottle…The shopkeeper would then bring the bottles back to the Glass bottle company and they would be washed and re used…
We also collected old newspapers (‘’Press or Herald’’)from our friends and families and when we had a large pile of papers we’d borrow someone’s silver cross and wheel them to the local paper recycling plant on the canal and get paid per pound weight..A nice little earner for an 8 year old…

The milkman delivered our milk, Door to door in an (early electric "green" vehicle!....quiet and non-polluting) We left our empty milk bottles out at night for the milk man to collect early the next morning and deliver our supply for that day.

The rag and bone man came around once a month to collect old clothes and gave us a yoyo or some goldfish in exchange for the clothes, ( we raided my mothers drawers for anything we could find, Ha Ha…)

We had plenty of Bicycles as not many could afford cars, and we played with the old tyreless bike wheel rims, rolling them down the road and racing each other..(no wii or DS or playstations)…Our play stations were made from old bits of wood and cardboard.

We were great at conserving water as ‘’The Mammy’s’’ only washed the clothes once a week…( not because they were water conscious..because we really did not have that many clothes)What clothes we did have were ‘’Hand me Downs’’ but we did get a new set every Christmas and Easter.
We walked to school where we used small blackboards to write on and shared our text books between 8 of us in a class of 45 ( very little paper used)

We Had a bath once a week and our hair was washed with soap…no fancy shampoo or conditioners to wash into the drains and pollute the waterways.. Maybe we did smell a bit but then probably, so did everyone else….


We had Penny Dinner’s for The poor children, which was really environmentally friendly as the convent Nuns cooked for 40-60 kids at a time in Very large pots, and they used vegetables that they grew themselves, ( no pestasides or sprays) No capuchino or Latee coffee’s there..

Those that were lucky enough to have a TV had to wait till 6pm for RTE to broadcast in Black and white…No Flat Screen 42’’ and SKY HD box;s…Rabbits ears were used usually with many swear words until the proper signal was found…

Well enough of My ranting and raving about ‘’The Good Old Days’’, I just wanted to let you all know, we’ve been Reducing Re-using and Re-cycling for many many years now and Honestly when I think back it was fun……

What was our Carbon footprint back then I wonder?
Regards
The Mammy
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Old Posted: 07-11-2008 , 10:39 PM #2
gillo
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Default re: good old days

Ha ha loved reading your little memoir and how true it is that we were all so much greener back then (in more ways than one you might say), but this panic over green issues is relatively new due to the very fact that we have done away with so many "green" methods of doing everything. Nobody was ever driven to school except those who lived miles from school and kids always went out to play and made their own fun instead of using electricity to entertain themselves,and 30 years ago who would have thought every second person you know would have a mobile phone! It was the stuff of comic books. It would make you wonder if we weren't better off in a lot of ways back then. A bit of food for thought.
Kindest regards, gillo
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Old Posted: 08-11-2008 , 01:07 AM #3
smokeyeyes
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Hi Mammy, loved reading through your little memoirs, it brought back many memories to me. My Gran was a big fan of TK minerals so there was always bottles to return to shop for deposits. Indeed, I remember they were still around when I got married and I used to give them to my eldest lads to bring back. I thought it was 3p for each bottle? LOL. Never heard of the evening papers one!

Still lament the end of glass milk bottles, milk seemed to taste much better then (maybe not so much processing?) Remember the rag and bone man coming round when I was very young, he used to give you a whistle or balloon or some other toy. Like you, we'd be going round everyone asking for anything to give him, cos we didn't want to be the odd one out! You must have been one of the lucky one's as regards the bike. We weren't allowed them because we lived near main road so it was deemed too dangerous, couldn't wait to get one when I grew up! Having said that there were very few obese children around then because we walked as much as possible.

One thing I do really miss is the taste of food as it was then. Fruit and veg tasted like they should. My late father-in-law grew his own veg and would give us some when we visited. I have never tasted carrots like they were then, mashed with potatoes and butter. (Obviously no pestiscides used then). And before anyone suggests organic, have bought organic of many varieties and they still don't taste the same! We used to go to the local shop to buy butter. It was on a big marble slab and the shopkeeper would cut the amount you wanted and wrap it in greaseproof paper. You don't get butter like that anymore. Nowadays, I don't even like the butter you can buy in the shops prefer the butter spreads.

