A feminine tale with a twist

Knife man, clothes prop man, dunny man, Rawleigh man, Waltons man and the Bebarfalds man (C8). Granny’s been waiting for the sisterhood to get around this over-blokey thread, and Brenda Kerrigan of Speers Point has obliged: “My recollection is the Rawleigh lady. She rented my nanna’s garage and filled it with all her potions. My sister and I took great delight in unscrewing tins and sampling the contents, unbeknown to our nanna. I think she was also the first distributor of Twisties, which we also sampled and ‘weren’t they the most delicious things we had ever tasted?’”

Cristine Doherty, 79, of Greenway (ACT) still has a tin of Rawleigh’s Antiseptic Salve, “which I bought at the Royal Easter Show approximately 50 years ago. It’s ‘medicated’, I can’t see any expiry date. So, still good to go then?”

“It’s no wonder my brain is having trouble with recent memories, when it has stored images of the Lan Choo tea packet (C8), and that you needed a minimum of 36 coupons for the most measly gift from the catalogue,” writes Robert Hosking of Paddington. “Although, our green Pyrex baking dish did serve us well for many years, and I’m sure is still around somewhere.”

Robert Roobottom of Taree wants to over-complicate the complicated when he informs Peter Riley (C8) that “when Sussan Ley’s taxpayer-funded trip to purchase an investment property became news, I simply changed the spelling of her name to $u$$an.”

Here’s another missive from the black-and-white world (C8), this time from Corinne Johnston of Gymea Bay: “I was watching the 1938 film The Lady Vanishes with my granddaughters, aged seven and 10 recently. After a few minutes, Miss Seven said: ‘You completely forget there’s no colour because the story is so good’. A mini Margaret Pomeranz, perhaps?” It didn’t go quite as well for Pauline McGinley of Drummoyne: “Watching some old newsreels when my son was little, he was bewildered as to why ‘people had to walk so quickly in the olden days’.”

“As a child, I recall the first time I watched colour TV at a friend’s place on a Saturday morning,” says Viv Munter of Tumbi Umbi. “I couldn’t believe Ozzie Ostrich was pink! I went home and told my sisters all about it.”

Edward Loong of Milsons Point confesses that “C8’s reminisces of late remind me of the quote: ‘Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be’.”

Column8@smh.com.au

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