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I sat on the stairs one night and listened to mum and dad argue about how to make the weekly wage stretch. "Six pence? a loaf of bread is six pence!" I heard dad exclaim "One day they'll charge a pound for it!" Many years later in a Wellington (NZ) baker's shop, I bought a loaf of bread for $2.70. I happened to notice the exchange rate that day....NZ$2.70 equals one pound sterling. Sunday dinner in winter always had brussel sprouts.... we hated them and the wet overcooked cabbage. Somewhere in the last few years someone has invented crisp cooked vegetables. There wasn't a chinese take away anywhere, just good ol' fish and chip shops. Most working men rode to work on bicycles, regardless of weather. The normal working week was 6 days (50 hours). Every kid had fillings in their teeth before they were 8 years old. Shops had a 'half day closing' every Wednesday afternoon and were always closed by 12.30 Saturday. New movies used to come to the 'flicks' about once every 6 months. There was one showing per night, none on Sunday, and people queued for an hour to get in. TV was black and white and only one house in our street had one, guess where all the kids were at suppertime. You had to book an international telephone call a month in advance, wait until the unearthly hours for the appointed time to make it, and got cut off by the operator after exactly 4 minutes. The woody scent of garden bonfires used to permeate the house on warm summer evenings when we laid restless in our childhood beds. Babies were pushed around in big wheeled 'prams'. Old pram wheels were in great demand for making pushcarts, as were orange crates. We used to run through the windrows of meadow hay, surrounded by blue and brown butterflies, chased off by the exasperated farmer! There is a housing estate there now. We learned to write with 'dip' pens with scratchy nibs. We learned up to twelve times table by rote. All grown ups were to be respected and we said 'please' and 'thank you' for every thing. 'Sunday best' meant the clothes that you only wore on Sundays and, the devil take you if you got them messed up. Monday was wash day and Tuesday was ironing day, and you didn't annoy Mum on those days. Bath night happened once a week, and if the weather was icy it was in a galvanised tub in front of the fire. Old people smelled 'old'. Sex was a four letter word. Measles, mumps and chicken pox were things every kid got. Every tree was for climbing, barbed wire was for ripping pants on, apple orchards were for 'scrumping', muddy creeks were for splashing through. One penny was a fortune and you could buy a pocketful of sweets with it. Many things were priced 'four a penny". Drugs were things you took when you were sick. Father Christmas brought you your very own orange and a chocolate bar you didn't have to share with anyone else. And yes, you could hear the sleigh bells on his sled if you listened real hard........ Alf Adelaide 50 <1 48