When I was a snapper (mid 1960's), we'd go up to my Nan's in Scotland for our summer holidays and sometimes Easter or Christmas. She lived on the coast, nice beach, walks and all that. My Auntie Mini had a tiny cafe in the small town with a Wurlitzer juke box, one of the classic 50's ones. It sounded great, lots of bass compared to our "Fidelity" at home. lol. It would have been the first time I "felt" music and being a wee boy, I bet there was more bass at my level. In the words of Ronnie Corbett - I digress.... Auntie Mini made us Ice cream floats. Home made milkshake, "fizzy pop" of your choice and a scoop of vanilla ice cream floating on the top. Was this another of those OTT Scottish things? I remember the amount of sugary food consumed day to day up there was insane. Easter eggs (do you need 20-30?)/Choc at Christmas really ramped it up, but any excuse - massive trifles every day, fizzy pop. Visit cousins, more choc, biscuits and fizzy pop. Back home in England we were lucky to see a glass of coke and a bag of crisps half a dozen times a year, choc binges never. In her version of healthy diet though, my Nan never, ever fried anything - boiled bacon, quite nice actually.
Did they ever call fizzy pop 'minerals'? Perhaps the expression was only used in Ireland, or just Northern Ireland.
We did have ice cream floats as occasional luxuries, once we had a deep freezer (those old ones where a butchered half a pig fitted easily, or you could fall into it) . But the real luxury was cans of Coke, including one I remember that survived a 30 C journey on buses for about 12 miles, only to be dropped and turn into a wild rocket spraying the kitchen and bystanders with warm Coke.
Pretty much all the time it was just "pop". Language could be a problem for 5-6-7 year old. What would you think if I said Fet y' deen? Maybe that one's too easy (for you), it was pretty much everything, there were barely any recognisable "english" words.
Yes we used to have Coke Floats in the early 70s. My wife, South African, likes milk and Coke mixed - yuk - they call it a Brown Cow.
I read a Brown Cow is traditionally Root beer and vanilla ice cream. I expect that's the USA version.
When we used to go to our grandparents on the Scottish Borders Berwick on Tweed , Didn't have floaters but sliders and milkshakes at the famous Forte's cafe in Berwick ,and yes i agree the Scotts seemed to be more into sweets in the mid sixties . My grandparents seemed to be well into treacle ...treacle toffees , don't know if you can still get them . Just the smell of them brings back memories being on holidays up there . They even put Black Mackfies treacle in porridge and it ended up looking like Cow Muck when mixed up as it had a dark green hint to it . They even put Mac
We had the occasional float on the south coast in the 70’s. One of those things that seems like it is going to be epic, but isn’t.
Did you ever have any of that Edinburgh rock ...really highly coloured almost looked like a set of pastel coloured art chalks . Christ they really sweet and sickly , even thought that when i was a kid .
The Scots have a bit of a reputation for sweet stuff, fried stuff, generally any stuff that might be considered bad for you.... and sounds like the sweet side of the myth and legend might be true, then??! Especially in the 70s? I've heard of an icecream float, and I reckon I've had one - although in my head it's made with cream soda and vanilla icecream. And it would have to have been proper Corona Cream Soda, in a bottle with dimples on it's neck and a deposit of 7p. My greatest treat as a kid in the 70s was a bottle of coke... I'm not sure we ever had cans of stuff, everything was in glass bottles that you had to give back. Now I want a glass of cream soda.....
The first time i felt music was on a worlitzer in the lake district in 1967 ...in a cafe , and it was See Emily Play , Syd's Floyd
When I was a tiny little scrap of a lad maybe four years old. The highlight of my week was being dragged around to my Auntie Barbara’s place who was a wonderful lady that was the only person that I knew that had a fridge . My absolute delight and treat was a glass of ice cold pasteurised milk. At our house we didn’t have a fridge and had that horrendous milk that wouldn’t go off , it was in longer thinner bottles , I think it was called sterilised milk. My other big treat was going to my Nans once a month for a Sunday roast with Nan. Just before dinner was ready, she would shake her purse near her ear and rattle the coins about, then take some change and put it in my hand then squeeze it really tight and she’d always say, “Now don’t drop it” and “Mind that Road” and I’d be sent over to the off licence opposite and get a big bottle of Tizer. Another thing we didn’t get at home. I was given a large glass of Tizer, all to myself while me and Nan had our Sunday roast with a glass of Tizer. Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,, oh to be four again
That's brought back a few memories @Ozziedog . We never had the sterilised milk but my aunty did and I hated it when I went to see her. A lot of the time we had milk straight from the cows, just passed through a cooler before it went into the churn to be sent to the local dairy. Can't have been that bad as I'm still here! We had Tizer occasionally when I visited my sister, we had to go to the corner shop too.
Mrs A remembers the Corona man delivering 'fizzy pop' when she was a child in Fulham. He didn't come out to the sticks, and we didn't really have fizzy drinks as a child, far to decadent. We did have a fridge, but drank warm milk straight from the local cows. However, our neighbours had similar aged children to us, so when we were around there we were given ice cream sodas, even on a Sunday... They also had a tiny bar in their living room with a giant red soda-stream and a pineapple shaped ice bucket on it, I was so impressed. One Christmas, they let me taste an advocaat snowball, didn't like it. If only my parents had known...
