# How young do you have to be to remember these things



## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

I have just pickled onions and drifted off (in my head) probably about 64 years ago.
Do you remember taking the same glass bottle to the shop to have it filled with vinegar, or sugar & flour coming out of a sack and weighed out into blue bags, _what else was there _when not many things were prepacked and your Mum had to go shopping nearly every day.
Unlike now, I can manage not to go shopping for weeks if the need arrises, freezer full, plenty of imperishable food in the cupboard, I make my own bread :laugh: so thats no problem either.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Too far back for me Gerty, I do remember though that even as a child if I didn't have a note I might come back with nothing, but do remember the co-op divvy number 75880 I can remember being the fastest in our street be it on a scooter bike or running, more so if it had an engine as I grew older.

I remember we had to take a proper shopping bag unless you could juggle well, and my Granny always called it going for the rations, everything had it's own shop, grocers, green grocers, paper, butchers etc, we did have a local co-op of course like everywhere did in the early 60's.

Btw way did the abuse get to you yesterday?


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Yes I worked/helped in our local grocers at age 14 evenings and weekends bagging up, stacking shelves and boning bacon. 1955 and well before supermarkets.

Ray.


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## rayrecrok (Nov 21, 2008)

Real butter cut out of a round keg shaped lump, the grocer used two wooden spatulas to cut a block out to whatever weight you wanted, placed on the scales and took bits off or added bits to achieve the weight, then patted it into a block shape before wrapping in grease proof paper..

What no plastic involved!...

ray.


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

Yes I remember the butter *Ray*, I think the things our grocer used had a pattern on, a flower or something.

*Kev.* 
The expression going for rations was still used because ration books were still about in my childhood.


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## Drew (May 30, 2005)

How many can remember going to the cinema and using MT jam jars or lemonade bottles to pay for your ticket?


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

Drew said:


> How many can remember going to the cinema and using MT jam jars or lemonade bottles to pay for your ticket?


Core blimey Drew, was that before the war.

I have a very naughty story about when there was a penny back on every beer bottle though :grin2:


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## aldra (Jul 2, 2009)

I can’t remember that Jan

Well I wouldn’t in children’s homes , we didn’t shop 

And as a nurse in residence we didn’t shop either 

My memories are from 53 yrs ago 

Butter , bacon, ham, cheese , all cut whilst you waited 

Sasperela ect all delivered in stone bottles 

Which if you didn’t mind losing the deposit 

Made excellent hot water bottles 

House keeping was £10 a week

A pound a day , and three pounds for staples 

The mortgage was a whole £13 a month 

Sandra


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

I still say going for the rations now and then.


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## rayrecrok (Nov 21, 2008)

If you are interested in how thing used to be an excellent way of experiencing it is a day out at "Beamish open air museum".. It's just off the A1 County Durham DH9 0RG... Mr google will give you the info..

ray.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

We were going to go in there a couple of years ago until we saw the entrance fee.


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## Drew (May 30, 2005)

We have been there on quite a few occasions over the years Ray, an excellent days outing.


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

rayrecrok said:


> If you are interested in how thing used to be an excellent way of experiencing it is a day out at "Beamish open air museum".. It's just off the A1 County Durham DH9 0RG... Mr google will give you the info..
> 
> ray.


Long way from where I am Ray, is there an airdrome nearby? :laugh:


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## Drew (May 30, 2005)

Kev_n_Liz said:


> We were going to go in there a couple of years ago until we saw the entrance fee.


Tight wad.


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Did the Beamish museum a couple of times when my mum was still living at Conset Co. Durham. She loved the old display and the railway station used to be at Rowley that she visited many times before it was closed.

Ray.


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## GMJ (Jun 24, 2014)

How about pressing the B button in a public phone box to see if someone had left their money in it?






Graham :smile2:


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Or putting a penny into the electric shock machines on the pier and waiting for the inevitable twiddler to pull the handles.!! Nearly wet ourselves.

Ray.


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## Drew (May 30, 2005)

GMJ said:


> How about pressing the B button in a public phone box to see if someone had left their money in it?


We used to stuff paper up the hole to stop the money from falling and then return later to remove the coins!!!


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## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

Victor Value was the first super market that I remember. Our eyes came out on stalks when walking around it and being able to see all the groceries!

Chris did an apprenticeship in a butchers shop. That was until he was seduced by how much his mate was earning installing heating in all the buildings going up in London.

