The Groovy 60s - Abbey National becomes Fabby National, and a Cure for the Hippy Look...

How can you be "with it" without money? Good question! The "non-materialistic", peace and love hippie lifestyle seemed to require lots of bunce - you couldn't "drop out" without it!

Very good play on the word "hippie", and one of my favourite magazine ads - it dates from 1968. Did any readers ever try Limmits chocolate wafers way back then and, if so, did they help your calorie controlled diet?

If you've a Limmits tale to tell us, please go to "My Profile" for the e-mail address.

It's All At The Co-op Now!

Crumbs! What a nosh-up!

The famous Co-op slogan and jingle originated in the 1960s (these ads are from 1968) and continued into the 1970s. Around the mid-70s, the slogan was changed to "Your Caring Sharing Co-op" and a new jingle arrived which wasn't half as much fun!

"It's All At The Co-op Now!", which was sometimes tweaked to "It's All At Your Co-op Now!", are both etched on my brain.

My head is simply full of old advertising jingles from the 1960s, 70s and 80s!

A Hippie Toaster...

This Morphy Richards toaster is decorated with influential designer Mary Quant's daisy motif.

Groovy, as the hippies might have said.

Twentieth Century Words by John Ayto (Oxford, 1999), informs us that the term hippie/hippy emerged in the early 1950s - "originally a low-profile synonym of hipster (1941) - i.e. someone who is 'hip' or in touch with fashionable tastes - hippie suddenly made it into the big time in the mid 1960s".

The hippies, of course, preached Peace and Love.

Many hippies took mind expanding drugs.

Hippies were usually middle class at the very least - the working classes could not afford to "drop out".

Most hippies protested against war.

Most hippies wore weird clothes.

Many hippies liked to go to rock concerts in muddy fields.

Many hippies wore ethnic clothes.

Hippies were often into religion - but usually not Church of England or anything else their parents were into.

Some hippies liked to be hairy.

Most hippies loved bell bottoms and flared trousers.

Many hippies were very promiscuous.

Just about every hippie believed in the freedom of the individual.

Many hippies were incredibly earnest.

Nowadays some members of the hippie generation decry every generation that has followed, giving them labels such as "Generation X" and accusing them of being boring, conservative copyists. Many seem to believe that their generation invented youthful idealism.

Maybe the hippie generation could do with a refresher course in Peace and Love?

In the meantime, how about a nice slice of toast from a Mary Quant toaster to be going on with? Wholemeal, of course...

Johnnie and Fanny Cradock...

A 1967 advertisement for Phillips, featuring Fanny and Johnnie.

Rising to fame in shows like Kitchen Magic in the 1950s, TV cooks Fanny and Johnnie Cradock reigned supreme in the 1960s. Fanny was the most formidable woman to ever not don an apron (she didn’t need one) and commented: “I’m no Women’s Libber, I wouldn’t be such a clot!” She didn’t need to be a Women’s Libber. Fanny ate adversaries, male or female, for breakfast!

To watch Fanny and monocled husband Johnnie was to watch a great double act. He played the silly dodderer, she the domineering doyen of the kitchen, and they were compulsive viewing.

Fanny's food was exciting - including such bizarre offerings as blue eggs, and she helped dissolve the mood of post war austerity in the 50s with her lovely (often) French fare. Like many cooks of the time, Fanny believed that French cuisine was it.

But she also dealt with other things. The earliest reference I have yet found to prawn cocktail was in a 1962 episode of Coronation Street, when posh Annie Walker mentioned it. In 1967, Fanny Cradock wrote:

One of the most sordid little offerings is the ubiquitous Prawn Cocktail with a good old ground padding of lettuce cut with a knife and darkening at the edges, a tired prawn drooping disconsolately over the edge of the glass like a debutante at the end of her first ball and its opposite number - a piece of lemon tasting of the knife - clutching the opposite side of the rim like a seasick passenger against a taffrail during a rough Channel crossing. This kind of presentation almost certainly confirms that the mayonnaise will be that bottled stuff, further sharpened by bottled tomato sauce…

Fanny proceeded to give her own super-dupah Prawn Cocktail recipe. Little old me, being lower working class, did not even glimpse a Prawn Cocktail until the 1980s. And then it was the bog standard version - complete with bottled tomato sauce.

And I loved it - wolfed it down. Philistine!

Oh well...

Fanny marched through the 1960s, making numerous television series and writing several books. She entered the 70s as she had entered the 60s - as TV Cook Supreme. But then she came unstuck...

More here.