General Chat

I loved watching Bill & Ben the flowerpot men, little weed, the house and the garden and have the thought that it is one of the things from my early childhood that influenced the way I am now or at least the things that interest me most :-) ( Is it odd that I still remember one particular episode where they were in the barn and there was a chicken pecking around? I like chickens too lol) .

So while I am pondering randomly, do you think the things you read, listened to or watched when you were a child made such an impression on you that they 'shaped' the person you are now? Is there one particular programme that 'stuck' :-)

( prompted by Rollo's thread but off his topic so posted here :-) )

Not sure, Nyx, but I was a war baby and I do not like to see food wasted. However, OH was also a war baby and leaving food on his plate never bothers him. Also, he never eats left-overs - quite the opposite to me.

I expect that's true of many who were either babies during the war, or lived during it and passed it on to their children JoyLouise. I try not to waste, but at least when it's greens etc they can go in the compost :-)

We never waste fiood or throw it away.

Not that we are trying to be green or save the world or anything like that.
It is just that we like cooking it is great fun and we enjoy eating the results.
I have no idea why so many people eat awful stuff when real food is cheaper.
Lazy? Ignorant?

fwiw I have banned eating sarnies and fast food at the desk. Timesheets will be docked an hour regardless so they might as well go out get some exercise and eat a meal, be socialable. Luckily there is plenty of local choice.

I loved Bill and Ben when a child it was part of "Watch With Mother" which also had "Rag Tag and Bobtail". The TV was 9in (imagine) with a magnifier on the front of it. As I recall after WWM that was it until the 6pm news and weather except on Saturdays when we had Grandstand". Little did I know I would end up living nr the aeriels of Ally Pally.

Children's TV can have a dramatic and positive effect on the way that kid's see the world and the UK has made some great programs over the years. Some especially recently not so hot though.

Malory Towers.....

So many of us were jealous of girls who were at a boarding school.

Years later we found that it wasn't always as portrayed in novels.

I was speaking about the joy of being
able to read to my oldest great grand daughter.

She loves to read and at 6 years old is very good
at it along with two others in her class at school.

My favourite book since childhood as some of you
may know is Little Women, I have lost count of how
many times I've read it.

Supercrutch, I read those too :-)

Emma, I have Little Women ( worn out from reading) Good Wives, Jo's boys and Little Men :-)

When I was around 9-10 my nana taught me to knit and sew. I made little things for my dolls house and knitted squares and a scarf. When I was around 12, my other grandmother taught me to use the sewing machine and I made a dress and a skirt(very basic).

When my children were younger, I tried to teach them skills Id learnt. I taught son to make basic meals and he loved working with pastry. I taught my daughter to knit and sew too. basic skills that all children should be taught.

Last year I started a knitting after school club for primary 4-7. They knitted squares and when they had made 18, they sewed them together to make a blanket which they donated to a local charity. half the girls had never knitted and so learnt to cast on first, then plain knit and cast off.

The programmes I loved were the likes of Blue peter and how to recycle things to make someone thing else.Cookery programmes too. Sometimes as a treat, my gramdma would buy a craft magazine for me to try and make things. I loved it.

I had loads of books too.All those mentioned previously as well as Black Beauty, Alice in Wonderland and of course Enid Blyton stories.

I know today that kids have the likes of their tablets and phones but parents should make time to show them alternatives.
Personally I don't think children under 10 should have a phone, partly because it means the parents cant possibly monitor what they are looking at 24/7.Sorry going off topic!

Florence
in the hebrides
:-)

My mother taught me to read point n say with the help of "The Beano". Probably not "correct" but she had other things to do than read to me all day long. I hated nearly all of the other kids at infant school with a great hatred. I never tried for a single second to get along with them though a few of the teachers were ok.

Apart from a life long attachment to the Beano I did not much like "The Famous Five" , Mumfi the Elephant, Rupert or Biggles. Even less Little Women and Ann of Green Gables.

Then one day I got my hands on a copy of M R James "Whistle and I'll Come to You" and Hackforth Jones "Green Sailors" and off I went to a private planet where the heros and villains had names such as "Scout" (Harper Lee), "le Grand Meulnes" and Moriarty.

I liked going away to school. At that time it did not involve impossibly large bills so pupils were from a wide cross section of backgrounds. It offered all sorts of independence and access to a wider world. It was nothing at all like Greyfriars or Linbury Court.