We had all the usual independent shops. My favourite was the haberdashers. I was fascinated by all the bits a bobs they sold. Suspender belts with the spares for when they broke!

A while back, a shop opened locally that tried selling dried goods like flour, sugar, cereals etc by the ounce into paper bags. Unfortunately it did not survive.


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

I still remember the 50/- tailors in Kingston. Thats £2.50 for a 3 piece suit. 

Ray.


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## Mrplodd (Mar 4, 2008)

GMJ said:


> How about pressing the B button in a public phone box to see if someone had left their money in it?
> 
> Graham :smile2:


It was press button B to conect once the other party had answered!!

To get your money back out if the other party DIDNT answer (or the previous occupant had forgotton) was Button "A"

The butcher would cut bacon off a huge side of the stuff, you could dictate how thick the slice was (we always had No.4) 
Then there were sweets dispensed in quarter pounds, "Blackjacks" 4 for an (old) penny

Andy


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

And broken biscuits at half price.

Ray.


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

Press btw `A´ to speak button `B´ to get your money back
Thats from an old GPO telephonist.
And here
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Locatio...eum-Kidderminster_Worcestershire_England.html


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

raynipper said:


> And broken biscuits at half price.
> 
> Ray.


That reminds me of him in the shop in `Coronation street´ umpteen years ago.


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## GMJ (Jun 24, 2014)

JanHank said:


> Press btw `A´ to speak button `B´ to get your money back
> Thats from an old GPO telephonist.
> And here
> https://www.tripadvisor.com/Locatio...eum-Kidderminster_Worcestershire_England.html


Thanks Jan

I knew I was right but as we all know Andy always is too :wink2:

Graham :grin2:


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## Drew (May 30, 2005)

raynipper said:


> And broken biscuits at half price.
> 
> Ray.


In the bakers. "A halfpenny worth of broken biscuits please, not too many Waggon Wheels thank you".

or the fruit shop. A halfpenny worth of chipped fruit please, not too many melons.


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## aldra (Jul 2, 2009)

The sweet shops where you buy sweets from jars are returning

Up market nostalgia now

Or novelty for the young 

Yee old English sweet shop 

Highly expensive 

But there’s always the market sweet stalls

Still for sale by the 100grams 

Or pick and mix 

Sandra


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Drew said:


> Tight wad.


Well partly, but we like to visit a lot of places Drew when we go somewhere new to us, and we simply cannot afford most of them, and a lot are quite slack because they charge so much, lower prices and fill the place up, and imagine having to pay for a tribe of kids.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Drew said:


> We used to stuff paper up the hole to stop the money from falling and then return later to remove the coins!!!


That's why you can afford to go to Beamish then :laugh::laugh::laugh::laugh:


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

patp said:


> We had all the usual independent shops. My favourite was the haberdashers. I was fascinated by all the bits a bobs they sold. Suspender belts with the spares for when they broke!


Aw, now ya talking Pat, we need pictures etc.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Yup, deffor button B, a miss memory there perhaps Andy.

https://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/BTsHistory/1912to1968/1925.htm

Liz used to work on the 192 line.


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## aldra (Jul 2, 2009)

Kev_n_Liz said:


> Well partly, but we like to visit a lot of places Drew when we go somewhere new to us, and we simply cannot afford most of them, and a lot are quite slack because they charge so much, lower prices and fill the place up, and imagine having to pay for a tribe of kids.


Yep imagine it

Family tickets were two adults, two kids

And still are

We had six when we graduated we were allowed two tickets to the ceremony

Sod it we thought

And put a roof on our conservatory instead

Sandra


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Just watching "Back in time for Tea" on BBC 2 in the 60's and I remember it all so well. Even the old telephone boxes.

Ray.


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## GMJ (Jun 24, 2014)

I remember having a penny for the collection dish for chapel on Sunday but going into the greengrocer next door to the chapel with my mates (the Jones twins!) and getting an ha'penny of sweets and only putting the other ha'penny in the dish!


I'll not be going to heaven then!>


What was surprising was that Cosletts the greengrocer was open on a Sunday morning in those days!



Graham :grin2:


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## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

Kev_n_Liz said:


> Aw, now ya talking Pat, we need pictures etc.


You first Keve


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## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

The rag and bone man who came round and took your old stuff away in return for some pieces of china. How environmentally friendly was that? Horse and cart so no pollution either.

Then the "bag wash". Before the days of washing machines they came and took your bed linen (I don't think we trusted them with our smalls) and returned it all clean and ironed.

