Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Hi this is my first post,
Does any body remember the old (black lead fireside range) the one with an oven, water boiler and open fire, they wear still in use up to about the 1950s.
I no George Bodley invented the range in 1802 and revolutionised the Victorian kitchen.
1. How did they no when the oven was at the wright temperature for cooking
Bread and poultry.
2. Did they use oven sticks under the oven.
3. What sort of food did they cook on it!!!.
4. To boil water they used a copper kettle on the fire, there was a metal bar that folded down over the fire, it was know as a falling crow, was it called anything else.
5. The fret at the base of the fire was called I think a tidy Betty was it called anything else.
6. They some times wrapped the oven shelf in a cloth and used it as a bed warmer, is that true!!!.
Did your parents use one, do you remember seeing one,

I would appreciate any help with this post
Best regards Jethro

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Have you seen this?

The Old Black Lead Range Peter Brears - YouTube

You could probably do any sort of cooking on a range that you do on a modern oven provided the temperature was right - and that is a matter of experience. As for what they actually did cook - that would be down to local ideas and traditions.

I cooked for about ten years on a modern wood burning range that also did central heating. No open fire to cook over but a large firebox that had to be topped up constantly (would not be true with coal). And an ash can that had to be emptied - the worst job of all. I well remember using the ash rake on the top of the oven, exactly as described in the film.

Try this also - from the book of the Victorian farm TV series.

Victorian Farm: Christmas Edition - Ruth Goodman - Google Books

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Hi Susie, many thanks yes I have seen the short film on YouTube, the Victorian farm link is interesting. As a chimney sweep I still get to sweep these every now and then, one of my customers who is 89 years old and she said they used to sprinkle salt in the bottom of the oven and when it started to turn brown it was the right temperature for cooking bread. My post really is to try and find out as many hints and tips on cooking lighting and operating the dampers etc before that generation completely disappears. Many tanks

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

The ranges are in production

Victorian Cast Iron and Brass Ranges from the Yorkshire Range Company

The manufacturer will know how to use them.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

We had a range in our kitchen when I was a child.
Our range had a hot water box...with a lid at the top(to fill the hot water box) and a tap at the bottom to draw hot water off.
I don't think there was any real way of knowing what the right temperature was for cooking food.......except you knew that when the fire was first made, the oven temperature would not be very hot....a blazing fire would mean a very hot oven....and stuff that needed a lower temperature to cook was placed at the bottom of the oven.
I'm sure it was all a matter of experience.

And yes, the metal shelves from the oven were used to warm the bed on cold winternights...as were bricks(these would have been in the oven for a few hours) both the metal trays and the bricks were put into flannel(we had flannel drawstring bags - made by my Grandma) so that we didn't burn ourselves on them...the metal tray was taken out of the bed before you got in...and the bricks were left in bed to put your feet on to keep them warm.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Thanks Margaret that's exactly what I was hoping for, have you ever heard of Hardin it was a Victorian cloth I think and used as a oven cloth. None of my customers have heard of it.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

No, I can't say that I have heard of that........thick padded cloths were used to take stuff from the oven, but they were usually made up from other discarded household textiles.
Bits of old towels folded and stitched to give the required thickness....you were posh if you had oven gloves.
I think my grandma had asbestos fingers...she used to hold things that were very hot without seeming to suffer any ill effect...but warned us against trying the same things.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

In the video that Susie linked, the cloth was used and named.
My gran used an 'oven and boiler' range until her death circa 1979, but she had a two ring gas hob as well.
I do recall a blackened kettle being permanently on the fire.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I'm giving a talk to primary school kids in March key stage 1&2 aged 6 to 9 about life as a child in the Victorian times and how life centred around the ( black lead fireside range) I do have an exact replica of the range made out of wood compleat with oven firebox and water boiler it looks just like the real thing, hence my quest for as much knowledge as I can obtain.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

It seems that hardin linen is a type of cotton cloth, which you can still buy in America, though I have not heard of it in this country, and I worked with textiles for many years.

Quick View - Pindler & Pindler Hardin Linen
Amazon.com: Hardin Linen Fabric: Arts, Crafts & Sewing

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

My grandmother had one of these and always had the kettle on. The smoke must have got into the water because I remember you always had a slight sooty taste in your cup of tea.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

That's interesting did you ever taste any food cooked on the range. And if so what was it like!!!.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

My auntie in Ireland had one twas used well into 70s, She lived in a village just outside Dublin. Like Gordons nans the kettle was always on, don't recall any sooty brews wi that un.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I don't remember the food tasting sooty but the kettle was over the flames and smoke(on the 'falling crow'? Never heard it called that)
The oven was at the side so wouldn't get smoke in it.
The other time I remember that taste was sucking icicles. The whole town lived and breathed in smoke.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Would your auntie be using peat, cashman? Probably not as smoky as the rubbishy house coal we would be using. Remember 'nutty slack'?

