by Paul Feeney
A busy children’s playground in Ayr in 1954, with lots of children playing on all sorts of equipment, including a roundabout, swings and slides.
There were certain places that you would go to play depending on what you were planning to do. A derelict house used for a game of swashbuckling pirates would act as your ship, and the local woods might either be your jungle for playing Tarzan or your forest for playing Robin Hood. Sometimes, you gave these places special code names; the alleyway for a game of Tin Tan Tommy would be called Tin Can Alley, a fenced-in bomb ruin used for a game of cowboys and Indians might be The Fort, and an old air-raid shelter used to plan the next adventure could be The Hideout. Many of the games and escapades were handed down from elder siblings, but time spent on the streets stimulated the imagination of younger siblings and they would often adapt an old idea to create a new game. Kids often had their own set of rules and values without really knowing it; word would get around about the places that were really dangerous to go to, or areas that you should only go to in a group. Gangs were just a group of kids that played together. There were no territorial divides and newcomers were always welcome to join in. Most kids were very streetwise and would steer clear of adults they didn’t know. You knew all the comings and goings in the neighbourhood, and even how to avoid the local Bobbies on their beats. You were also very fit and could run away from trouble! Policemen were respected and feared; you might give them a bit of cheek from a safe distance but if you got caught then you would get a clip around the ear. You wouldn’t dare tell your dad because he was likely to give you another wallop for having been up to mischief and for getting into 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 someone had a ball, it would only take seconds to start a game of football in the middle of the road, with jumpers for goalposts. A game could start with just two kids and end with fifteen. There were no rules; kids would just join in as they arrived in the street, but the game would always belong to the owner of the ball. If he got injured or threw a tantrum then it was likely that he would take his ball home and the game would end. Girls would often gather on the pavements to watch and shout encouragement, and the bravest of these would even attempt a kick or two of the ball.
Pushbikes were a luxury and so it was only the lucky few that had them. However, there was always the desire to have ‘wheels’ and much fun was had on home-made wooden go-karts, made out of old crates, lumps 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.
If you were bored, you could always go spotting car number plates on the main road, and wonder at some of the strange place names sign-written on the side of lorries. Then there were the train-spotting anoraks that would head off to the local railway station on a weekend with fish-paste sandwiches and a flask. But if that wasn’t your idea of fun, as long as there was someone around for you to play with you rarely got bored. There were hundreds of different games you could play in any available location.
Pocket Money
You were fortunate if your mum and dad gave you your own pocket money to spend on whatever you wanted. Money was scarce and most kids got just enough to buy a few sweets and a comic. If you got a shilling a week then you were lucky; the Beano and Dandy cost tuppence each, and by the time you bought a few sweets you weren’t left with much to do anything else. You didn’t really need a lot because most of your free time was spent playing games or hanging-out with your mates, but sometimes, particularly during the holidays, you did need money for bus fares, or to get into the pictures or to go swimming. Fortunately, there was no peer pressure on kids to have the latest toy or to wear certain clothes, or anything like that. You could always bunk in to the pictures but usually you got caught and chucked out. Sometimes, one or two of you might get let in through one of the side exit doors by a mate on the inside who had already paid, but it was risky because you would all get chucked out if you were caught, so mostly you paid.
This was the money we were using in the 1950s, long before Britain went decimal. The picture shows an old pound note, ten-shilling note, and all of the old coins, including a farthing, halfpenny, penny, three-penny piece, sixpence, shilling, two shilling or florin, and a half-crown.
Enterprising kids found legitimate ways to earn extra money, but there was a lot of competition for anything money-earning. The newspaper rounds at the local newsagents were snapped up very quickly. Kids would team up to knock on doors and ask for any old newspapers, cardboard, rags and metal, and take them in an old pram or homemade cart to the scrap yard to be weighed and exchanged for cash. You could only do this every few weeks because it would take people time to acquire more of the same unwanted stuff in their houses. Neighbours never had a problem in getting something they had forgotten at the shops, usually a packet of fags (cigarettes), because there was always an eager child ready to run errands for a couple of pennies. Collecting beer and lemonade bottles was a real money-spinner! When beer and fizzy drinks were sold, the price included a deposit of between one and three-pence on the bottle to get people to take the empties back for reprocessing, but many people discarded the bottles, much to the joy of little mercenaries. Quart bottles of beer were the most profitable: sometimes you could nip into the yard at the back of the pub, pick up a couple of empties and return them to a pub down the road that was owned by the same brewery. Kids learned from a young age that when adults drank alcohol, it not only loosened their tongues but it also made them more generous with their cash. On a Saturday or Sunday lunchtime, you could sit on the doorstep of the local pub with one or two of your mates, all looking dejected, and it wouldn’t be long before one of the neighbours would emerge from the pub with lemonade and crisps for all. Remember those old Smith’s potato crisp packets? You always had to rummage around to find the blue twist wrapper of salt at the bottom of the bag? There were no flavoured crisps back then; we had to wait until 1961 before we could experience the first taste of flavoured crisps, which was chicken. Then there were the long narrow 2d packets of KP nuts; pitiful when compared to the huge packs of peanuts sold in the shops today.
