Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!

Sign In with Google Sign In with OpenID

Childhood reminders

I walked into work this morning, there was some bodgers working on the electrics, the smell of the (burning?) electrics took me straight back to playing Scalectrix when I was a nipper, and whenever I smell that same smell it always does.

So my cyber friends, what one thing reminds you of your childhood?
«1

Comments

  • Closing my eyes and imagining I'm standing at the top of the old East Terrace............. circa 1958.
  • the smell and taste of JPS and Mackesons
  • For some reason had the Thomas the Tank Engine theme tune in my head this morning. Haven't seen that show in roughly 24 years...
  • The smell of freshly laid Tarmac always takes me back to the hot summer of 1975.

    The smell of Cheese and Onion crisps reminds me of sitting in the corridor of the William Shakespeare pub in Woolwich as a nipper whilst my Dad was in the bar.

    The smell of lighter fuel.....................Ahhhhh!

    Sorry for over doing it.
  • The orange cordial machines that you used to get , big tank full of orange swirling around and being really really cold
  • Cigar smoke reminds me of the old valley club at 2.55 me wanting to get in
    the ground my dad wanting to order another pint
  • The smell of a certain type of plastic in toy shops takes me right back to the toy department in Chiesmans, Lewisham.
  • whenever I take a short cut across Charlton Park it reminds me of the prank that my dad and brother played to me when i was six and going to my first match, walking up to a pitch and trying to convince me that this was the Valley.
  • The smell of copper coins etc. When i was a kid, whenever i used to visit my grandparents they would give me used Golden Virginia tins, filled with coppers they used to collect up for me. I would spend hours sorting them out and pilling them up and would often have over £10 to cash in at the bank. Now whenever i handle a lot of coins (not often in today's cashless society) i think of those tins of money. Aren't grandparents great!
  • The starting sequence for Thunderbirds always reminds me of how excited I used to get as a kid waiting for teh programme to start. 5....4....3....2....1.

    Oh the joys of three channels
  • The smell of copper coins etc. When i was a kid, whenever i used to visit my grandparents they would give me used Golden Virginia tins, filled with coppers they used to collect up for me. I would spend hours sorting them out and pilling them up and would often have over £10 to cash in at the bank. Now whenever i handle a lot of coins (not often in today's cashless society) i think of those tins of money. Aren't grandparents great!

    Mine used to do exactly the same. Gave them to me and my sis the day before we went on our summer holidays to spend in the arcades.
  • Fresh paint and tobacco always remind of my dad's work bag (he was a painter and decorator). I remember seeing someone carrying an identical duffle bag in the street and the same smell came my nose.
  • the shouts from the toffee apple man on a sunday afternoon as we were playing football on the green (jumpers for goalposts)
  • Cigar smoke reminds me of the old valley club at 2.55 me wanting to get in
    the ground my dad wanting to order another pint

    That would have been mike baileys cigar :)

    The smell of chicken in a basket and chips reminds me of that place, I loved it in there, I'm sure they must have had the strongest toilet freshened in the world, and not GHE nicest.
    Halsey was my dads mate and always ended up in there, normally all bloody night. I never got home from a home game until about 11pm, I was about 6 or 7 at the time.
  • It is wonderful how smell as a sense is the strongest in reminding us of things. Do you all remember the Welsh Rarebit/Cheese On Toast smell from the sugar refinery that used to pervade the Valley from time to time?
  • the shouts from the toffee apple man on a sunday afternoon as we were playing football on the green (jumpers for goalposts)

    Get your toffee apples. Moonnkkkyy nuuttttsss.

    Pickled onion monster munch. Grandad used to buy me and my brothers a pack down at the club in slade green whenever we stayed at their house

  • Fish and chip smell reminds me of my holidays as a kid on The Isle of Sheppey .
  • seth plum said:

    It is wonderful how smell as a sense is the strongest in reminding us of things. Do you all remember the Welsh Rarebit/Cheese On Toast smell from the sugar refinery that used to pervade the Valley from time to time?

    We used to call it, "Boiling the Bones".
  • Remember the tannoy commercials at The Valley in late 60s.

    "Come Greyhound Racing at Charlton Stadium...."

