Swinging Through The Sixties - Ice cream & central heating

Ice Cream And Central Heating

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher – The Iron Lady. She transformed iron solid ice cream to lovely Mr Whippy. The Lady’s not for turning but Maggie turned out some fabulous ice cream. Maggie Thatcher, strictly speaking, did not invent Mr Whippy ice cream but she was part of the development team. That was before she found out about  politics !

Ice cream today is something you routinely throw into your supermarket trolly then take home to you freezer. In the swinging sixties, firstly there were no supermarkets as we and know them today. Homes did not have freezers where they could store ice cream even if there were supermarkets to sell it to you.

Earlier I have talked about milk being delivered to homes early every morning. Home deliveries, not because people did not have supermarkets but because in the early 1960’s many, indeed most, homes did not have fridges or as they were better known, refrigerators. Houses built pre-1960 had small walk in cupboard rooms attached to the kitchen. These were known as pantries or if you were posh, larders. There were such things as cool boxes, one brand name was Osocool, insulated to use as an attempt to stop milk and butter from heating up and going “off”. There were no such things as sell-by dates, just buy it quick and eat it quick.

Today we have bread bins, wood or plastic boxes helping to keep bread fresh. When I was a kid we had an ex-army ammunition box in which we kept the bread. I would suggest that bread was eaten more sixty years ago than it is today, again buy it quick and eat it quick. Ex-army ammunition box recycled into a bread bin, which war ? I assume it was World War Two but it could have been World War One.

Back to milk. Milk came in glass bottles. A glass bottle will keep milk cooler than the twenty-first century plastic containers we are familiar with. Sometimes families put the milk bottles into bowls of cold water, water from the tap. In the early 1960’s many homes only had cold taps but I will cover that shortly.

As the sixties started to swing refrigerators did start to find their way into homes. By the end of the decade everybody had one. Most were powered by electricity but you could buy a gas fridge, honestly you could ! Refrigerators soon became fridges soon became fridges.

These early chunky fridges, had within them a very small metal open boxes at the top and to one side. These were ice boxes. Intended to make ice cubes for drinks but worked brilliantly if filled with orange squash. Home made ice lollies. Manufacturers jumped on the band waggon selling plastic ice lolly moulds complete with lolly sticks.

Ice cream was most definitely buy it quick eat it quick. Freezers were a long way off.

Houses did not have central heating, open fires were the norm with heating supplemented  by paraffin heaters. There was no real way to properly heat water in a home. Some kitchens splashed out and invested in electric or gas water heaters. Known as geezers water was simply heated before it left by way of a long nozzle tap pipe. Homes started to have immersion heaters fitted to their water tanks. These were expensive to run, powered by electricity they could heat water for a bath but more importantly for washing in the kitchen.

No such thing as central heating. Not yet. Bedrooms were cold and were manufacturers of ice lollies. Condensation from breathing in bed froze on the windows, double glazing nobody had ever heard of that ! In the morning we kids would carefully lift these ice lollies from the windows and gave us a pre-breakfast treat.

Washing machines ?  What were they ?  Eventually a primitive invention made its way into the kitchen but before this happened washing was done by hand, usually on a Monday and always by Mum. Wet clothes were put through a hand wringer or mangle.

Domestic routine was very predictable. The comic group which had Paul McCartney’s brother Paul had a hit with TODAY’S MONDAY – THE SCAFFOLD:

Today's Monday, today's Monday, Monday is washing day - Is everybody happy ? You bet your life we are ! - Today's Tuesday, today's Tuesday, Tuesday is soup - Monday is washing day - Is everybody happy ? You bet your life we are ! - Today's Wednesday, -today's Wednesday, Wednesday is roaster beef. - Tuesday is soup - Monday is washing day - Is everybody happy ? You bet your life we are ! - Today's Thursday, -today's Thursday, Thursday is shephard's pie - Wednesday is roaster beef - Tuesday is soup - Monday is washing day - Is everybody happy ? You bet your life we are ! -
Today's Friday, today's Friday, Friday is fish - Thursday is shephard's pie - Wednesday is roaster beef - Tuesday is soup - Monday is washing day - Is everybody happy? you bet your life we are ! - Today's Saturday, today's Saturday, Saturday's payday - Today's Friday, today's Friday, Friday is fish - Thursday is shephard's pie - Wednesday is roaster beef - Tuesday is soup - Monday is washing day - Is everybody happy ? You bet your life we are ! Friday is fish- today's Sunday, today's Sunday, Sunday is church...is everybody happy? you bet your life we aaaaare !

The Scaffold gave us Lilly The Pink and Thank You Very Much, Thank You Very Much which has just been re-released as Thank You Very Much For Our NHS

Ice cream ? We still have ice cream vans bing-bonging their way around the streets but there were much more regular in the 1960’s than today. Today they are a novelty but back then they were an essential.  When Mr Whippy and his 99 cones graced our streets just how fantastic was that !  Thank you Maggie Thatcher.

Freezers can be found today in every home but after sixty years nobody has yet invented a way for them to accommodate Mr Whippy. I wonder if that will ever happen. Not in my lifetime I am thinking, perhaps you teenagers today reading this account and thinking we all lived in The Dark Ages may live long enough.