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

It was the coal and Iron Age of eighteenth and nineteenth century Britton, there would have been soot in the air pretty much all the time.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Hang on, Jethro, I'm old but not that old!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

You are two years older than me, yet I recall the soot smuts being wiped off my face using mum's spit on a hankie.

Where were you when we had the smog?
Maybe you had a silver spoon country house upbringing in the leafy southern shires:rolleyes:

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Jethro mentioned ' the coal and iron age of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries'.
Even you and I don't go back that far!
There weren't many leafs in Steiner Street but we probably had nickel plated spoons.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Not as i recall Gordon was coal i used to fill the scuttle fer her.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Back in the 1940-60s my mum used to cook on a fireside range, nothing wrong with the taste. Her oven had the fire directly open and under the chimney, if she wanted to heat up water she put the pan/kettle onto a platform that swung out from the oven and over the fire.

She also put salt into a pan of water which she said got rid of the soot. Another way was to light a lot of paper which was drawn up the chimney which also cleaned it.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Back in the late '40s and early '50s we had one in a house on Queen St., Clayton ... never took much note of it ... it was normal for the time. I do remember having baths in the old galvanized tub in front of that fire ... and making toast with the toasting fork ... also used to throw spuds on the fire till the skins were black ... then peeling off the skin and putting some salt and a little marg on them (if we were lucky). I used to think it was a treat ... wasn't till later I found out that this was the last food in the house until my dad's next pay packet.;)

There seemed to come a time when folks started to junk these monsters and replace them with ugly, modern, tiled things ... sometimes with a back boiler. I remember seeing a whole pile of the old fireplaces down in Basil Brierly's junk yard off Lower Barnes St. He even had a bunch of them on his allotment back of Rishton Rd. where he kept his pigs and stabled his horse.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I remember chimneys setting on fire. I think the soot may have had a lot of tar in it, once they got going you could here a gentle roar-and the big lumps of glowing soot dropping down into the fireplace and the room.
The smoke outside was horrific.
I remember fire engines coming to put them out- heaven knows what the mess was like in the house when they'd poured water down the chimneys!
As Keith says, some people used to set them on fire regularly to burn off the built up soot before it got too bad.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I remember when we moved to Lonsdale St in '49 that the chimney sweep came and swept the chimney a couple of days after we moved in.
They were still sweeping chimneys in RAF Married Quarters in '65/66 and probably later as the first quarter we got with central heating was '71

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Maybe he's thinking of the stuff we used to bank the fire at night, so that it would (might) still be smouldering in the morning, when you could put on a few pieces of coal, stick the blower on, and get the fire going again?

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

That's a relief, Retlaw. I always pictured that powerfull hosepipe pushed in the chimney and the results in the room below!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

That would be "Slack" wrapped in newspaper?;)

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Yes...I remember that and in the morning it was set like a crust.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

The coal man tipped some 'nutty slack' down one side of the 'coil hoyle' and proper coal on the other side so you could pick. Shovel full at night, as you say, break it up in the morning and put some coal on.
Didn't the nutty make a lot of ash, as most of it didn't burn? Fun taking the ashpan out to the bin in the morning if it was windy!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Yes I remember getting a walloping because I let ash blow over some newly washed sheets...though to be fair I don't quite know how I would have stopped it.

Another thing...were there arguments in your house over whose turn it was to go out and fill the coal bucket?
I remember dropping the key to the padlock of the coal place and being down on my hands and knees searching for it in the snow...I was blue with cold by the time I got the coal bucket back in the house.

And wasn't in an imbuggerance when the blooming fire went out.......all that palaver with the twisted paper, bits of sticks........and the shovel and a shet of paper up to make the fire 'draw'....reading the paper while it was drawing and watching it scorch
and go up in flames before you could do anything about it.
Ah the joys of solid fuel.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

No, once I could walk it was my job.:mad:

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

You were lucky to have the arguments ... I was an only child; so, it was my turn all the time:mad: But it was a ****** when the fire went out ... it was always my turn to beet it.;)

But we did have a proper blower ... luxury:dancedog::D

It's a little chilly here right now ... we've reached the high for the day at -22 ... but I have a remote for the thermostat; so, I don't have to get off my skinny butt in order to change it. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get the dog to bring me a beer:D

