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| A typical day playing Cowboys and Indians |
myvintageplace7.blogspot.com
I was born in the early sixty's and lived in a country town, our Dad was a Navy Officer and our Mum a cook, I was one of seven children.
Days gone by were simple, the only junk food available was fish and chips, once in a while when our dad came off the ship we had fish and chips, we had to travel to the next town for that.
We knew just about everyone in our street and they knew us, the road our house was on was a dirt road and very few cars traveled down that road. Our milk was delivered daily and the fruit and veg man came down our street once a week.
At one stage we had two cats, a dog, two budgies, a duck, guinea pigs and pet mice, our duck used to escape its pen usually right about the time we were all herded into the car to go out on a Sunday outing. Gee that was a funny site the duck running down the street and us trying to catch her. Many families went on a Sunday outing or Sunday drive and yes it was every member of the family, no matter what age you were no one was left at home we all went together.
Oh I forgot to mention we had no connected sewerage, just an outhouse in the backyard, once a week the pan was collected the person collecting the pan was called the dunny man. And of course we would run for our lives when he arrived, that was a sight and a half, they carried the pan either on their shoulder or their head.
Sometimes our morning wake up call was the kookaburras on the clothes line singing outside our bedroom window, we could hear our mum's radio from the kitchen, she listened to the radio every morning. The TV programs did not start until late afternoon.
We walked everywhere and went in to town once a week to do the rest of the shopping, we rarely bought cakes or biscuits our mum like most mums of that era baked most Sunday's.
We played games like Cowboys and Indians, as there were so many kids to play with we had the best of fun. A swing was usually a Tyre hanging on a rope from a tree in your backyard, we were able to play outside in summer until it got dark. Otherwise we had to be home by 5pm and god help you if you were not home by then.
Shut up was a swear word in those days and you never answered back to your parents. Our parent's friends were called Uncle and Aunty you never addressed them by their first names. I wonder how that one would work these days!
We were taught manners like "please may I leave the table", yes that's right you could not leave the table once you had finished your dinner, unless you asked this and were told you could leave the table by your parents. Oh of course please and thank you were such important words and daily words and believe it or not you used these words to your siblings too!
Our parents worked so hard, they did not have microwaves, automatic washing machines, dishwashers and we did not have ducted heating or air conditioning. The best fun was always in our kitchen that was the main hub of our house, like most houses of that time. We would have endless cups of teas, visitors including the neighbors would drop by, sometimes with no notice it was the way of the world in those days.
There was no such thing as being stressed out no matter how bad things were, you were just a little bit tired, gee things have changed.
The fresh air, peacefulness and how simple life was in times gone by in a country town in the 1960's was amazing or should I say in today's terms awesome!
I hope you enjoyed a snippet of life from the 1960's.
