Back the the pre everything coming from China days, we had lots of different factories/mills where I lived and everybody knew somebody who worked in one and could either get factory seconds or buy stuff with a staff discount.
As a newly wed living in a tiny flat we had carpet off cuts from a factory shop for our bedroom and living room, lino off cuts from the same factory for our kitchen, towels and curtains bought as seconds from a friend of my Mum who worked where they sewed them and crockery from a market stall which bought up factory seconds and sold them on cheap.
When we later bought our first house my Mum went into overdrive and contacted any of her friends and neighbours who worked in any kind of factory to help us buy whatever we needed as cheaply as possible. from wallpaper to furniture and everything inbetween. We had lots of cotton mills in the area and one of Mum`s friends worked there, bought fabric cheaply and then made sheets and pillow cases out of it to sell on.
When I was pregnant with my first baby his nappies were bought as seconds from the towelling factory, his cot bedding was bought from Mum`s friend who made sheets and pillowcases and when he began eating solids another friend of my sister used to get me huge sacks of Heinz tinned baby foods for about £1 a sack. He worked at the Heinz factory and the tins were slightly dented but without labels so you got a sheet of code numbers, looked on the tin , then on the list and it told you what was inside the tin. It was luck of the draw what you got , anything from chocolate pudding to baby casserole etc but luckily non of my kids were ever fussy eaters.
Almost everybody was employed somewhere which made or sold something but sadly those days are long gone. Besides that, cots or cribs are rarely passed through a family these days, the big silver cross prams I bought secondhand for each of my 3 babies are rarely ever seen, everybody has a car so baby stuff is smaller, lighter, more portable, pyrex baby bottles have been replaced with throwaway versions, terry nappies with plastic coated disposable ones, bottles, teats, dummies are no longer sterilised in a large pan of boiling water but often soaked in some bleach like chemical, Aunties, Grans or Mums rarely ever knit anything, you rarely see baby girls in pretty frilly dresses and baby boys in cute romper suits, it`s all mixed gender stuff, prams are rarely decked out in gorgeous pram sets and many prams nowadays are covered in dirt, old food, and have rarely seen a damp cloth let alone a good clean.
Anyway I`ll quit rambling and depressing myself about how things have changed and not often for the better.
www.thesun.co.uk
Memories flooding back,some good some not so good! If you're a similar age to me you might have had 'Twinkle or Bunty
