It was Gibbs Dentifrice (not toothpaste) around a century ago, I believe. My mum and her sisters had a Gibbs Dentifrice board game - you had to escape Giant Decay and reach the Land of Health and Happiness, avoiding landing on squares such as Caries Wood. I still have it!
I’ll take a photo and consult the Styx at the weekend to work out how to post it on this thread. We have a few games from my aunt’s house. I don’t know precisely how old the games are but the three sisters were born in 1918, 1921 and 1922, and no children have lived in the house since then.
I’ll take a photo and consult the Styx at the weekend to work out how to post it on this thread. We have a few games from my aunt’s house. I don’t know precisely how old the games are but the three sisters were born in 1918, 1921 and 1922, and no children have lived in the house since then.
Very briefly, you have to post it on a free upload site, and then link to it from the Ship. You can’t post photos directly onto the Ship.
Didn't people once use soot for cleaning their teeth?
My grandfather used soot. He died when I was eight, so I can't remember what his teeth were like. When he retired, aged 68, they moved to a house which had a built in bathroom, so he would have had to walk from the bathroom to the living room to rub his toothbrush on the back of the fire. I don't know if he started using conventional toothpaste at that point.
In the farmhouse they lived in prior to that, the toilet had been built as a lean-to onto the house, but he cleaned his teeth at the kitchen sink. Granny was still doing some of her cooking over an open fire at that point, so the fire was close to the sink, and soot was readily available.
(This started as a reply to Baptist Trainfan about the use of soot, but now I feel really old. I remember my granny swinging the kettle over an open fire to boil, and she made oatcakes on something which swung over the fire, too. That house had a plumbed in sink and toilet in the lean-to, but the house they retired to had a plumbed in bath as well! I remember the mottled blue/red skin that was the result of being bathed in a tin bath in front of the fire in the first house- the side next to the fire was too hot and the side away from the fire was too cold and the end result was mottled skin.)
When I was a child my mother had a "daily" who lived in a 1920s London County Council house nearby. I remember them having a plumbed-in bath put in, in about 1960. The houses, much modernised and in many cases sold off, still stand.
Oh dear I feel positively ancient now! I grew up in one of the UK's Land Settlement Association smallholdings (ours was actually a fairly large-holding!) It had an outside toilet, a bathroom that was carved off a bit of the scullery/kitchen, and gas lights downstairs. Only nightlight candles upstairs - which fills me with alarm now! No electricity until the late 1950s. Then of course it felt totally normal and I didn't realise there was anything unusual about our house until school friends started to visit.
Which is bonkers as you can still get them. Just the other night I went to hear Cerys Hafana (of whom you will have heard) and she was selling her new album "Angel" in both CD format (which I bought) and vinyl (which I didn't).
Oh dear I feel positively ancient now! I grew up in one of the UK's Land Settlement Association smallholdings (ours was actually a fairly large-holding!) It had an outside toilet, a bathroom that was carved off a bit of the scullery/kitchen, and gas lights downstairs. Only nightlight candles upstairs - which fills me with alarm now! No electricity until the late 1950s. Then of course it felt totally normal and I didn't realise there was anything unusual about our house until school friends started to visit.
The house in Pickwick, Corsham that my Mum grew up in (from '36-c'53) was the same. My uncle died there in 2008, by which point it had electric (laid over the surface of walls and ceilings in trunking - it obviously did not belong!). The kitchen had a gas Ascot with the long, drippy spout which swung one way to fill the kitchen sink, and the other to fill the bath (once you took the worktop off the top). That worktop was covered in newspapers, because of course it was. When Mum (RIP) went upstairs for the first time since 53, she had a strange reversal where a memory generated a smell - of the paraffin heaters they used during the war in the coldest months.
He had a gas fire in the front room too, and his estimated winter gas bill (jan-march 09 as I remember) was 50 quid. It struck me then that not many then (or today) would be able or willing to cut their carbon footprint to that degree.
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My grandfather used soot. He died when I was eight, so I can't remember what his teeth were like. When he retired, aged 68, they moved to a house which had a built in bathroom, so he would have had to walk from the bathroom to the living room to rub his toothbrush on the back of the fire. I don't know if he started using conventional toothpaste at that point.
In the farmhouse they lived in prior to that, the toilet had been built as a lean-to onto the house, but he cleaned his teeth at the kitchen sink. Granny was still doing some of her cooking over an open fire at that point, so the fire was close to the sink, and soot was readily available.
(This started as a reply to Baptist Trainfan about the use of soot, but now I feel really old. I remember my granny swinging the kettle over an open fire to boil, and she made oatcakes on something which swung over the fire, too. That house had a plumbed in sink and toilet in the lean-to, but the house they retired to had a plumbed in bath as well! I remember the mottled blue/red skin that was the result of being bathed in a tin bath in front of the fire in the first house- the side next to the fire was too hot and the side away from the fire was too cold and the end result was mottled skin.)
"...recently covered by Ugly Kid Joe..."
Yeah. Recently. In 1992.
Bonus age points to anyone who can guess the song.
Cats in the Cradle? The only song I know by them (and a storming song/version too)
The Cat (appropriately) gets the age point.
I would have looked blank too, but that's because I am even older than most of those who do recognise the reference.
I knew there was something odd in the middle 60s. So reg swapped in Jan from 64 to 68, F starting August-ish 68, G Aug 69 etc?
The house in Pickwick, Corsham that my Mum grew up in (from '36-c'53) was the same. My uncle died there in 2008, by which point it had electric (laid over the surface of walls and ceilings in trunking - it obviously did not belong!). The kitchen had a gas Ascot with the long, drippy spout which swung one way to fill the kitchen sink, and the other to fill the bath (once you took the worktop off the top). That worktop was covered in newspapers, because of course it was. When Mum (RIP) went upstairs for the first time since 53, she had a strange reversal where a memory generated a smell - of the paraffin heaters they used during the war in the coldest months.
He had a gas fire in the front room too, and his estimated winter gas bill (jan-march 09 as I remember) was 50 quid. It struck me then that not many then (or today) would be able or willing to cut their carbon footprint to that degree.