In the summer, lots of local corner pubs had their annual pub beanos, when regulars took a coach or charabanc daytrip to the nearest seaside resort. The coach would be stocked with crates of beer and everyone would be in a good mood. All the local kids would gather around for the traditional ‘coin chucking’, which involved the occupants of the coach throwing any loose change they had out of the coach windows as the coach pulled away. It was mostly ‘coppers’ that they threw but there was always some silver coins. As the coach moved off, there was a mad scramble in the road to collect as many coins as possible.
Kids did all sorts of unofficial work to get extra pocket money, like helping local shopkeepers and tradesmen; and of course the local milkman usually had a little helper. This was all slave labour, but kids had loads of energy and didn’t understand the true value of the work they did. If you could earn sixpence down the market for moving a few boxes then that’s what you did! In winter, kids even pooled their money to buy coal from the local coal merchant and then sold it door-to-door from an old pram or pushcart. Unfortunately, there was no money to be earned out of babysitting. With so many large families around, there wasn’t much call for paid babysitters. There was always an elder sibling to look after the baby, or a neighbour would do it for nothing.
To manage your pocket money you first needed to learn the complicated calculations of pounds, shillings and pence. Most kids picked this up quickly from a very young age, and even had a reasonable understanding of the pre–1954 ration books. The coins and notes
that we all used in the 1950s have been referred to as ‘old money’ since decimalisation took place in 1971. The ‘old money’ was written down using the LSD symbols £ s d, which were abbreviations for ‘pounds, shillings and pence’. An example of how it was written would be £4 3s 6d (four pounds, three shillings, and six pence, or four pounds three-and-six). 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 one guinea, which was equal to twenty-one shillings, but the coin itself no longer existed in the 1950s – 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 were 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 ‘threehaypenny worth’, as in ‘three halfpennies’. It was quite normal for a shop to only use shillings and pence when pricing up 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 the words ‘tuppence’ or ‘tuppenny’ were regularly used by everyone. Money would sometimes be used to describe people, as in the term ‘not quite 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’.
Penny (1d) (12 pennies = 1 shilling).
Three pence (3d) Often pronounced ‘thruppence’ or a ‘thruppeny-bit’, and the old silver threepence was called a ‘joey’.
Six pence (6d) Also known as a ‘tanner’ or a ‘kick’.
Shilling (1/-) Also known as a ‘bob’ or a ‘shilling-bit’. (20 shillings = 1 pound).
Two shillings (2/-) Also known as a ‘florin’ or a ‘two-bob-bit’. (10 florins = 1 pound).
Half crown (2/6) Also known as ‘half-a-dollar’ or ‘two-and-a-kick’. (1 half crown = 2 shillings and six old pence).
Crown (5/-) (rarely found in circulation) Sometimes called a ‘dollar’. (1 crown = 5 shillings).
Ten-shilling note (10/-) Also known as a ‘ten-bob-note’, ‘half-a-knicker’ or ‘half-a-bar’.
One pound note (£1) Also known as a ‘quid’, ‘knicker’, or a ‘bar’.
Sweets and Treats
The magic of an old dusty sweetshop with a high wooden counter jam-packed with boxes of penny-chews and other sweet delights to tease the pennies out of your pocket. Sherbet dips, Wagon Wheels, blackjacks, fruit salads, liquorice sticks, gobstoppers, sherbet lemons, Rowntree’s fruit gums and fruit pastilles, Spangles, chocolate coins in gold foil wrappers, sherbet flying saucers, Bubblegum, Fruitellas, Catherine Wheels, Love Hearts, Refreshers, Shrimps, Sherbet Fountains, Walnut Whips, Barrett’s sweet cigarettes with football cards, and perhaps a Fry’s Turkish Delight or a packet of Polos for mum.
A 1954 magazine advert for the popular Spangles fruit-flavoured sweets.
Behind the counter, the shelves along the wall were chock-a-block with huge jars of sweets that you bought by weight, usually two ounces at a time, but a quarter pound if you were flush with money. There were hundreds of different sweets: pear drops, aniseed balls, Kola Kubes, sweet peanuts, sugar almonds, nut brittle, fruit bonbons, sherbet lemons, milk gums, jelly babies, jelly beans, dolly mixtures, American Hard Gums, Liquorice Allsorts, chocolate honeycomb, marshmallows, and loads more! There was always the temptation to buy a thruppenny Lucky Bag, but they were expensive and all you got was a few sweets and a plastic toy. Sometimes there would be a box of toffee apples on the counter, but they wouldn’t last long!