Talking of laundry we had a gas fired copper boiler in the bathroom (no ventilation!). You filled buckets up with boiling (!) water for all your other laundry and, obviously, for the bath. One cold tap at the sink and one for the bath. Toilet was upstairs (posh) but no handbasin to wash our hands after using it.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

And horse apples for the roses.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

GMJ said:


> I remember having a penny for the collection dish for chapel on Sunday but going into the greengrocer next door to the chapel with my mates (the Jones twins!) and getting an ha'penny of sweets and only putting the other ha'penny in the dish!
> 
> I'll not be going to heaven then!>
> 
> ...


We musta been posh then as I got 2d I never went near the church, it's Sunday let the man sleep, I spent it on the Dandy or the Beano, Always fancied a slice of cow pie.


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

I remember as a kid 'helping' one of the local laundry van drivers taking a dozen great wicker hampers of fresh laundry up to Harrods once a week in the school holidays. 
It must have been in the 50's and first time I had been to London. The van only had one seat and I had to sit on a wooden box. The Harrods vans we electric at that time but I never managed a ride in one of those.


Ray.


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

patp said:


> The rag and bone man who came round and took your old stuff away in return for some pieces of china. How environmentally friendly was that? Horse and cart so no pollution either.
> 
> Then the "bag wash". Before the days of washing machines they came and took your bed linen (I don't think we trusted them with our smalls) and returned it all clean and ironed.
> 
> Talking of laundry we had a gas fired copper boiler in the bathroom (no ventilation!). You filled buckets up with boiling (!) water for all your other laundry and, obviously, for the bath. One cold tap at the sink and one for the bath. Toilet was upstairs (posh) but no handbasin to wash our hands after using it.


I remember all of that as well Pat.
The gas copper you first had to fill with water, Saturday night after everyone had had a bath, in the same water, in went the village football teams, shirts, shorts and socks to soak until Monday morning when they were all washed by hand by my Mum. Our football team had the whitest shorts whichever team they played.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

I recall the rag n bone man, some would also sharpen knives on a bicycle driven heath robinson device, later when they came round in vans they brought goldfish for the kids, many a good hiding came afterwards as kids gave dads suit away for a goldfish.

I also remember longing for long trousers as a sign of growing up, still waiting for that though > >


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## GMJ (Jun 24, 2014)

Ah nostalgia...






















...it's not like it used to be :wink2:


Graham :smile2:


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

Neither are we. :frown2:


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## Drew (May 30, 2005)

Following on from using lemonade bottles and jam jars to pay our way into the pictures, as a young teenager a group of us used to send one lad into the picture house, he would then make his way to the emergency exit and let the rest of us in.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Yup, we did the same Drew.


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

Snap twice, but what if kids were caught doing that today, they'd probably be sent to Borstal or wherever the send young offenders these days.


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

JanHank said:


> Snap twice, but what if kids were caught doing that today, they'd probably be sent to Borstal or wherever the send young offenders these days.


Quite right too, thieving little toe rags. Gotta learn not to get caught, part of life education.

Ray.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

I was a terrible rogue as kid, we had a rag n bone man who lived about a mile away, and he used to buy at his front door then take stuff round the back, I used to go in of a night and get the older stuff which was well buried and flog it back to him, yes it was stealing, but at 10 years old it's not something which occurs to you when you are low on sweets etc, anyway he caught me and he took me home, got a right clout of the old man, but a few days later I heard him telling one of his mates I would go far.


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

Seems our age group, ten years more or less, were all little humbugs.
1d on an empty beer bottle, nip round the back of the pub for a couple and take them to the snug for you 2d saying they were Dads empties, but he didn't want another bottle today.
Crawling under the cricket pavilion and bringing out full or empty beer bottles > we were terrors, never got caught Ray:grin2:


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## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Hah, small time stuff.
The real money was to be made taking back empty Schweppes soda syphons at 2/- each. Had fun emptying the full ones either at each other or in the horse trough.

Ray.


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

I reminded a friend not long ago how she used to drop chocolates and fireworks in her upturned umbrella she said 
Oooh Jan weren´t we little sods.


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## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

It seems I was a little angel then 

I remember going to see the Horse of the Year Show in London with a group of mates from the local riding stables. I was from the wrong side of the tracks and sat nicely in my seat while the "posh" kids went off round the stalls nicking hoof picks and curry combs!

