We always smelt of camphorated oil, no matter what time of year it was.
I can remember two things used for colds; one was Dad’s sock, thickened with
camphorated oil, put round the neck and I had to go to bed with that. When I think about what that safety pin could have done if it came open!! The second was your vest thickened with camphorated oil. We always smelt of camphorated oil, no matter what time of the year it was.
My Grandmother used to say that we needed Spring medicine. She used to take lemons with their skins on, bi-carbonate of soda and Epsom salts and boil them together in a pan. We had to drink a little glass of it. When it was cold it was quite pleasant, a bit like lemonade. We had to drink a glass of that every night before we went to bed and that went right through our systems. Barley was boiled as well, to flush out the kidneys and we had to do this religiously for a period of time every year. A third thing was cod liver oil, it was one of my worst memories. We used to come home from school and, after our dinner, stand in line and take a spoonful of cod liver oil. If you were sick you had to take another one. The greatest thing I remember in my life was when they invented Haliborange. They were little rubber capsules, it was dead easy, just a drink of water and it was gone, so we gave up the bottles of cod liver oil.
When you bumped your head, butter was put on it. It became all greasy and stuck to your hair, it was horrible. Sprained ankles got wrapped in vinegar. Also vinegar cloths were wrapped around bad heads. Sometimes it worked, but the smell of vinegar was awful.
My husband believes in Beecham’s Powder for everything in the world. There used to be another powder before that – Zetas or something, but he cannot get that anymore so he takes Beecham’s on a spoon with milk.
There were Carter’s little liver pills, Sanatogen and my grandmother believed in Bristol Cream Sherry. She wasn’t a drinker but she took a drink of Bristol Cream Sherry.