I'm sure everyone remembers country butter. It was quite salty and usually had a pattern on the top. I remember lovely, creamy thick buttermilk too. What about spice cakes (stomach cakes). Remember the liqourice stick, it was like the branch of a tree, and was nice and sweet until you sucked it a while, then it was bitter. No sweets during the war, eh? I remember eating tar that was melting on the strert from the streets and cleaning my teeth in soot. Supposed to make your teeth whiter. Also remember cleaning them in salt. The good old days, eh.

My Granny mixed butter and margarine using two wooden platters in the late 40s, I remember being sent to Bleakleys shop in Hilden with a coupon book and cash for cigarettes and sweets. Aul Sam or his wife( he incidentally was a carter in Hilden mill ) using scissors to cut the coupons out. Apparently they opened their shop after the Tomann family closed theirs ( Lowroader may know more ) Around the corner, next door to the Newsroom ( Mark Miller was a prominent member ) was Corbetts shop which was once owned and ran by the mill,( tick was then given and the debt was deducted from the meager wages) where sugar, butter and other rationed articles were sold. It was only after coming to Germany that I found out that rationing was abolished earlier in Germany as in "Great " Britain, posing the question , Who won the War?
Donald
A great delicacy which I miss or overlooked being mentioned here were custard buns and meat squares , sold in the canteen in Hilden mill. Who remembers Billy Morrision from Tullynacross who worked in the packing in Hilden mill and ran a wee shop in both places?

Now heres a thing.
I actually churned country butter for my mammy (I was the youngest of three boys).
We got a big sweetie jar from Sara Morrow and my daddy made a hole in the top. The jar was 3/4 filled with buttermilk and then the lid was screwed back on and a wooden spoon was used to stir the milk (it took a long time but eventually we had butter which my mammy then died using juice made from a carrot.
I can still see the stuff today.
I also collected nettles for nettle champ.
I must be getting old.

[8-)

I grew up on a farm where we had cows ,pigs, chickens or hens,and all kinds of veggies.
Each week I had to churn the milk to make the butter and Mother would make the butter into one pound blocks with her wooden paddles and then make a lattice design on top of each block. Saturday or Sunday the " Townies" would come out and buy the butter etc.

One week when I went to the churn to start the hard process of making the milk into butter, I noticed a Mouse swimming in the churn . I went to Mother and told her that a Mouse was swimming around in the churn .
She said what did I do .?
I said, that I threw the cat in after it .!!!!!


Lord Downshire

I lived with my granny & Mr. Mc Cracken from the country called every Friday night with country butter (a cow & a thistle printed on top) fresh eggs & vegetables. When my Grandad was alive he tilled the back garden, grew all vegetables for the house. When he died it was all women in the house & the gardens were neglected but a haven for children to play in, no restrictions. I learnt to ride a bicycle in the front garden.!! Imagine that now, all lawns & flowers.!!