Talking with my father about the old times when I was a kid and he was a (much) younger man, we reminisced about my childhood. We moved from our old house, which we rented privately, to the council house where my family have lived ever since*, because the council had bought the land and were about to knock it down and build about six houses on the site. I was six at the time. Shortly afterwards I developed a sore throat. Back in those days it was completely routine for any child with a sore throat to have his tonsils whipped out and spend a couple of days in hospital. And that's what happened.
To give poor little six-year-old me something to do, my parents bought me a John Bull printing set. I don't know if anyone remembers these things, or indeed if they even existed in America, but they were quite popular here once upon a time. They consisted of a wooden block with a grove in it, a set of tiny pieces of rubber embossed with reversed letters, a pair of tweezers and an inkpad. You used the tweezers to put the letters into the block (back to front), banged it on the pad and then onto paper to print your message (right way round).
Paper or any white surface.
Hospital sheets are white.
I'm told that the hospital were very understanding about it, but it seems that I was going for the world record for the number of times someone's name can be printed on a hospital bed.
Ah such days of innocence. Can you imagine, in these days of computer systems, Nintendo, Gameboy, Wii and such like, any kid wanting to play with such a low-tech thing? No, me neither.
(* My father and I still live there, althogh we own it now - having bought it in the great Margaret Thatcher council house sell-off.)
To give poor little six-year-old me something to do, my parents bought me a John Bull printing set. I don't know if anyone remembers these things, or indeed if they even existed in America, but they were quite popular here once upon a time. They consisted of a wooden block with a grove in it, a set of tiny pieces of rubber embossed with reversed letters, a pair of tweezers and an inkpad. You used the tweezers to put the letters into the block (back to front), banged it on the pad and then onto paper to print your message (right way round).
Paper or any white surface.
Hospital sheets are white.
I'm told that the hospital were very understanding about it, but it seems that I was going for the world record for the number of times someone's name can be printed on a hospital bed.
Ah such days of innocence. Can you imagine, in these days of computer systems, Nintendo, Gameboy, Wii and such like, any kid wanting to play with such a low-tech thing? No, me neither.
(* My father and I still live there, althogh we own it now - having bought it in the great Margaret Thatcher council house sell-off.)
1 comment:
Cool - I would have loved that set, too. I don't recall seeing anything like it in my time, but I'm sure they must have been around. Now there is a huge rubber stamp craze - people who collect rubber stamps and make cards, do "scrapbooking", etc. This would be right up their alley.
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