Do you remember the rag man, and other street traders from the 60's and 70'

[JackK0 10]

Great thread Ive heard of kids getting a goldfish ans colouring book after giving there dads best clothes out haha

[PhilipB 10]

No idea what his name was but we had a rag and bone man on Duke St. In Park District. Had a black and white horse and he always wore a red kneckerchief. Remember always getting pegs, balloons and a few cups and saucers.

[bantycock 10]

I'm new to this forum, and new to Sheffield and the UK. But this sounds so interesting. I read almost all the posts, and they made me feel nostalgic thinking about all the gypsies that went around our house in India. They had the most interesting things to sell. salted tamarind, guavas, mirrors, colourful stones. I wish I saw them, its been ages. I guess I last saw them when I was 12-13.

Anyways, is it possible to find the gypsies, or the french onion sellers, or the knife sharpners here now?? Just out of curiosity.

 

Not these days the gypsies here are quite opposite the ones you know !

[biggsy 10]

I can remember Derek Horan with really thick jet black hair, He was a rag man round Darnall, His horse was kept in a stable at the back of the Ball inn at Darnall road

 

We used to nick the iron cellar grates from the houses that were being demolished and throw them on his cart!!

 

He used to say "Stop it- You'll get me run in'! Then he'd say- "You missed one over there"!! :hihi:

 

Biggsy

[Alan Else 10]

They used to give a Goldfish if you had enough rags in the 50s.

[grinder 10]

Back in the 40's and early 50's it used to be little yellow chicks, unless you knew what you were doing they didn't last through the night.

Hart breaking really...

Edited December 15, 2015 by grinder

[JackK0 10]

Yellow chicks?

[willybite 10]

Back in the 40's and early 50's it used to be little yellow chicks, unless you knew what you were doing they didn't last through the night.

Hart breaking really...

 

hiya grinder j. on another thread i wrote about in the war years when i lived on bath st when the ragman visited around our street things were so bad he would sell some of the clothes he'd collected, the women would scramble around his dray to see if there were any fit to wear, got my first two wheel bike off one it was a fairy bike. bg enough for a seven year old.

my wife told the story of when her brother was given a chick by the rag man and it grew into a rooster, she said it thought it was almost human around the house, it grew so big her mum gave it to her mother who lived on the wybourne, she had a chicken run, but it used to frighten her,

another one here my father in law told me as when he was a youngu'n his grandfather used to breed fighting cocks when he lived on talbot street in the early part of the 1900s, one day some got out of their cages and got into the other domestic fowl cages, he said they killed all but a few.

Edited December 18, 2015 by willybite

[JackK0 10]

Wow that is an interesting story about the chicks I wish they were still around today on there horse and carts the character is of this sort of thing has truly gone

[grinder 10]

There still around only these days there called Charity shops and you don't get nothing for them.

 

Owdo Willy.

Yes, at about 5 I got one and got it through those dodgy first couple of days, it was about a month old when an Aunt accidentally knelt on it, I was inconsolable for a week .

There was me and about five adults at the funeral in the back garden.......

Edited December 16, 2015 by grinder

[stpetre 12]

What about the Indians (those with turbans) that came around with big suitcases-big men too !- selling whatever, but honest stuff. in my area of Pitsmoor the 'Ragman's' cry was "Donkey stone, Goldfish for Rags" and the onion sellers were bicycle riding authentic Frenchmen. Pitsmoor is along way from France...however.

[JackK0 10]

Onion Johnnies