A little more

When we were young the war was at it's worst. Street lights were not turned on. Naturally the lights were gas. They had a little pilot light so there was no need for a lamplighter to be used.
It didn't stop me from being a lamplighter when I worked on the Railway. Everyone had to take turns in working in the Time Office. all you was really was an errand boy, taking out tickets to the fitters and doing menial tasks like that. When it got dusk, you would be told to turn on the lights. About 5o% were of gas, the remainder were electric. A few switches turned on several lights but generally electric lights were single switches. To turn on the gas, we had a long pole with a hook. Not hard but if it was very windy, tricky.
I don't know if anybody has seen an old phone. The one with a mouthpiece in the centre of a board and an earpiece that is attached to a cord. Difficult to explain but we had several of those phones in the loco. This by these were used throughout the 1950s. Mind you almost all of us never had used a phone before except in a public phone booth.
Going back to street lighting. If one used a torch at night, it was just a pencil torch. I was frightened to go out in the dark as it was DARK. One has no idea how dark it can be on a moonless night. On more than one occasion people have got lost trying to find their way home.
I can't remember ever going out alone in the darkest of nights. To be honest, there was nothing to go out for. The A R Ps were I think in charge of making sure that there was not a chink of light showing from your home in the dark nights. If a chink of light was showing, there would be a bang on the door and inform you that a light was showing. It happened just once to my Mother. She immediately went to see where the light was coming from and rectified the problem. I think, but I am not certain that all homes were issued with black out curtains. It sounds dreadful now but it was the norm. We were bought up to this, as was never throwing away things that might have a use.
Almost all now know nothing of the measuring of feet. This was done to see if your feet were of sufficient size to qualify for extra clothing coupons.
This charade was done at school. I call it this because I have small feet. Now I have size 7 shoes, yes that is I think the smallest size, It used to be 6.
Well we were called out at school to have our feet measured. Not quite as you think but it was a mark from the skirting board. Each of us would stand with our heels touching the skirting board. I always hated this because I knew that I had no chance whatsoever of having feet large enough to qualify for extra clothing coupons.
By the way, I am small, when I was measured and weighed for the Army, I was measured at 5ft 7 1./2" tall and 112 lbs in weight. As one gets older one shrinks. I think I was 5ft 6" when I was measured for an operation. They use this for the amount of anaesthetic they administer.
Enough rubbish for now. More soon.