Rag 'n' Bone men

Who can remember their local rag and boneman with their horse and cart or pram?

Hi Sally Yes, with his pram. Crying "Ragbone". We got a free windmill if you gave him stuff.

Hi all, I remember the rag and bone man with his horse and cart, shouting "any rag bone" and ringing his hand bell, the cart was full of scrap iron, tin baths and old cookers, I think he gave us a goldfish when we gave him an old iron bed, but the biggest rush was for the manure left by his horse, whose name was Billy if I remember right, my mother wanted it for her roses, my father for the rhubarb, ahh happy days.

Every week, the rag and bone man and his horse and cart used to visit our street (Lake View Rd) and shout something which was completely unintelligible to me as a nipper. On numerous occasions, mum had to explain that he was shouting "rag and bone". It was like Eric Morecambe's depiction of the newspaper vendor who shouted "Eeeeeen stennit!" instead of "Evening Standard". Regarding the horse muck, there were always copious piles of it in the road (virtually no motor cars in those days), but there were allotments and waste ground opposite us (now a massive park). We were horrified, nay, disgusted, as one old chap in a cap always used to appear from somewhere, following the trail with a bucket, and picking up the stuff, fresh and wet and steaming, not with a shovel, but with his bare hands. Probably for an allotment. Them were the days.

I certainly do. I lived in Woodway Lane (Walsgrave) during the late seventies. I'm sure I can remember the transition from horse to large truck. I was very young, but can remember the call being given out. I was more interested at what was already on the cart than giving over anything. Milk bottles with partly frozen cream and trying to beat the sparrows to it during winter mornings, the autumn harvest festival, putting candles in hollowed out turnips for Halloween, and Guy Fawkes night. They give me a smile when I think of those times.

My father was a Brummie and told me of his street cry as a child when touting for business (a pailful of horse manure for sale). He would tramp the streets and shout out - "'Orse mucky-o, 'orse mucky-o!" in a strong Brummie accent. Any such street cries that are uniquely to Coventry?

The rag and bone man, with his horse and cart, used to drive through the streets in Stoke crying "Any-ole-regun-bon-oh!" which I took to mean "Any old rag or bones-O". If you took some old clothes to him you might be given a windmill on a stick which, if you were lucky, would spin round in the wind.

Yes, the rag and bone man. When I lived in Islington, London, in the 1940s/1950s, the proverbial rag and bone man came around with his barrow; the steel tyre scraping along the cobblestones and him shouting his cry of: "Any ol' rags 'n' lumbah!!" The forerunner of recycling, some of these characters gave away goldfish in jam jars as a payment for reusable materials they collected.

Are there any more older residences left that still retain the lovely Iron Lace of a bygone era, or was it all commandeered for the war effort together with any old pots and pans ?

Funny you should mention this Dreamtime. yesterday I was at my sons house, and the house next door was being completely renovated, I noticed in the front garden a cast iron fireplace that they had thrown out, I asked if I could have it they said yes but after a closer inspection I found it was cracked as a result of being levered off the wall so I didn't bother with it. I thought it would make a feature in my garden.

Yes, well I go a back a bit farther. Along with muck they collected they also collected soot off the sweep and put it on the garden and in very rural places the 'lav' bucket was emptied into trenches. Covered up it grew the finest 'veg' you could eat. Sounds terrible these days but the greatest compost you could find. The rag and bone disappeared during the war, so did all the railings, and believe it or not, Germany was buying all our metal scrap, even on the day we declared war. It was said the best place for an allotment was in the graveyard. Kids on farms didn't have time to wash their hands every few minutes, and rather than harm, the the bacteria kept them free from a lot of diseases. All these natural products broke down quickly in the soil and enriched it, it was the chemicals in the fifties they couldn't cope with. But yes, we even had rides on the rag and bone cart, he would give us sweets if we helped him.

Yep, we used to play in muck (over the allotments and waste ground) and exposure to the world strengthened our immune systems, although we didn't know it at the time. It never did us any harm. Not like the over-cossetted kids of today who grow up in clinical conditions, then pick up every bug going! We also used to play with spades digging the rough patch at the back of our garden. Got our hands covered in horrible black stuff that wouldn't wash off, we did. I'd never heard the word soot before. Turns out every time our chimney was swept, my Dad would spread it over the back of our garden. We had a rag and bone man with his horse and cart every week, but that was moribund even in the fifties.

Oh that lovely word 'SOOT', my dad would swear by it, kept the snails at bay as well as the embers from the fire and chimney. Up to our necks in muck and bullets we were on the local bomb site. It was nothing to catch measles off someone and we were all too idle to go in the house for a pee, so long as there was somewhere to sneak behind we were never too proud in those days. As long as us kids were happy out there so were our parents. Slim is right they are too cossetted these days and we wonder why children seem to have lost their immunity to different sickness. The rag 'n bone man has long gone, now we have bulk refuse collections every so often and what a mess that is after folk have rummaged through it on the kerbside and left the remains all over the place.

The rag and boneman wasn't around during the war, old rag was taken to the church hall and the WVS collected it, cut it into squares and oblongs, sewed it together as blankets and it went to forces hospitals, or seamen's centres. I think the bones made glue and was used. Old newspaper was used for cups, saucers and glasses as protection from the bombing, or in our case the chip shop, otherwise it was collected for the war effort. Nothing went to waste.

Quite. In my day, chips were wrapped in old newspaper, and tasted better. Now it's that clean thin whitish paper that is far from greaseproof, so by the time you get home has all disintegrated and stuck to your chips. Tastes horrible, it does. H&S gone mad, or.. perhaps another government measure to annoy the public. It must be a legal requirement cos' it's everywhere.