Parents quirky rituals

[FUZZYBEE]

Following on from 4getmenot's thread did your parents ever have little routines or things that they made you do, for example, we always had a bath sunday night before school with a capful of dettol liquid in, and a small glass of Andrews liver salts to drink once a week before bed.
Reading it back now it sounds like my mum was a bit wicked and worried about us being clean and germs etc but she so wasn't. I think it was more about looking after us inside and out. Not sure that i would put antiseptic in my girls bath though.

[4getmenot]

I would have a bath on a Sunday night too, cant remember having one through week, but I must have done, maybe its was because on a Sunday I would have my hair washed too then mum would sit me down and dry and style it behind the sofa then I would run round to fireplace and look at my hair in the back of a brass chestnut pan. :-)

[pussnboots]

My mum made me go home for dinner (lunch) from school, she said it was to make sure I ate properly. I hated having to do this because all my mates stayed for school dinners and they seemed to have a good time, whilst I was made to walk home and back every day. On Tuesdays when it was pork chops, which I hated it was like torture to me.

[CheekyChops]

My mum used to bath us in Dettol as well...

[pug100]

Liver salts and Dettol ?
You lucky people, when I were a lad it was Domestos and a wire brush.

[annie0000]

and mine - dettol was obviously a cure all. I remember making fizzy drinks with andrews liver salts as we had run out of cremola foam.

[annie0000]

hey Pug, which one of those was meant to keep you "regular"?

[helliebobs]

Thursday night was our bathnight, always with Matey, then we'd watch TOTP and get into our pyjamas whilst eating biscuits and have our hair dried under the big hood hairdryer, although my hair was so unruly it would take at least half an hour for my mum to try and get it to curl under :)

[FUZZYBEE]

Fantastic answers you guys. Didn't want to admit it straight off but I was actually concerned about the whole dettol thing, thought we might have had some sort of contagious disease that mum didn't want the neighbours to know about. PUG100 you made me laugh lots!!
On christmas morning we used to bang on next doors wall (all of us 6) and shout merry christmas sure enough ten seconds later they done the same that probably is just something we done.
MATEY ? BISCUITS? cor you were rich !! we would have a bag of broken biscuits and only be able towatch totp if we had enough money in the meter. Oooh another memory springs to mind running next door with a pound note asking neighbours for two 50p's for the meter.

[radiogaga]

always got 10p for the school tuck shop.
had to walk to school 1 mile twice a day.
had school dinners, went to my grandparents shop after school and got a roll and corned beef.
got chewing gum caught in my long hair and it was chopped off v short.

[annie0000]

At christmas after opening the presents and before dinner, my mum alawys sent us outside to race laps around the block with my dad timing us on the clock from the mantepiece. There were 7 kids, and I think she just wanted peace to get on with the dinner and also give us an appetite! I think that the neighbours thought we were mad.

I told both my sons when they started school that the rule was that when you ate your paked lunch, you had to eat your sandwiches first. My little one came home in a strop one day as he thought he had broken the rules as I had given him a wrap instead of sandwiches!

[OBonio]

Annie, that made me chuckle. I was taught sandwiches first, then crisps, then fruit / choccy bar. And that's how I'm eating my lunch right now.

With my parents, it was the communal hairdresser that would descend on our neighbourhood once every 3 or 4 months. Every kid would pile round to the one person's house and queue up patiently (read, cause havoc) while waiting to get their hair done. Do you hear of that nowadays?

[johnlambert]

My deasr departed dad used to get me to eat? a spoonfull of Malt once a week during the winter, he said it would stop me from catching the cold, it never worked and it tasted foul

[eyeshade]

Oh how I wish I wasn in Helliebobs house!!! What fun.

The worse one for me was mum used to spit in her hanky and wipe my mouth, OH HOW I HATED THAT! She always did it, so did my nan even when there was nothing there to remove.

[annie0000]

I remember the communal hairdresser too obonio. and I also still eat my luch in that order. I also remember the rag and bone man who came round and only gave you me a baloon when I gave him everbody in the house's coat! We were not well off, so my Mum went mad when she found out when the weather started to get cold and all the coats were missing - well, I couldn't face another year in my brother's duffelcoat!

[bigmamma]

Codliver oil and Malt , I used to get given a heaped tablespoon of it .....gulp.......and because it was heaped and was the consistency of soft toffee I had to get it to my mouth rather quickly .:-0

[bigmamma]

.....and , yes johnlambert , it never worked

[helliebobs]

Fuzzybee i wouldn't go that far but i'm sure Matey was cheaper in the 80s We always got a special edition one at Christmas - mine was the snowman, my brother had the Santa Claus one. Had to last us all year mind you...

[pussnboots]

I got dosed with Raspberry Vinegar and Olive Oil but can't remember what it was for.

[POLLIANNA]

Have just bought a bottle of Matey from the pound shop. Smells rotten. I always felt i was the first kid to get shouted in on a sunday for bath before anyone else. Probably wasn't and i hated that big hooded hairdryer !

[ermintrude35]

...every sunday before being forced to go to sunday school (I'm an atheist now)..my mum would trim my fringe with a pudding basin as a template and I always had a crooked fringe....

....saturday night was bath night and my mum used to rinse our hair with an old saucepan....(we were too poor to have one of those fancy shower adaptors that you shoved onto your bath taps)...and it was always Vosene medicated shampoo and it really stang when it went in your eyes...

...I remember having spoonfulls of Rose Hip Syrup...no idea what for , but it tasted nice so it was ok.... unlike the milk of magnesia....eeeewww I can feel the inside of my mouth drying up as I type...

...we were not allowed out to play in the street on a sunday, my dad was not allowed to wash the car in the street and no washing was put on the line, incase the neighbours thought we were a bunch of heathens seeing as it was a day of rest! ...