I was born in 1922, and what lovely memories many of you have written. We bought our flour in White linen bags, The sugar bags were heaver weave, and Mum used to soak them and made the boys trousers from the material. It came up nice and soft, and she lined them with flour bags. Now the flour bags were beautiful material and Mum boiled them up in the copper and the brand name was bleached off and it was a lovey linen. We used to make pillow slips from them, also embroider supper cloths.
Everything was home grown, all preserves were done over the kitchen table and we had a wood and coal range to cook on. It had a wee boiler on one end that heated the water to do the dishes.
The old black stove was polished once a week , us children sooted the range on Saturdays and we polished the stove till it shone. We had a big cast iron Kettle that was continually boiling and singing away on the stove all thew time.

At night we all sat round the old coal range opened the oven door and warmed our toes on the rack , and we sang song. No Television, no radio, we did have a piano and everyone joined in the singing.
Mother was a Mother and we were all brought up on love. We had no pennies to go and spend like young ones do today, and we all helped with the chores, it was Life, and we had big singsongs with friends and neighbours.
We all sat at the table for meals too, and never did we leave unless we said 'Please my we leave the table' we all helped to prepare the vegs, and made beds, swept and polished lino floors. Oh I could go on forever. Milk was delivered by horse and cart into our billy each day about thrippence a pint we used to let it sit overnight and skim the most beautiful cream of the top. Yum! it was for real.
All our soap was hand made in big bars, our beauty wash for our face was Oatmeal soaked overnight, Yes we had beautiful skin.
We got a pig and it was home cured and cut up and hooked and covered with cloth and hung from the beams in the kitchen, and I can still remember the taste.

When I was a kid in Wairoa in the 50's my father worked at several butchers shops. He got free meat!! Just imagine we had the best of everything he said he would never eat a sausage that he had not made. Mum would cook a wing rib of beef roast with lovely gravy, home grown green beans (Scarlet Runners) boiled new potatoes sooooo yummy. For pudding was raspberry and apple pie with her homemade pastry which just melted in the mouth. We had black pudding fried with onions mmm, lambs fry and bacon (more yummy gravy). My grown up kids today still remember Grandma's cooking and going up to Wairoa on the railcar. They couldn't have been very old probably 10 when I would put them on the railcar to go to see Grandma and Grandad, told them don't move out of your seat till you get to Wairoa.(from Napier). Mum would take my daughter on the back of her bike down town and over the river to her job gardening. Such special memories. Also down to the Wairoa beach to have a barbecue and cook potatoes.Collect cow manure for the garden. Look out for the cattle that were down by the beach, I was always scared of them.

God yes the night cart man. We used to sit down by the front fence watching himm come along the road and waiting for it to spill. It was the most gross thing we could imagine. And worrying whether we'd be off or on when he open the trap door to change it. God horrors someone seeing our bum! We used to have two cans and dad had to change it mid week. We crumpled the apple tissue paper (all apples were individually wrapped) or really really scrunched up newspaper squares too. We used to go to town with dad every Friday night and one week one of us stuffed far too much newspaper in the can and he couldn't get it out the trap door. 3 kids and no one would own up. We were threatened with not being allowed to go to town if the culprit didn't own up. I said I did it so that we'd get to town. Years later my sister said oh she'd done it alright but I used to tell lies all the time. Jees, when I look back now I could slap her as we ALL got the belt if he knew just one of us did wrong and he couldn't pin it down.
The 'po' under the bed that poor mum emptied every day tho from memory some of them were pretty full. Grandad had a little cupboard beside the beds in his house especially for the po but we didn't, they were just under the bed with a folded newspaper on top. Man oh man. Gosh we had no idea that she had to cart them out to the out house way down the garden path.
We too had to be excused from the table. We sat around it and read from the bible every night and recently said to dad, I am not of your religion dad but I readeth well! He smiled.