[John Whitworth]

Bill Greenwell brought back memories of Creamola Foam, a quite revolting concoction. Jayne's mangle and Bazza's Iron Cow won money too, as we all knew they would. And I nearly made it with my Seebakrascope in spite o untruths about pubic wigs. Well done them and almost well done me.

Lucy Vickery 29 June 2013
In Competition 2803 you were invited to supply a nostalgic poem about a product that is no longer available.

I found myself transported back to the good old days of the Hillman Imp, Spangles and — among many other lost but not forgotten delights — Dr J. Collis Browne. ‘Oh for a taste of Fuller’s Walnut Cake,’ sighed Dorothy Pope. Alan Millard expressed an equally heartfelt longing for the return of the original Amstrad computer, with its floppy discs and lurid green LocoScript. And for John Whitworth, life has been considerably less interesting since the disappearance of the Seebakrascope, a small, backward-pointing periscope marketed in the 1950s, which considerably livened up a day at the beach.

Ray Kelley and Brian Murdoch narrowly missed out on joining the prizewinners, printed below, who earn £30 apiece. Bill Greenwell nabs the bonus fiver.

Creamola Foam, with all its fizz
(Like imps discharging pistols)
Is lost. What was, no longer is —
No more its glinting crystals —
The dancing powder made us drool.
They banned it, naturally, at school.

Illicit drink (with choice of flavour):
With startling colours — pink, vermilion,
Orange! — ours to crave and savour
Behind the bikeshed or pavilion!

A penny piece undid its lid,
Released its candied odour —
A little water: lips would skid
On sparkling coloured soda:
Who’d not demand Creamola Foam?
They banned it, naturally, at home.
Bill Greenwell

Remember those adverts which started us guessing
And yearning to have that most beautiful hair,
Those ‘permanent waves’ that would be such a blessing?
Which twin had the Toni? We really did care.

I wasn’t a twin and I hadn’t a Toni,
My hair was kept short and impossibly straight,
So why did my mother, her face grim and stony,
Insist it remained in its natural state?

A Toni was cheap and the kit was inclusive
Of curlers and lotion — this last ‘odour-free’.
A simple procedure, the ads so persuasive,
‘And all trouble-free as a home perm can be.’

My best friend was Jenny and she was an expert
At finding those pictures of twins with their curls,
Then they were our pin-ups, each cut from an advert,
The summit of glamour for Forties’ small girls!
Alanna Blake


Gone the loo with an overhead cistern
Where you held your own chain of command,
Now it’s low-level tanks with a piston
That will sluice at the flick of a hand.
The system up high near the ceiling
Disdained a peremptory yank:
Unless it was handled with feeling
It would dribble or clunk a dry clank.
But nothing could match its full flushes,
When once you had mastered its quirks,
And the sound of its down-rushing gushes
Was one of life’s everyday perks.
Not Jove as he sprang a sharp shower
Or let fall a torrent of rain
Had more of a sense of pure power
Than I did when pulling the chain.
W.J. Webster


Washday was on Mondays in the Fifties; women did
the laundry with some wooden tongs, a boiler and a tub.
I always loved the smell of Mondays when I was a kid,
not knowing how much work it was. I’d watch my mother scrub

Dad’s collars, cuffs; she’d starch the whites, the whole load done by hand.
I loved the mangle best of all, which squeezed out tons of water.
‘Please mind your fingers!’ Mum would warn. I didn’t understand
that one day roles would be reversed: I’d say that to my daughter

(but not about a mangle. Heavens, they’ve long vanished now).
When I say ‘Mind your fingers’ it’s the car door that I mean;
I can’t imagine many children these days knowing how
that charming old contraption served, instead of a machine!

The family washing took all day to do, and life was hard,
but simple little pleasures compensated, I suppose.
I feel a warm nostalgia for that thing in our back yard
and smile to think: A mangle? What on earth was one of those?
Jayne Osborn

I think with longing of the Iron Cow,
Whose lighted fascia counselled Drink Milk Now.
When shops shut down, those milk machines stood proud,
Attacked by vandals, dented but unbowed,
Urban oases on the homeward routes
Of hordes of party-leavers, pissed as newts
At two or three a.m., unsteady, cursed
With curdled guts and dehydrating thirst,
Clustered like penguins in an eager line,
Ardent as pilgrims at a holy shrine.
Ah, those nocturnal moments of a past
Too precious to forget, too good to last,
When pressing metal teats delivered milk.
No matter that they often chose to bilk
The customers by swallowing their cash
And giving nothing back; they had panache.
Basil Ransome-Davies

[Brian Allgar]

An excellent crop. Congratulations to all.

[Ann Drysdale]

Hear, hear!

[Jayne Osborn]

Thanks, John, Brian and Ann. Well done for the HM, John.

Has the prize money gone up? £30 used to be including the extra fiver, but now we all get that, so presumably Bill gets £35?

Jayne

[Bill Greenwell]

Originally Posted by Jayne Osborn

Thanks, John, Brian and Ann. Well done for the HM, John.

Has the prize money gone up? £30 used to be including the extra fiver, but now we all get that, so presumably Bill gets £35?

Jayne

I certainly hope so!

[Brian Allgar]

Actually, Jayne, it seems to fluctuate. Since the beginning of the year, I've had non-bonus wins at £20, £25 and £30. "Ours not to reason why ..."