Blasts From The Past


I bought an original paperback copy of Watership Down yesterday from a seller on ebay.
The seller described the book as a " blast from the past" and remined prospective buyers of it's wonderful original 1970s cover illustration.
I remembered the cover very well, the paperback was one of my most treasured possessions as a child, and the whole thing triggered a sort of mental game of collecting visuals from a ten year old's memory.

Dickie Davies introducing wrestling at 4pm Saturday Afternoons

speaks for itself


Food and drink of the 70s

Adventure Novels 

Walls waifers

Prestatyn High Street 


Jennifer Jones

Crowded Prestatyn Beach ( deserted now) 

1970 caravan holidays ( gawd help us) 

Tv 's " Magpie 

Lead and plastic toy farm animals 

43 comments:

  1. Call me sheltered, but I lived through the entire decade of the 70s without ever knowing anyone who drank Head and Shoulders.

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    1. LMAO was timotei 80's? god I wanted blonde hair... and to look like a goddess.

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    2. Timotei started in the 70s, I remember the ads. along with the Flake lady in the boat, the apple shampoo ad and Norska- so many dippy looking females flicking their hair about!

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  2. Oh yes remember many of these...how about the beer shampoo in little barrel shaped bottles ?

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    1. Anonymous11:35 am

      It's called 'Linco-beer' and is still available now, but sadly not in lovely little yellow plastic barrels!

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    2. Why yes it is
      Legaleagle , just googled it, I`m amazed its still around !

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  3. This is a very British posting, John. Your International followers will wonder about most of them !
    I can remember the original Smith's Crisps, way back, with the original blue twist of salt - usually damp ! Bet Weaver and Cro can too !

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  4. Did you hear the R4 play on the creation of the Watership Down film soundtrack yesterday?

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  5. Saturday mornings were spent watching Multicoloured Swap Shop followed by World of Sport. It was also comic day when we got Whizzer and Chips and Cor! and we had French bread pizzas for lunch.

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    1. I remember French bread pizzas for lunch! They were frozen weren't they? Do you remember Birdseye Mousse? I used to have the orange and lemon one with a Melba type sauce in the bottom! :-)

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    2. Ahhhh.....Bird's Eye Mousse! More e numbers than you could shake a stick at, but I could eat ten straight off.....strawberry of course.

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  6. Anonymous11:50 am

    Saturday afternoons, from 4-00, watching the wrestling, hating Jackie Pallo, laughing at Les Kellett, loving tag matches with the Royle brothers, and knowing Kent Walton's voice SO well! Oh, and always wanting someone to tear Kendo Nagasaki's mask off so we'd find out who he was!
    Then from 5-00, not being allowed to make a sound or walk in front of the TV while dad checked the results for the pools coupon...did we win? Never!
    'Nice' kids watched Blue Peter, those of us who liked to live 'dangerously' were Magpie fans!
    I even remember crisps only being available in 'plain' with the twisted blue paper of salt, flavoured crisps hadn't been invented!
    And never forget, 'Things happen after a Badedas bath'!

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    1. Oh crikey, this could have been me writing every bit of that. I remember my dad checking the pools and we daren't squeek.

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    2. It was my mum checking them here... does anyone remember "spot the ball"?

      Jo in Auckland, NZ

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  7. Bell-bottoms and low rise jeans, guys with very long hair, 35-mm SLR cameras, the first LCD watches - the ones with the red numbers that only lit up if you pressed the button, Jack-Daniels Tennessee Whiskey - I took my grandmother to the distillery . . . strong memories of the 1970's.

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  8. they still sell salt and shake crisps. they were a rare treat werent they. The little dark blue sachet that in the 80's I wasnt allowed to open only an adult to shake the salty goodness into the bag. and only ever half the sachet. wow really is a blast from the past.

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  9. DISCO MUSIC! my first apartment. graduation from university. birth control pills.

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  10. I used to love plastic toy farm animals! I also recall the game Magic Robot, Fuzzy Felt, chocolate cigarettes, Spanish tobacco and a bottle of Cresta (its frothy man) to go with a bag of chips after Saturday swimming at the local baths!

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    1. Cresta......horrible, and yet nice!

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    2. Cresta wow! it used to coat your mouth in a strange toxic froth- loved it!

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  11. Anonymous12:52 pm

    A lovely trip down memory lane for you John.

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  12. Anonymous1:04 pm

    Spangles, John Noakes and Lesley Judd on Blue Peter, jacked up Ford Capris with leopardskin seat covers and fluffy dice, and ghastly '70's curtains. Oh, and mum & dad always had Babycham and a bottle of Advocaat in the drinks cupboard - what the hell was that stuff?

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    1. and don't forget 'the great smell of Brut'...... bleurgh

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  13. I loved Jennifer Jones as Emma Bovary and in Duel in the Sun (and Love is a Many Splendored Thing too) and I did work in the department that sold those animals in a famous Sheffield store in the 1970s - but for the rest, I'd swear we were inhabiting different universes.

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  14. Your childhood looked very much like mine (except Prestatyn would be replaced by Tenby! xxx

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  15. Anonymous1:16 pm

    I just spotted the Hai Karate, that was truly a dreadful smell! X

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  16. It was the age of the color orange. Oh, how I hate that color, but I did wear it in the 70s and even bought orange furniture. I was glad for the 80s when the cat scratched it to shreds and it needed to be replaced.

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  17. Orange and avocado green. Jesus. Why?

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  18. I adore "Watership Down" -- it's one of the few books I could not put down the first time I read it. I stayed up all night to read it. I was in university at the time so I had that kind of time in those days, LOL!

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  19. Those shelves look just like my current larder - except that Jim never fixed it for me.

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  20. I don't share any of these childhood memories (too old and too American), except that is for Jennifer Jones. She was, however, a hell of a lot younger in my memories!

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  21. And who could possibly forget Mary Whitehouse and her endless crusade against sex and violence and all those horrid unpleasant things that apparently were corrupting us all at a rate of knots.

    Now there's a thought - if Mary Whitehouse was alive today, she'd probably be accused of political correctness....

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  22. The one 70s story I hated..lol

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  23. Salt n Shake crisps were somehow a treat. I remember it all John, and puzzle as to why none of it is still around. That is apart from the Head and Shoulders, which is thankfully still bland and toxic smelling....but effective.

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  24. I always wanted to watch Magpie, was only allowed to watch Blue Peter. Lord knows why.

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  25. Why was everything orange in those days? I'm not sure there was any other decade in the 20th century that had such a strong association with one colour!

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  26. Anonymous8:57 pm

    Those lead toys were a really good idea for the kiddies to play with. What did we call those wafer ice creams. Kreem in Between? Something like that. They were very nice. As if crisps need even more salt!

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  27. A lot of those things are unfamiliar to me but oh how i loved my plastic farm animals!

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  28. Britains farm toys. Loved them as a kid. My Nan bought me a new one as a treat every time we passed a toy shop. When I discovered eBay, I started collecting them again as a little act of defiance (I came home one day to discover my mum had given all mine away).

    Don't forget Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars either. My little brother decided to "respray" our joint collection, leaving all of them with khaki splodges all over.

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  29. The song " Bright Eyes" always makes me cry!

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  30. These pictures and memories are great. Made me start to think of things I loved as kid in the US. I sometimes go on YouTube and look up old commercials. Blast from the past indeed!

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  31. Swap Shop and Spangles, that is all x

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