    And, with a little jingle, "Shaving with Erasmic saves you money..." Or was it saving?
  • Fag cards, Meccano, and Dinky toys. Dandy and Beano and rag and bone men on their carts. The Sally Army Band playing on the street corner. Uncle Derek on the radio, and Dick Barton Special Agent.
  • Now that's what I like!
  • ....Young boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, marvellous......
  • A certain cigar smell reminds me of the east terrace - not sure which make it is. The smell of shandy reminds me of the CIU club in Lee. Ditto, the Scalextrics smell as Greenie. TCP reminds me of Miss Skelton at Alderwood School.
  • I used to go to Erith School. The west building was right next to the Mother's Pride bakery so the smell of hot cross buns always reminds of school.
  • Missed It said:

    I used to go to Erith School. The west building was right next to the Mother's Pride bakery so the smell of hot cross buns always reminds of school.

    Reminds me of Easter!

  • Missed It said:

    I used to go to Erith School. The west building was right next to the Mother's Pride bakery so the smell of hot cross buns always reminds of school.

    Yep, similarly the old Peak Freans bakery that used to be just outside London Bridge station.

    On that a friend is restoring an old car (can't remember the make) but it has that smell of leather from the uphostlry that you don't get any more.

  • Oggy Red said:

    seth plum said:

    It is wonderful how smell as a sense is the strongest in reminding us of things. Do you all remember the Welsh Rarebit/Cheese On Toast smell from the sugar refinery that used to pervade the Valley from time to time?

    We used to call it, "Boiling the Bones".
    I remember that smell vividly from when I lived in Church Lane as a kid, I used to call it "cheese and weetabix" still smell it occasionally, especially around Penhall Road or down by the Blackwall Tunnel.
    Living in Barnehurst now, I get that currant bun smell quite often from the bakery.

  • seth plum said:

    It is wonderful how smell as a sense is the strongest in reminding us of things. Do you all remember the Welsh Rarebit/Cheese On Toast smell from the sugar refinery that used to pervade the Valley from time to time?


    I always assumed it was from the British Oil and Cake Mills over on Belvedere marshes, but I think that's gone now and, as church-lane mentioned, you still sometimes get the smell as you exit the Blackwall Tunnel. So where is the sugar refinery?
  • seth plum said:

    It is wonderful how smell as a sense is the strongest in reminding us of things. Do you all remember the Welsh Rarebit/Cheese On Toast smell from the sugar refinery that used to pervade the Valley from time to time?


    I always assumed it was from the British Oil and Cake Mills over on Belvedere marshes, but I think that's gone now and, as church-lane mentioned, you still sometimes get the smell as you exit the Blackwall Tunnel. So where is the sugar refinery?
    I think it was hard by the tunnel entrance on the London side.
  • Linseed oil on putty throws me back to the days where the cloth caps join us schoolkids on the train on way home...
  • seth plum said:

    seth plum said:

    It is wonderful how smell as a sense is the strongest in reminding us of things. Do you all remember the Welsh Rarebit/Cheese On Toast smell from the sugar refinery that used to pervade the Valley from time to time?


    I always assumed it was from the British Oil and Cake Mills over on Belvedere marshes, but I think that's gone now and, as church-lane mentioned, you still sometimes get the smell as you exit the Blackwall Tunnel. So where is the sugar refinery?
    I think it was hard by the tunnel entrance on the London side.
    I went there for a job. Very very smelly close up. put me off working there.
  • "Double diamond works wonders", can never get that tune out of my head some days,
  • My 7 year old son was mucking about on You Tube yesterday and started laughing uncontrollably and called his younger brother over to show him something on the screen, cue double laughter.

    I went over there to see what the big joke was and was shocked to see they were laughing at.....people playing Subbuteo.

    To them - both digital natives - the idea of playing a football game which involved flicking players around a bit of green cloth was hilarious and scarcely comprehendible when they can play 3D video games (or whatever they are) on the TV which are so life like.

    My brother and I used to play Subbuteo for.....well, for as long as we could before a fight broke out over who was cheating by doing "power flicks" or "blocking" their goal with their fingers!
  • I once spent the best part of a morning recording crowd noises for a big subbuteo match on a tape recoder with a big red record button, used up a whole tdk c60 , when we played the match we realised the audio goal celebrations didnt match what was happening on the field, all very disappointing.

    I also remember using a cotton bud dipped in paint stripper and applied to an Arsenal player you could make a brilliant Sammy Nelson....happy days
  • SE7toSG3 said:

    I once spent the best part of a morning recording crowd noises for a big subbuteo match on a tape recoder with a big red record button, used up a whole tdk c60 , when we played the match we realised the audio goal celebrations didnt match what was happening on the field, all very disappointing.

    I also remember using a cotton bud dipped in paint stripper and applied to an Arsenal player you could make a brilliant Sammy Nelson....happy days

    Ha! That's fantastic.