I think I was a "goody two shoes" because I had seen the trouble my two elder brothers had got into ahead of me. Scrumping and fiddling my rail ticket was about as far as I ever got towards a life of crime


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

Scrumping, crawling on our bellies to pick up the walnuts, I bet the owners saw us and laughed their heads off.


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## aldra (Jul 2, 2009)

Yep I remember the rag and bone man

Taught my son his first swear words at the ripe old age of four 

As they shouted after him , any old rags 

When I heard him say F******, 

I was mortified 

Do you know what that means I said 

Oh yes he said it means go away 

Reminds me of a colleague of mine 

Whose 17 yr old was very free with the F word , F.....ing this and that 

Tell me she said

Why are you having sexual intercourse with all things ?

It’s usual to just find a special girl 

Sandra


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

Trouble is all swear words are such lovely words to say, the true meaning is never thought about, how many times do we say oh bugger? the true meaning is worse than the F word.


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## aldra (Jul 2, 2009)

I quite like Bloody Hell 

Two young german lads who stayed with us in Israel 

We had little they had less 

They used to say bloody hell fire what a funny life 

And one day someone came to our door and gave us money from their church 

The amount the young lads needed to get home, so we passed it on 

And I always believed you pass it on 

What comes around goes around 

Of course they promised to repay it but never did, it was a gift anyway 

And we struggled for years 

Until now we no longer need to 

So what comes around goes around 

And bugger goes well back to heretical connotations rather than sexual 

Sandra


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

So sorry, I'm not a scholar like wot you are dear >

This is what my dictionary says
ORIGIN
Middle English (originally denoting a heretic, specifically an Albigensian): from Middle Dutch, from Old French bougre ‘heretic’, from medieval Latin Bulgarus ‘Bulgarian’, particularly one belonging to the Orthodox Church and therefore regarded as a heretic by the Roman Church. The sense ‘********’ (16th century) arose from an association of heresy with forbidden sexual practices; its use as a general insult dates from the early 18th century.


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## aldra (Jul 2, 2009)

But today

With sexual freedom 

What does it mean?

Gay marriage legitimised

Soddom and Gomorra a thing of the past ?

Have we gone forward ?

Hasidic tales are fantastic

And God says 

My people have overcome me 

Exactly what we say about our kids and maybe our world 

Sandra


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## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

And what about smoking? 

2/- bought ten ****, there were 6 of us, club together our pennies and buy ****.
Out of six of us there were only 2 who continued smoking in their adult life, then at least one of them stopped when she was 21 again at 28 and forever at 40.:grin2:


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## Drew (May 30, 2005)

We used to collect golf balls and sell them.


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## aldra (Jul 2, 2009)

I loved smoking

10 a month 

And then so onand so forth 

Still dream about it

Wake up Anxious, did I really smoke that Cigerrette ?

Sandra


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## Drew (May 30, 2005)

JanHank said:


> And what about smoking?
> 
> 2/- bought ten ****, there were 6 of us, club together our pennies and buy ****.
> Out of six of us there were only 2 who continued smoking in their adult life, then at least one of them stopped when she was 21 again at 28 and forever at 40.:grin2:


My friend said that it was easy to stop smoking, he stopped every week.


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## Pudsey_Bear (Sep 25, 2008)

Why would you want to die of stupidity?


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## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

My niece learned the F word when she was a toddler. She would taunt her mother from the back of the car with F this and F that. One day my sister in law was driving through Norwich when a work colleague flagged her down to say hello. She wound down the window to exchange pleasantries and from the back seat came this torrent of F words!!!

We had an unreliable car that would often just refuse to start. One day I had installed my daughter in her car seat and climbed in to start the car. From the back seat came, loud and clear, "Sh*t". She had heard me say it so many times when the key went in the ignition 

That is another blast from the past - cars being started in the morning with their starter motors being given a hammering!


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## jiwawa (Jun 22, 2007)

My grandson is due to start school at Faugher primary near Dunfanaghy, Donegal.

Unfortunately, with his accent, it sounds like the F-word. 

The first time he said it when passing, my daughter nearly crashed the car!


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## aldra (Jul 2, 2009)

My daughter always had the habit of saying s*** acompanyed by a downward nod of her head when things annoyed her when out driving 

Imagine her surprise when her two year old copyed the word and inflection 

And continued to do so when out with us when she thought the situation warranted it 

She’s 23 now and I’m not sure what her favourite expletive is when driving 

Prob the same as all those years ago

But the head movement is essential :grin2:

Sandra


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