The author's of "How to be Topp" and Lindsay Anderson's "If .... " have been to the real thing, Harrow in the case of "If...".

My school then and now was somewhat subversive so I was happy enough. It was early in allowing the gurls in. Much too late for me unfortunately.

Errol the Sheep has accused me of being a Wykehamist which would have been nice if true but sadly the family budget never went that far.

'Mary Mouse' books :-) my brother's books 'Charlie the cat' & 'The Enchanted Glade', 'Baa baa the lamb'.

Rollo, just why did you hate all those children? Were you bullied by them?

Yes, many of the books mentioned here were favourites (I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. Loved The famous five, Secret Seven, Mallory Towers, Abbey school books, Annof Green Gables, Black Beauty, Little Womwn, Jo's Boys, Little men and Good Wives,Swallows and amazons (and the rest of those books)

when younger, Mary Mouse, Rupert Chicks Own comics and I think there was one called tiny Tots, then School friend, girls Crystal,

No television until I was 13 of course but loved the radio - Dick Barton, Ballet Shoes, Just William.

Not sure if what I read shaped who I am. (Who am I?? what am I??)

I did, and still do like happy endings, Does that mean anything? I don't enjoy anything controversial as a rule, don't enjoy violent plays on TV.
Not sure I have answered your question Rose. :-|

Dr Dolittle ( High Lofting ), Swallows and Amazons ( Arthur Ransome ), the Borrowers ( Mary Norton ), Richard Hannay (John Buchan ), Tarka the Otter (Henry Williamson ), The Hobbit, LOTR (Tokien) , Lone Pine (Malcolm Saville), Mill on the Floss / Middlemarch Geo. Elliott,, Sons and Lovers, the Virgin and the Gypsey ( D H Lawrence) , White Fang ( Jack London ), , Fahrenheir 451, the Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine - Ray Bradbury, 1984, Animal Farm, The Road to Wigan Pier - Geo Orwell, Under Milk Wood - Dylan Thomas, To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee, Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck, Ivanhoe - Walter Scott, Tiger in the Smoke - Margery Allingham, A Sword at Sunset, Legion of the IXth Rosemary Sutcliffe , Brighton Rock - Graham Greene, The Catcher In the Rye - J D Salinger .....

were books I first read betyween 9 and 15 and still read again from time to time. Of all of them Harper' Lee's story of the American South influenced me more than any. It still does.

Of course I read lots of comics, magazines and pulp fiction as well but not much of it stuck.

Children are not little photo copies destined to emulate the skills and wishes their parents they have ideas of their own which may be diametrically opposite to what parents desire. Too bad. If you love people you help them not stand in the way or block up the hall.

In 2017 that includes the basic technology of our time, the mobile phone. It is for the parent to work out a way in which it can be best used not to try and do the impossible by denying access. It will only lead to big time fights.

Interesting list Rollo. I have read most though not all of them and LOTR and The Hobbit I didn't read till I was in my 30s " :-0

Swallows and Amazons'' which I haven't read was one of my brother's favourites so perhaps that was down to 'timing'.

Son had a mixed lot of books as a child and does now, but probably most are business related in some way.

We went into a charity shop when he was 7 and he saw a book he wanted,
and he took it up to the counter with his 50p, the lady serving said to me "Is that ok?" . I can't remember the exact title ( he's still got it) but it was a very sturdy hardback on electronics aimed at adults, not the 'usual' choice for his age and not following anything I was interested in or could teach him lol. It's been one of his interests since, and to my benefit as he fixed the tv last week, soldering in a new capacitor all for about a £1. :-D

My father was an officer in the London Met. Suddenly (for me) we moved from a leafy village in Essex to the East End and I found myself starting school with the sons of all sorts of people whose mothers and fathers had no love at all for "the Bill" or "rozzers". I could already read just fine and declined to have anything at all to do with the rest of the class. I was not bullied 'cos I was tall and heavy for my age and handy with my fists. Street fighting gets into your blood.

Luckily as my father was promoted we moved fairly often and he was able to sort out some sort of peace for me at school.

In the end for my own safety I was sent away to school. The Met. paid a good chunk of the cost and my GF the rest.

