BUTTER PATS

BUTTER PATS

We always called these wooden utensils "butter pats" although I note that they are not only still being made, but are generally known as "butter paddles."
I can remember these from my childhood and they were not new then so I am guessing they probably date from at least the 1950s.

For those who don't know what they are.......the idea is to more or less beat a small piece of butter flat between the wooden paddles and then roll it into a little corrugated curl to be served with toast etc.

When I was (very) little, my mother would keep me occupied with shaking a jar with cream in it until it solidified into butter, pouring the liquid out, adding a little salt, and then patting the resulting tiny piece of butter into shape - and activity which took about half an hour or so without the need of adult intervention. (School holidays??????)

(A bit of a note though, this was a very long time ago and cream nowadays doesn't come basically "as is" in glass bottles so I don't know if it will work with the modern stuff.......mind you it would still take about half an hour to experiment and find out!). 

MELBOURNE folding postcard from 1911

Front of Postcard

This is a wonderful folding souvenir card of Melbourne which is likely to date to the early 1900s. Flinders Street station which features on one of the pictures was not completed until 1905, and although most of the dresses are long there is one lady in a shorter dress so the card was probably produced a few years after this. Most of the major streets in Central Melbourne are pictured with horse-drawn carriages outnumbering cars. Electric trams, which began their service in 1906 can also be seen. 1927, the same year that federal parliament (another picture) moved to Canberra, so it must have been produced before this date. My great grandmother, to whom the card was given died in 1933.

 Its reassuring that many of grand buildings are still to be seen today, including the Grand Hotel (now known as the Windsor) in Spring Street. There are pictures of wool being loaded on the Murray River and a stack of wheat ready to go. In both cased the transport was provided by bullock carts – a team of 14 awaited the cargo of wool.

Amongst the other pictures is one of Port Melbourne Pier, crowded with mail steamers. Printing on the front of the card, informs the purchaser that Postage Rates were: Commonwealth 1/2d, British Empire 1d. If used for correspondence, letter rates. There doesn't seem to be an option if one wanted, for instance to send the card to America or other more exotic parts.

Back of Postcard

1960s Toys from Breakfast Cereal Packs

Breakfast Cereal "Critters"

At the moment the two supermarkets that dominate the grocery trade where I live are competing for customers by offering giveaways of small plastic objects – lion king oshis in one case (who knew there was even such a thing as an “ooshi”) or mini groceries. Encouring adults to buy things by targeting their children is not a new thing, although in the past it was usually a particular product rather than the shop from which it came that offered the goodies Back in the late 60s, and into the 70s, children collected, swapped and nagged their parents to buy whatever contained the latest giveaways.

Kellogs were particularly good at targeting the 8 year olds of the day with such treasures as little plastic space creatures and sea monsters. I seem to remember that they were separate series but sufficiently abstract in design so that I can't actually tell you from which these come. Back in the day there was no putting our creatures away for the future in special collector's cases – we used them as toys in the sandpit, made them “swim” in jars of water, or took them wherever our imagination led. In short we enjoyed playing with them rather than looking at them, and we couldn't even spell “collectible/collectable” so its a bit of a miracle that any survived. It appears from a couple that have (or rather, “had” survived because they are now in the bin) that we even bit the top off them from time to time (or allowed our pets to do so). I seem to recall that even when nothing rattled inside the box, most cereal packets at the very least featured puzzles or pictures to colour on the back.