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Well, I had three brothers.......so there were always arguments...sometimes the fire went out while we argued, but Ma had something that would solve all arguments...it was a well aimed shoe.
We didn't have a blower Eric...we were really poor...it was paper and a coal shovel for us.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

If it makes you feel any better, hon, it was a home-made blower.:D

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Home made or not...it was still a blower.
I was envious of my grandparents...they had a gas poker...so were guaranteed a roaring fire in no time at all.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I never heard of a blower until just now.:eek: proper peasants in our house.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Well, I only knew they existed because along with the gas poker, my grandparents had one.......I think it might have been made at Howard and Bulloughs(my uncle Harry worked there)

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

We must have been posh - we had a blower and a gas poker. But we didn't have a kitchen range - they were for the fire in the living/dining rom - the kitchen was out the back in the scullery. And a gas fire in one of the bedrooms!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Sue you were definitely posh.......bet you had a flush lavvy too(don't tell me you did and it was indoors).

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Gas fire in bedroom?:eek: more n posh yeh were royalty.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

or landed gentry at the very least :D

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I'll bet your scullery maid didn't get the bedroom with the gas fire in it!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Oh yes a proper bathroom indoors - flush loo and bath too! AND an outside loo - which I think was also a flusher.
No that was me - and I had the little room at the back - definitely the maid's room!

This was when I lived for a few years in the fifties with my grandad, great aunt and second cousin in one of the bigger houses on Owen Street which my gt grandad had bought in the twenties - he had the fish business on the market and was very much a self made man.

My parents lived not far away on Queens Road in one of the houses built in the thirties I think - so again an inside loo but I think they also had coal fires and I don't remember any heating in the bedrooms. I lived there till I was about five and went back to live there in the late fifties.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Right ... next, we will be hearing about fridges and electric blankets:eek: And hot water that came out of a tap!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

OK I'll start - never had an electric blanket - too scared at the thought! Fridges, very late on the scene. Hot water, certainly not at Owen Street, probably at Queens Road - think we had an immersion heater... Don't know how we heated the bath water at Owen Street - can't remember having that many baths...

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Gas geysers over the kitchen sink were very popular if you didn't have running hot water.
You can still get electric ones,it's all right having a combi boiler if it's near the taps, if not the tap runs for ages before it gets hot.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Gas geysers over the kitchen sink were very popular if you didn't have running hot water.
You can still get electric ones,it's all right having a combi boiler if it's near the taps, if not the tap runs for ages before it gets hot.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

You've jogged my memory Gordon, think at Owen Street we must have had one over the kitchen sink and one for the bath. Don't know about the bathroom basin though!

Know what you mean about combi boilers - you can wait a long time for that hot water!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Oh deary me ! Listening to you old fogies goin' on .................. eeh us young uns don't know we're born. :)

Four Yorkshiremen - YouTube

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Jeez seems them Yorkshire folk had it real cushy.:eek:

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

It wasn't all bad, DiG. Sitting in a tin bath in front of the fire in the kitchen(we didn't have a scullery)was lovely- although I must admit once you were 15 it did get a bit embarrassing!
And of course by then your cousin was too big to fit in with you so one of you got a luke warm bath..

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I once sat in that bath 15 hours waiting for my mother and her friends to finish the gin and leave the kitchen. By then all the water had leaked out of the hole in the bottom, the fire had gone out and it was time to get up for school.
Ah, the good old days!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

In June I stopped using gas appliances when I added natural gas to my list of chemical sensitivities.

I gave away my gas cooker, switched off my combi boiler, and bought electric heaters

I overcome the lack of hot water from taps by using the electric shower head to fill the handbasin, and I have a dishwasher. If I need hot water for cleaning purposes I can fill a bucket from the shower or boil a kettle.

Central heating is not essential for survival.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

That's how I interpreted it too;) ... they'd no idea what it was to mek do; and they wouldn't recognize a day's work if one ran up and bit them on the ass:mosher:

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

You should get yourself a water cooled Vickers machine gun:uzi: ... keep away unwanted guests and Jehova's Witnesses, and you'll have lots of hot water for tea.;):D

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

As it says on the back of my second fav t-shirt when I'm riding: "Old Farts Rule":mosher: (My favorite is still: "If You Can Read This, the Bitch Fell Off."):D

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I exaggerate. All right, I lie. The bath didn't leak and my mother didn't drink gin. You can't out-imagine 'The Four Yorkshiremen' however you try.