There were no chain stores then to buy reasonable clothes in every week, but in that respect I suppose I was lucky (although I didn't know it then) as I had an aunt who was an excellent dressmaker and made most of our clothes, which nowadays would be considered designer as they were one offs! She would buy the most gorgeous materials, never bought patterns, she made her own from scratch, so we were always assured of something nice from her. But at the time we didn't appreciate "homemade" clothes, today we'd die for them. (I still regret I never learned how to use a sewing maching properly!)

So I suppose in some respects we're all trying to get back to the "Good Old Days"
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Old Posted: 08-11-2008 , 10:02 AM #4
mrsl
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In 1980, as a young teacher, I did a 'recycling' project with my students and an organisation that I was a member of. By then people no longer took their bottles back for the pennies.

We collected coco cola bottles door to door one Saturday morning and returned them to Coco Cola for money. The school children did all the 'advertising' for us by telling their neighbours and having the bottles ready for us when we arrived at their street. It was very successful and we raised over £1000 and bought a guide dog for the blind.

Today I'm still doing recycling projects with my students except now we collect old mobile phones, CD's, and DVD's and recycle them for the Jack and Jill Foundation.

Some things haven't changed for this 'old' teacher:)
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Old Posted: 10-11-2008 , 06:57 AM #5
unapam
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Default good ol' days

I remember all those things with great fondness too. How times have changed!
Will we ever come full circle and do them again?
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Old Posted: 20-11-2008 , 12:13 AM #6
bluecurlygirl
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Quote:
Originally Posted by unapam
I remember all those things with great fondness too. How times have changed!
Will we ever come full circle and do them again?

I hope so.. so many memories there. I remember the bottles being 3p as well. In the estate where we lived only a few people had bikes and they were practically grown-ups to us but every saturday we'd pile onto the bikes and go for a few miles of a cycle (one on handlebars, one person riding bike, one on back carrier - what would health and safety say about that!) I was a member of a jogging club - 10p a week. We jogged about 5 miles every evening and then one day in the summer we were brought out somewhere (that's where our 10p's went although I'm still sure all those 10ps didn't add up to the cost of the day out). If we wanted to travel a long distance, we had to borrow one of the only two/three cars in the town (imagine that). When the showjumping was on we made horse jumps from old branches, planks of wood, broken bikes, fridge doors etc. We made swings from rope and tyres. we built treehouses, camps the list goes on. And if you handed a child a load of broken planks and stuff now they'd tell you it was rubbish. Ah, we knew better didn't we - some of us still do!!!
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Old Posted: 20-11-2008 , 12:41 AM #7
misstake
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Default good old days

well as a country girl we had fresh veg all the time also milk No pasturised milk also home made butter oh i hated making it We never tasted bought bread mum made it over an open fire so bought bread was like cake to us Our clothes were washed in the river and thrown on the field to dry And our hair was washed in soap but the cold water was used for rinsing god it was cold lol The first time i watched telly was cassius clay box through the pub window The best bit was our parents had time to listen and spend time with us Oh i could go on for hours about the good old days My gran knitted our clothes using a milford flour bag as tops for skirts then jumpers over that But we knew nothing about electricety or fashion but then nobody else did either We lived an idillick life why oh why did television take over and show us something we never imagined
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Old Posted: 20-11-2008 , 03:17 AM #8
HappyHunter
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I grew up in Dublin but was lucky to have my grandparents on my maternal side living in Tipperary. We used to get the packages of hand me down clothes from the cousins in the US. I remember the rag n bone man, the milkman, bringing the lemonade bottles back to the store, sweet memories.

I remember my grandmothers house with no electricity. We used to spend the 2 months of our summer holidays with my gran. The stone floors, the rain barrels, the free range chickens, the billy cans outside the gate, the man that used to come around on his horse and cart mending buckets and pails. - ahhh I remember - sitting around the big open fire as gran told us stories, listening to the radio because there was no TV. No indoor toilet or running water. I am talking about about 36 years ago - not so long really ;)

Fighting over who got to wear the shoes that came in the pack from the US.

Thanks for the memories folks :)
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Old Posted: 13-03-2009 , 06:56 PM #9
IrishFire
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Ahh the good ol' days.......

Not that long ago when you think of it......

Even down to things like footing turf chopping up fallen trees...... God ask a teenager to do that now they'd laugh at ya!!!!

As for the remote control for the T.V. when we had more than 1 station (I was the remote control in our house!!!)

Oh I hope something from these days come back and Ireland can get back to the way it was....... and as I said it wasn't that long ago
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