    Did you have the floodlights too? We did, and we also bought the grandstand, terracing and scoreboard - we loved that scoreboard!

    By the time we got it all set up it was nearly bedtime!
  • Poxy floodlights they never worked, one that no-one believes is that I had subbuteo snooker FACT!, you had to flick the bloke against the white to hit the coloured ball in a pocket, it was impossible...bought off a stall in Deptford Market..utter rubbish
  • Nil by mouth and panini stickers.
  • Did you win one of these though?

    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&clk_rvr_id=316432004681&item=160721174935

    Heard on the radio that they are bringing them back with shirt sponsors logos and everything and the new players are virtually indestructible!
  • SE7toSG3 said:

    Poxy floodlights they never worked, one that no-one believes is that I had subbuteo snooker FACT!, you had to flick the bloke against the white to hit the coloured ball in a pocket, it was impossible...bought off a stall in Deptford Market..utter rubbish

    Snooker? Never saw that one but the other day I did see on eBay a set of Subbuteo Cricket, I guess it must have been a pre-cursor to Test Match.
  • Did you win one of these though?

    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&clk_rvr_id=316432004681&item=160721174935

    Heard on the radio that they are bringing them back with shirt sponsors logos and everything and the new players are virtually indestructible!

    Yeah! I have got a mini World Cup (the one with a single angel holding up a cup that Brazil took home after winning for the third time in 1970) somewhere in the loft - LOL!!
  • SE7toSG3 said:

    Poxy floodlights they never worked, one that no-one believes is that I had subbuteo snooker FACT!, you had to flick the bloke against the white to hit the coloured ball in a pocket, it was impossible...bought off a stall in Deptford Market..utter rubbish

    Snooker? Never saw that one but the other day I did see on eBay a set of Subbuteo Cricket, I guess it must have been a pre-cursor to Test Match.
    http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/62991/subbuteo-snooker

    Bet you wish you still had it, look what its worth now!
    http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/5749374

    http://www.subbuteoandephemeraworld.co.uk/subbuteo-hw-snooker-express-player-yellow-top-1703-p.asp

    http://myhybridgreenbox.blogspot.com/2010/05/subbuteo-snooker-express-edition.html
  • Bloody Hell how much, I have still got one of the triangle bits in the loft, saw it when I got the Chrimbo Tree down...it was still rubbish though, preferred my boxing robots
  • That last link said £699!!
  • Tunnel Refineries also.

    Driving (or getting the 208 from Eltham) through the Blackwall to see my nan in Poplar during the 70s and 80s, the smell was really strong, disgusting. If the wind was in the right direction reached The Valley.

    However, in later life it brought back pleasant memories and a knowledge that (from the north) you were returning home to South London.
  • gas cooked toast, the way my nana used to make eet.
  • Well I am 32, so born in 1980 - making my childhood an 80s thing.

    So here goes:

    Star Wars films and toys
    Indiana Jones movies
    Woolwich sponsorship on shirts
    Kids cartoon called Cities of Gold of something like that (dubbed foreign one)
    Jamie and his Magic Torch
    Jimbo and the Jet Set
    Childrens BBC in the broom cupboard presented by Philip Schofield
    Neighbours at 5:15 on BBC1 followed by The Flintstones.
    Subbuteo - always wanted a whole stadium like in the brochure but would have cost a fortune
    Scalextric
    Watching F1 with my Dad. In particular, getting up at 3am to watch the 1986 Aussie GP (along with half the nation) when Mansells tyre blew.
    Hot summers and cold winters - just how it should be
    Hymns in school assembly. One called Autumn Days in particular
    WWF wrestling - but with the old school like Ultimate Warrior, Bret Hitman Hart, Big Boss Man etc.
  • I had Subbuteo cricket. It was pretty crap but every now and then you got it right, it felt really good hitting a straight six!
    I remember during the 79/80 post Packer tour to Australia listening to the Test Matches on the radio and setting my Subbuteo players out in the fielding posistions corresponding to what was really happening, with paper name tags too!
    We got hammered 3-0 but cleverly refused to put the Ashes at stake.
  • Has anyone mentioned Subbuteo Rugby? I never had it my I remember the scrum machine.
  • Has anyone mentioned Subbuteo Rugby? I never had it my I remember the scrum machine.

    I had it, but never managed to get my head around playing it properly.

    Still got a load of my subbuteo stuff in the attic, teams floodlights etc. The pitch is mounted on a board under our spare bed. I sold a few teams on ebay recently, one went for over £250. They weren't even that old, I had acquired them a few years ago.
Sign In or Register to comment.