A Bygone Era

Cracker night, the whole neighbourhood came to our place, the bonfire was huge fueled with a years worth of junk from the neighbourhood. Kids everywhere, parents drinking, laughing and eating and of course sparklers it was such wonderful night. My dad always organised / supervised the crackers. Definately the highlight of the year for me.

When my son was growing up we had a street Santa, every family gave Santa presents for their children and Christmas morning santa would come up the street with his elves ringing his bell and all the families would come out and gifts were distributed a magical time. We then had a street breakfast BBQ. My son still talks about it every Christmas he is 30 now but it is a fond memory for us.,

I was 11 when my family brought their first TV - a big square ugly box on skinny legs with a black and white grainy picture. Programs finished at 11pm and didn't start until 9 or 10 am the following day. When I look at my large HD tv now it is hard to imagine any other way - Those were the days!!! Just thought iif you were a Qld kid - hot milk in little glass bottles - provided free and drunk at "little lunch" - yuck yuck yuck!!!!

I remember when we first moved to Griffith (NSW, small country town then) in 1974 we didn't have to lock anything. You could go out and leave your house unlocked and no one would steal or vandalise anything. When we went shopping you could leave the car parked in the main street unlocked with things in it and again no one would steal anything or the car. Wouldn't last 5 seconds leaving anything unlocked these days, even in small country towns. I live in Leeton which is a lot smaller than Griffith is now but you still can't leave anything unlocked, not even out on the farm.

Oh cracker night. Such good memories. Everyone in the small town I grew up in would donate their junk for the local bonfire. It was piled high and then we would let it rip. I certainly knew what the phone box was. We didn't get a phone at home until I was 16 and even then we were under strict restrictions of when it could be used.

I will never forget making long distance phone calls and the lady cutting in to tell us to feed more coins into the payphone. No privacy there!

We have just come home from a fireworks display. It was amazing!
The local football/Auskick club put on the show, for free.
There were flyers dropped around the neighbourhood.


We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, the fireworks went for a good 15mins and were pretty spectacular. It was a real family affair and we all stood wide mouthed, oohing and ahhing.

Made me think of Bonfire Night/Fireworks Night when I was a child. It was always a highlight of the year. I was so excited when I was teaching in the UK to discover that they still have Bonfire night, loved going to big fireworks shows.

Was just wondering if you can think of things from your past, that you enjoyed but seem to have disappeared.
(I know that you can still see fireworks, but it's not the same...)

This is not just for the golden oldies, but there may have been some recent changes for those of a younger generation... like, would you know what a phone box was if not for Dr Who?? Lol. Just a thought!