It is not much fun seeing your father come home from work badly hurt and expected to be back at work within a few days. The best thing about making it to DCI is that this sort of thing stops. As a young person the dark side of working for the police never dawns on you. I was so busy with my own life I never really got a handle on my father's until he was not around any more.

I lived in Tomato Land, a village full of smallholdings and could already read when I started school.

Imagine my surprise when I was given my first Janet and John book to read at school and it said they lived in a green house!

This thread has brought back a few childhood memories. I can't ever remember not being able to read and as a child read anything I could get my hands on. I only had a few books of my own, received as Christmas and birthday presents, but my parents enrolled me in the local library at an early age so I always had books to read.

I used to love the little Mary Mouse books and later on things like Malory Towers. I also loved a series of books about a group of girls who did country dancing. I can't for the life of me remember what they were called and I am sure I would think them very strange if I read them now.

We didn't have a television till I was about 15 but we were all great radio fans. Even when I pretended to be too old for it I used to listen to Children's Hour with my younger brother. We both loved the serial "Eagle of the Ninth", although I was in my teens by the time it was on. Not sure if it influenced me or not, but I did carry on with Latin right through to A-Level. We also enjoyed "May We Recommend....", a sort of children's book review programme.

I read all the Malory Tower books. The Naughtiest Girl in the School, plus the Jennings books. All boarding school related. I really wanted to go to boarding school and get up to all the jolly japes!!!

However, my favourite book was What Katy Did.

"Paedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,"
was probably not included on your A level syllabus.

Rome was a really wild place but much of its history and extant wiritings would have little chance of hitting either the small or the silver screen especially given current attitudes. It was a million miles away from the po faced culture accepted by educationalists.

There is soon to be a major series about Julius Ceasar. It will be interesting to see how Martin Scorsese and Michael Hirst will deal with rape, murder and genocide. Maybe they will take on Bojo as a consultant.


With the demise of proper public libraries and poor lamguage skills much of the past for many will always be a glass through which they look darkly if at all.

You are right there Rollo. I would have liked to have heard our Latin mistress explain that to a group of 16/17 year old girls! We did cover a lot of Catullus but I suspect it was carefully selected though we all knew he was a bit “naughty”.

The country dancing series I mentioned earlier was the Abbey series by Elsie J Oxenham.

I was a voracious reader, still am for that matter. I can't remember not being able to read, and had my own library card as soon as I could. I would go to the library by myself and take out 6 or 7 books at a time. I would have read those within the week. By the time I was 13 I had read everything of interest to me in the children's section and persuaded the librarian that I really was 15, the age for taking out an adult card ............ I don't know whether she beleived me (probably not, as I was in so often!), but she did give me the adult card. Again, I would take out the maximum number of books that I could ......... but I moved on to mysteries and adventure.

I didn't have many of my own books, most given at Christmas or later bought with money given as present.

I loved Swallows and Amazons and sequels, the Chalet school books, all of Enid Blyton's books from the Noddy books to the Famous Five, the Adventure books and the Secret Seven.

Dennis Wheatley's books from his historical to the Black Magic became a favourite of mine by the time I was about 15/16.

I don't have any of my childhood books at all .............. my parents insisted that they be passed on to my brother's children when I was in my late teens "as you won't be interested in them now".


I've made up for the lack of books then by the number that OH and I now own! We might be close to 4,000 :-0


I didn't read any of Tolkien until I was in my 40s ...... OH gave me a boxed set of hardbacks which included Silmarillion


My parents were born in 1903 and 1904, so lived through WW1, the Depression and WW2. Mother's father served in WW1 and she had to leave school at 12 to earn money and help with her2 younger brothers. Dad's father died in March 1914, his eldest brother served in WW1, and his mother was left alone to take care of Dad and his 4 siblings, so he also left school at the age of 12 to go to work.

We never wasted anything at home, and I'm sure that was a result of their life experiences. We waste very little, cook from scratch ...... but OH rarely eats leftovers even if he has said he would!

Mum taught me to knit and sew as a young child. I was knitting scarves for my dolls at the age of 4 or 5, and I was making my own dresses at 10. The one thing she never managed to teach me was to crochet, even though she was superb at it ......... I just couldn't get the hang of it!

We didn't have TV until I was about 19 or 20 ........... and away at university. We listened avidly to the radio, and I still have the radio on for most of the day until about 5 or 5:30 pm


So did my upbringing influence me? .............. I have to say yes.