I do remember sharing the tin bath with my cousin when he stayed with us during the war. When my aunt got married (thankfully long before I was 15) she had a lovely bathroom so we were regular visitors. In the early 50's my father managed to squeeze a tiny bathroom in by pinching space off the bedrooms- what luxury, how posh.
They weren't hard times, DiG, it was just the way things were.
Nowadays if you haven't got a couple of en-suites you're roughing it!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

J.W.Bridge of Church Street used to sell these old ranges. I know for a fact where this is still one in Accy (not working of course) and there is one in Haslingden, both having Bridge's "stamp" on them.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

The castings were produced at Lang Bridges.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

In a tin bath eh, thats posh. In the 40s whilst living in York St, Church I remember being bathed in the "Slopstone" acka "Earthenware Sink". Also we only had electricity downstairs - can even remember the smoke stains from the Candles which were place on the bedrooms mantelpiece, we even had a Tippler Toilet" - was alwys afraid of falling down one.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Me too - I have a photo somewhere...

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Can any body tell me what soap they would have used in the tin bath, and also would they use it as a block or would they have grated it with a cheese like grater !!!!!!.

And when they were washing clothes in the dolly tub, what did they use no washing powder in those days.

And finally what was a poser used for and why did they use a poser and a dolly stick together.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

carbolic soap

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Bit of internet research some sites of which you may have already visited.

BTW it's a posser not a poser. Dolly stick appears to be the name for the wooden implement like a small stool with a long handle, posser is for the copper dome type of implement. Not used together as far as I can see but a dolly stick is also the name for a wooden stick used to take the clothes out of the tub after washing.

Washing Soda crystals would have been used in the dolly tub, also dolly blue to get things white.

Washing dollies, possers, laundry possing-sticks

?Back in the Day??: Life and How it was Lived a Hundred Years Ago II « "Not Yet Published"

Posser, Victorian, Original | Object Lessons - Houses & Homes: Victorians

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I recall the dolly tub and the posser
....and the washboard
Wringer Washers & Washboards

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Yep still got a glass washboard somewhere - never used by me but it had been left behind in the shed in the first house we bought in 1978 and too nice to throw away.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

It was Carbolic soap...or Olive soap...they used to cut it off in a lump when you went to the Co-op.
And yes my mum(and my gran) used grated carbolic soap for washing clothes and a huge chunk to rub on unsightly stains before whatever it was went into the dolly tub.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Bet it was cold for a bare bum, sitting on a slopstone sink drainer in winter!

I'm sure my grandmother(and maybe my mother) used to collect all the nearly finished bits of household soap and drop them in a jam jar with a bit of water in it- dissolved and made a sort of liquid soap for washing clothes.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Gordon we did that with bits of soap, but Ma used it for shampoo.....and dipped the comb into the slimy mixture and combed it through her hair before putting some crazy sort of bulldog clips in her hair, to make natural looking waves.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I still use carbolic ... get it down at the health food store; and you can get olive too. I love the smell of carbolic in a hot shower.:D By the by, when Jethro says "in those days", does it make anyone else feel old:rolleyes: I'll bet I'm not the only one on here who wore clogs:D

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I never wore clogs, but I wore some pretty hideous jumble sale shoes...twopence(old money ) a pair.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Luxury:D:D

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Eric, you wouldn't be saying that if you could have seen them...I would have preferred clogs!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I’ve just been reading all the very interesting accounts of the ‘luxuries’ of a by-gone era. Brought back memories - it's that 'age' thing. The house where I lived until I was 14 had a black-leaded fireplace and oven – my mother used to keep it well polished, hard work but not one complaint.
I was born in this house and my cot was the bottom drawer, never closed of course but it probably would have been a temptation to do so had I been a screaming baby (oops!).
Friday night was bath night – tin bath in the kitchen. Big rock kept in the garden during the summer became the bed-warmer in the winter – it was great, kept the heat well, wrapped in a blanket.
Dad held a big sheet of paper in front of the fire to create a draught and get it started – often paper caught on fire, no wonder I have a phobia about fire now.
Outside toilet, pan was emptied weekly. Yuk! Washday was Monday, ironing Tuesday and so on, never different. My mother possed the clothes in the dolly tub then put them through a heavy wringer. Clothes were hung out across the road on lines to dry, lines held up high with props to keep them out of the way of any passing vehicles, though not many of those.
Sheer luxury when we got a Council house…..and yes, I did wear clogs. Hand made by Thornber’s of Clitheroe if I remember rightly. I had a pair of blue ones. Lasted forever.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Hi Dotti, very interesting, can you think back to when your mother was cooking on the ( black lead fireside range) did she cook vegetables in a pan on the open fire or did she put the pan on the hot plate, the shelf above the oven !!!. Also Dotti apart from baking bread and cooking poultry in the oven what other meals would she have cooked/ baked in the oven.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Rabbit pies, meat pies. Rabbits straight from the traps so had to be skinned and gutted. Mondays we always had stewed potatoes with left-over meat from Sunday, stews. Cheap, wholesome food. Baking took up a full day, think it might have been Wednesday. Apple pies, cakes and biscuits. No gadgets to help with the beating. As a special treat mum made toffee in a pan on the stove. Pretty sure that vegetables were cooked on the hot plate. Himself can remember his grandmother’s mouth-watering pies and currant cake, also cooked in oven next to fire.
I remember the goose being plucked at Christmas before it could be cooked, what a treat this was – the goose that is not the plucking! Feathers flying. Goose grease saved to ease chapped hands.
This was also a time when kids could go off for the day roaming the fields. I took a bottle of cold (black) tea for my thirst (luxury instead of plain water) and a couple of jam butts to ease the hunger, which has absolutely nothing to do with your question - sorry!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Thank you for sharing that lovely story with us, didn't no about the toffee.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Treacle toffee great for bonfire nights and for cold nights sitting by the fire at home. Russian toffee and fudge just to name a couple more. A lot of stirring needed and then a patient wait for the toffee to cool and set. Many times a burnt tongue by being impatient!
No idea how mum managed to give us these treats, very little money. Btw, the kettle was always on the stove ready and waiting.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

