Fun With Nostalgia

Knowing the importance of oral history and how to do it, I will share with you some of the interesting stories that I have heard in my interviews over the past years. They are simply random stories that are interesting.

”Right across the river from whereI lived was the Carling Brewery factory. I was only 12 years old but learned about something very quickly. There was a tap on the wall outside with a mug hanging there. You could help yourself to a mug of beer anytime you wanted to. Their beer was very cold. I would ride over on my bike and help myself on a hot summers day”.

”I had a bread route with a horse and wagon. I was making a delivery at a customer’s house but had to return to my wagon to get something I forgot. The horse thought I had got in and away he w3nt. Horses were so smart and trained that he simply ended up going to the next stop. I had to walk some distance to catch up to him. He would never go through a re$ light and knew all if the turns. It was amazing”.

”Society was much more personal in the old days. Everyone in the neighbourhood knew each other and would help if needed. If you were sick neighbours would bring over soup and custard. People were all very considerate with each other.”.

”We had teachers we liked and those we didn’t like. I remember not liking Mrs McGeach. We wrote a poem about her. Old Mrs McGeach, the red headed teach, She goes to church on Sunday, To praise the Lord, To give her strength, To lick the kids on Monday” She heard us reciting it one day and did we ever get into trouble”.

” They used to encourage us to save money at school. There was a penny bank system set up. There was a bank near the school. The teachers would encourage us to put Pennie’s into the penny bank and then someone was delegated to take the money over to the bank every week and put it into the student’s accounts. It was a good lesson for all of us.”u

””In the 1920’s I started to work for about $5.00 a week. It was about $22.50 a month. We worked five and a half days a week from 8 until 5. If you had to work overtime it was unpaid. They could give you what ever they wanted to. I could buy a suit, a topcoat and a hat for about $35. That was a number of weeks salary for those things. You had to manage your money carefully”.

”If you had a contagious disease like measles, dipheria or scarlet fever, you were quarantined. You could not leave your house. The Health Department would put a sign on your house. Often the whole family couldn’t leave. It was very serious in those days. There were no vaccines yet. Doctors could make their own medicines. The worst tasting medicine was cod liver oil. When you took that, you had the medicine in one hand and an orange in the other.”

During the silent movies you would always hear the piano. The player was down at the front looking up at the movie.When it was exciting the music would get louder. And faster. There was chase music, love music, and so on. Some of the bigger theatres had huge organs. The player must have been Dry talented to change the music to go along with the picture.”