On hot summer days, the best treat would be a frozen Jubbly, which was frozen orange juice in an unusual triangular-shaped carton. You would tear one corner of the carton and suck the frozen orange juice like a lolly, but without a lollystick. As you held the carton in your warm hands, the orange juice would start to melt into the bottom, which allowed you to turn the carton up and drink the juice through the hole in the top corner. It took ages to finish a Jubbly, much longer than a lolly, and they were very refreshing.
Bonfire Night
Most children vaguely knew that Bonfire Night was the annual remembrance of Guy Fawkes’ failed gunpowder plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London. They may not have known that it happened as long ago as 1605, but they knew it was on the fifth of November. As with most historical events, its significance was completely lost on the minds of kids who were only interested in joining the excitement of a festive atmosphere. Once the dark evenings of autumn arrived, there was little opportunity to have fun playing outside, and this Guy Fawkes event allowed kids to legitimately do things that would normally be frowned upon, like making bonfires and handling fireworks. Many kids started planning for Bonfire Night well in advance; collecting and storing wood and other flammable materials as far back as September, in the last few days of their school summer holiday. You would spend the whole weekend before Bonfire Night making an effigy of Guy Fawkes to look as real as possible, stuffed with newspapers and dressed in old clothes with a football for a head and a paper face mask. Eventually the Guy would be burned on top of a big bonfire on the night itself, but in the days leading up to 5 November, you needed to earn, or beg, some money to pay for your fireworks. The Guy would be dragged around to some busy street corner, market, pub, railway or tube station, where it would be leant up against a wall or some railings, and then you and your mates would pester passers-by to give you a ‘penny for the Guy!’ Sometimes kids would forgo the making of a dummy Guy and instead would take turns in dressing themselves up as the Guy, complete with Guy Fawkes face mask, and sit slumped on the pavement while their mates cadged money from people in the street. This was very dangerous because disgruntled passers-by and mischief-makers would sometimes kick the Guy as they went past, and so the penny-beggars would need to stand close by to protect their friend from harm. Most people got paid weekly, and so Thursday and Friday nights were the best nights to go out cadging a ‘penny for the Guy!’ Once the handouts started to dry up and the cold began to set into your bones, you and your mates would drag your ‘Guy’ off to home turf and share out your earnings.
This 1950s advert for Standard Fireworks captures a typical schoolboy’s excitement on Bonfire Night.
The fireworks would normally be bought on the night itself, as most mums wouldn’t allow them to be brought into the house – what with all those open coal fires! Kids bought fireworks and matches from shops with ease because there were no restrictions in place then. Most of your money would be spent on penny bangers, and you might buy the odd Roman candle, Catherine wheel, jumping cracker and rocket. Some of these could be unreliable and you didn’t want to risk your money on expensive fireworks when there was no certainty that they would work. Many a blue touch paper was lit, only to burn down to its end and fizzle out, leaving you staring at it from a distance. Mischievous boys could cause a lot of trouble on Bonfire Night by misusing fireworks in various dangerous ways, such as tying a bunch of bangers together to get one big boom, lighting Catherine wheels on the ground so that they went out of control, or throwing lighted jumping crackers near the girls to frighten them. Worst of all, penny bangers were chucked all over the place and you never knew when one was going to come flying past your nose! The lead-up to Bonfire Night was an adventure and the night itself was exciting, but it was also a dirty, frightening, dangerous and smelly night, with the horrible smell of sulphur and the air filled with dirty smoke from bonfires.
The noise from the exploding fireworks and screaming girls was only broken by the sound of fire engine and ambulance bells. Meanwhile, mums everywhere were praying for rain!
Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
The Gunpowder, Treason and Plot,
I can think of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Too Old For Toys!
There came a time when you were too old for toys and games but too young to mix with the teenagers. You were confused about what generation you belonged to. It hit some kids earlier than others and sometimes led to the break-up of old childhood friendships. Often it happened around the time you changed schools, after your eleven-plus exam, which gave you the opportunity to make new friends. You lost interest in the old tried and tested ways of passing the time and sought out new interests. You got bored with catching tadpoles in the local pond and you wanted a fishing rod so you could do proper fishing. On a wet day, instead of wandering around Woolworths with your mates, as you used to do, you found yourself sitting in a record booth at your local record shop listening to the latest Everly Brothers’ hit. Instead of being dragged reluctantly around the shops and street markets by your mum, you became a more willing shopper and even started to take notice of what the shops and stalls were selling. Girls stopped doing handstands up against the wall and wanted rid of their little girlie ribbons. They began to take an interest in teenage fashions and reading mum’s magazines. Boys cringed at any public show of affection from their parents; quickly moving their head away at the first sight of their mum’s lips approaching their cheek for a goodbye kiss.