Things that time forgot.

[P. G. Tipps]

Yes indeed.

I like to think my standards were pretty high.

Only bought chewing gum for the football cards. Never chewed the stuff. Morally objected to newt catching. That sort of thing.

Another self-confessed true forum gentleman, Lat-Literal ...

[Lat-Literal]

Another self-confessed true forum gentleman, Lat-Literal ...

[Serial_Apologist]

I was living in the (Scottish) borders during my marble playing years - well over fifty years ago now. I can't remember all the jargon, but we called them "nucks" -more probably "knucks", although the word was never written. We played on drain covers, of which there were many in the playground, but we called them "branders".

I kept my marbles in a drawstring bag made by my mother. Glass marbles came in various sizes, and I also had a steel ball bearing or two. But whence did they come, and whither did they go?

Yes, I've definitely lost my marbles - but any of my friends will tell you that.

Marbles was (were?) one of the many crazes that coursed their way through junior school. Boys would carry pocketfuls of them. One Sunday - it was Remembrance Sunday, and we were all in Chapel. When the two-minute silence came, one of the boys, unable to stifle a sneeze, grabbed one end of his pocket handkerchief, gave it a violent tug, and out came the marbles, and proceeded to fall loudly, bouncing on the tiled floor. I think an afternoon's detention ensued.

[Flosshilde]

The weather sometimes intervened - quite hard to watch a film through thrashing wipers

But quite appropriate if you were watching Psycho

The national anthem was always played in Kenya,

Tricky, if you were watching in a sedan.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Why are we talking about marbles as though they were a thing of the past? There are 304 pages on Amazon UK relating to marbles.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marbles-bag-of-100-00601/dp/B000YERGLI/ref=sr_1_5?s=kids&ie=UTF8&qid=1456609124&sr=1-5&keywords=marbles

Someone bought me a marble set for Christmas in 2015, complete with a book of marble games.
Solitaire sets often use real marbles, though I inherited a set my father was given in 1919, when he was recuperating from rheumatic fever. Those marbles are now quite valuable, being hand-painted.

[Pulcinella]

I think in our neck of the woods we called them hollies (holleys?), actually pronouncing the aitch.

And they certainly still exist: the 'treat' in my last year's Christmas cracker was a little nylon net bag with six of them in, admittedly rather smaller than the ones I used to own.

[Beef Oven!]

Mastermind

I loved this game. I also had the pocket version and used to play it on the school coach on away football marches. The 1970s were brill!!!

[teamsaint]

Mastermind

I loved this game. I also had the pocket version and used to play it on the school coach on away football marches. The 1970s were brill!!!

There was a computer version as well.

What sophisticated football coaches you had.
We used to smoke and try to find ways to persuade the teachers to stop at the pub.
The Wooden Bridge in Guildford was a favourite stop off.

[Beef Oven!]

There was a computer version as well.

What sophisticated football coaches you had.
We used to smoke and try to find ways to persuade the teachers to stop at the pub.
The Wooden Bridge in Guildford was a favourite stop off.

Sadly, we smoked on the coach too

[Nick Armstrong]

Mastermind

I could never take it seriously - no posh chair, spotlight and general knowledge questions! Always struck me as a bit of a fraud.

[Beef Oven!]

I could never take it seriously - no posh chair, spotlight and general knowledge questions! Always struck me as a bit of a fraud.

No imagination, some people.

[cloughie]

I think in our neck of the woods we called them hollies (holleys?), actually pronouncing the aitch.

And they certainly still exist: the 'treat' in my last year's Christmas cracker was a little nylon net bag with six of them in, admittedly rather smaller than the ones I used to own.

Nah too posh - it's ollies!

Like the pop group without the h!

Actually we usually called them mabs but we also used ball bearings which were bollies!

[Pulcinella]

Nah too posh - it's ollies!

Like the pop group without the h!

Actually we usually called them mabs but we also used ball bearings which were bollies!

Inverted snobbery (is that the right expression?) perhaps.
My parents moved from Bootle to Crosby, so perhaps thought that the initial h suited the posher environs!

[french frank]

Do children still get chemistry sets as presents? Test tubes, iron filings, copper sulphate &c. Or are they too dangerous?

[Richard Tarleton]

Do children still get chemistry sets as presents? Test tubes, iron filings, copper sulphate &c. Or are they too dangerous?

I remember the chemistry labs at school - bunsen burners at regular intervals on the benches, interspersed quite openly with rows of bottles of sulphuric, hydrochloric and nitric acid with glass stoppers and goodness knows what else. The bit I liked best was testing things with other things to see what they were - I was quite good at that (we're talking physics-with-chemistry O level here, which I scraped through). Occasionally someone would do something witty like dissolve someone else's pen.....Nowadays you see items about science classrooms on the news in which the children are all wearing safety glasses - imagine!