Who remembers?...

[XFool]

‘Who remembers proper binmen?’ The nostalgia memes that help explain Britain today

The Guardian

Idealising the past is nothing new, but there is something peculiarly revealing about the way a certain generation of Facebook users look back fondly on tougher times

[Mike4]

I remember being about 6, and finding a long piece of rope to play with in the garden.

I tied one end to the handle on the (full) dustbin and the other end to the coal bunker. I clearly remember doing this, but I've no idea why.

Anyway, predictably the dustman hefted the (full) bin onto his shoulder and set off up the garden path with predictable result. My mother was mortified and never tired of telling people about what happened that day....

[bungeejumper]

Rag and bone men coming round with their horse-drawn carts. Spangles (boiled sweets) made with artificial sweeteners, which we preferred to the sugar-based ones. The builder's yard where my mates and I risked certain calamity by walking along the tops of nine foot walls. (I was six.) And the yard workers who tried to make us clear off, but without much success.

The barber's shop where they'd ask the customers, mysteriously, whether they needed anything for the weekend? Me being given a shiny new peashooter, which was confiscated an hour later after complaints from the passers-by.

Against that, the kid up the road with a polio leg. The one who died of scarlet fever. The guy with shell-shock who couldn't stop trembling. It wasn't all great.

BJ

[pje16]

We had coal delivered, by guys who chucked the bags over the shoulder, walked up our steep drive, came through the back gate and tipped them into our coal bunker
5 year-old me sat on the kitchen step and watched them, thinking they must be strong

At then end, one turned round to my mum and said
All done Mrs, 20 bags

I looked up at mum and said they only gave us 19

He went back and brought 1 more

[Breelander]

‘Who remembers proper binmen?’ ....

I do. What I remember most of all was the smell.....

[XFool]

I do. What I remember most of all was the smell.....

Ah yes!

I remember the smell in our cellar (where the gas meters were): a mixture of coal gas and slack. Loved it.

And I still remember the thump of delivery horses' leather nose bag hitting the ground, as they bent their head down to feed.

[stewamax]

I do.
Our binmen all wore greasy stained caps and wore on the backs very thick and heavy leather half-tabards that covered their shoulders and backs to waist level and had some sort of (metallic?) cross bracing. The coalmen wore similar back-protectors.
I don't remember ever speaking to one as I was a bit afraid of them.

The bin-lorry rear had a half-cylinder (like a Nissen hut) covering with opening slides that the binmen tipped the bins into.

We called them dustmen rather than binmen, and only later I realised that the 'dust' term was essentially coal-fire ash.
Only very much later I realised that 'breeze' blocks were possibly 'brieze' blocks that were made from coal cinders that formerly were used to make or to fire bricks and blocks (we called cinders 'brieze').

[Watis]

The barber's shop where they'd ask the customers, mysteriously, whether they needed anything for the weekend?

The first time I was asked that was the day I realised that the world saw me as an adult, and no longer a child!

Watis

[stewamax]

And grocers.
On entering, I was enveloped in an unforgettable smell redolent of bacon, paraffin, ground coffee and cheese. Not, for some reason, the evocative smell of fresh hot bread; this was reserved for the baker's shop.

[6Tricia]

And greengrocers. During the war, our village greengrocer would cut out the bad bits of oranges (when he received a rare delivery) and save what remained to give to us school children. News of such a delivery always spread like wildfire and those who heard it first would race to his shop after school in the hope of being one of the lucky ones to receive the bounty of a piece of luscious juicy orange!

I also remember my mother's delight when she was able to 'snag' a couple of onions from him too - the French onion sellers no longer making their seasonal rounds due to the war.

Tricia

[88V8]

‘Who remembers proper binmen?’

Oh yes, and the battle between my mother and the dustmen who often neglected to put the lid back on our galvanised bin. Eventually, they even refused to walk it down to the end of the side passage and left it, sans lid, rolling around on the drive.
She lived to see the advent of wheely bins, about which her opinion was not printable.

I also remember rag & bone men with horses, electric bread vans and milk floats, ice cream vans, and like others the coal man.

V8

[kempiejon]

I also remember rag & bone men with horses, electric bread vans and milk floats, ice cream vans, and like others the coal man.

Yes, I remember staying with my gran in the country, the coal man came round with a horse and cart, so did the rag and bone man - though he might have just been scrap metal. Grandpa sent me and my brother out with a bucket and shovel to collect dung for the roses.
At our house in the 'burbs it was diesel dust carts and gas central heating.

[pje16]

This is a wonderful thread for all of us of a certain age

very enjoyable

[servodude]

White dog poo?

My dad's family were coalmen from some time in the late 1800s

Moved house when I was 3 in my grandad's flat bed coal truck - i remember being concerned that my tricycle wasn't sufficiently lashed to it so I spent the trip standing on the bench seat watching it out the rear window

Shortly afterwards grampa was blind from the coal and ultimately dead from thoat cancer attributed to it a decade later
- dirty manky dreadful stuff

-sd

[bluedonkey]

My old man's a dustman.

[tjh290633]

If you lived in a coal mining area you would have seen the collier's concessionary coal tipped on the pavement. From there it would be wheelbarrowed to the cellar or coalhouse, or shed or bunker.

The road sweepers would have cleared up any residual traces. And, of course, the dust cart would have taken away the ashes after the coal had been burnt.

Our milk used to come on a bicycle with a couple of churns in the front basket and was ladled out into my mother's jug, always adding "a drop for the cat".

The grocer had a horse and cart to deliver his orders. I used to help my uncle deliver bread, but that was with a Singer Van.

TJH

[Dod101]

If we are down memory lane, I remember most of what has been mentioned, but, of these days, I remember the 'leerie'. He came around at dusk to light the gas street lamp outside our house, the 'leerie' being the gas lamplighter. (old fashioned coal gas of course).

He had a long pole with which to do the necessary.

Dod

[forgotusername]

the reference to the man who lit the gas lamps reminded me of an earlier form of gas powered lamp. I discovered this earlier this year on a visit to London and a walking tour to the site of one of the lamps. see more here
https://www.london-walking-tours.co.uk/ ... s-lamp.htm

[servodude]

He had a long pole with which to do the necessary.

I pity those that don't

[Dod101]

He had a long pole with which to do the necessary.

I pity those that don't

Apparently some carried a ladder but I do not recall that.

Dod