...and mustn't forget the rice puddings!

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Hi Dotti can you remember bath nights !!! Who went in first adults or children and did they use the cloths horse as a privacy screen. I've head the saying ( don't throw the baby out in the bath water) but that would imply children went last.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Jethro...I remember bath nights........it was babies first, girls second, boys next....new water for Ma and Pa........and yes the clothes horse was used, not just for privacy, but to allow the towels somewhere warm to hang and to keep the draughts off those little pale bodies.
The water for our bath night was warmed by a Slaxone Copper, heated by a gas ring under the boiler(a very large water boiler - used for laundry on a Monday) the water in the range was for top up purposes, or that was the arrangement in out house.

Also the baby got pears soap...where we just got carbolic or green olive soap.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Ah... Pears soap - haven't used it for years but the smell would still take me back - except they seem to have changed it, as with so many other things these days, can't leave well alone. And sad to say, although a rethink was promised, it doesn't seem to have gone far.

And even sadder, it seems that soap is hard to find in many shops now - it's all gels and liquids - try scraping those into your tin bath on a Friday night!

Pears Traditional Soap abandons new recipe after Facebook campaign - Telegraph

This Pears soap just won't wash! | Life and style | The Guardian

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

And don't forget Dr. Lovelace's floating soap ... from Clayton:theband:

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I bought some pears soap recently( my skin on my hands is wrecked from lots of hand washing with harsh soap) thinking if it was good enough for babies, then it would be gentle on my hands.........it was not good at all.......though himself quite liked it for his morning ablutions...It certainly didn't smell the same.
I do wish they would leave tried and tested products alone.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Dr Bronner's soaps and toiletries are made the old fashioned way ie. no nasty petrochemicals.

Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps All-One!

Dr Bronner's - Natural Health Welwyn

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

I might just try some of that.......it isn't cheap but if it stops my hands from being sore then it will be worth it.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Not sure about the baby and the bath-water but the talk of tin baths - Friday night bath-time for me in the kitchen, as I was the youngest I think the others had their baths at a different time, Pears soap (I can still smell it) all bring so many memories back. Fennings Fever Cure, Malt Extract, wearing a Liberty bodice, pink pads to put on the chest (can't recall the name), Cod Liver Oil Capsules, etc., etc., - all to keep the colds at bay (didn't work though!). An orange or a few grapes (luxuries) from the street cart to help me get better if I had been ill - worked like magic.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Also remember Sloan's liniment for dad's aching back - remember the day when it came out too fast and ran down his back and 'under' - whoops!!!! a lot of cursing (and mum really hadn't done it on purpose).
Talking of soap before and cursing now reminds me of the carbolic soap threat 'you'll get your mouth washed out with carbolic soap if you say that again...' (and I did!)

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Thermogene medicated wadding?

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Sounds about right Susie. Also can still taste Cod Liver Oil Emulsion when I think of it..yuk! Himself remembers their bath night, always Friday. Five boys - youngest in first, eldest last - him being the eldest. Water boiled on stove in a big pot. Two bedrooms - 3 boys in one bed, 2 in another. But tell you what - they were happy times, we didn't know any different.

Re: Black lead fireside range (please help)
 

Tin bath, of course.