Wednesday 24 August 2016

Toilet Brushes and Green Shield Stamps

It is currently 05:20. I woke up at 04:20, hot and bothered, the bedroom temperature being 24C, despite having both the window and curtains open and it being far cooler outside! The birds have just started singing, the clouds are red pink with the rising sun and other than me and one or two neighbours both front and back, all was quiet. Unfortunately, the blasted pigeons have just started up. Gee, they are so noisy.

On our quest to sort out the toilet, and buy a new toilet brush, we noticed again, how things have changed.

Once upon a time, there would be oodles of brushes to choose from, in differing styles and colours to match your bathroom. All hardware shops and department stores, appeared to sell them.

This time we had a real struggle. Most supermarkets and shops sold just one, two if really lucky. Most were in machine pressed metal which looked cheap and nasty and quite frankly, not up to the job with a silly little brush and thin handles. In the end, we went to A-g-s where they had 19 to choose from and duly selected.

Did you know that this shop was formed by the founder of the Green Shield Stamps shops? No, neither did we. Here is a brief history

Who remembers Green Shield Stamps, available from various shops although I only remember them in T-s-o shops?

My sister H., used loads of books of these stamps (physically given out with your shopping, in a similar method to electronic points today). They were used to buy kettles, toasters, cooking implements, pans, pots, and a myriad of other items. Her husband was a heavy smoker and reams of these use to pour out the till when they shopped. Licking sheets of them into a book, then keeping those books safe until exchange time, was quite an operation.

Sometimes, you would only get one or two of them and keeping them safe until you got home and could stick them into the book was quite a task. Ah well.

8 comments:

  1. We still have the monopoly set we used our green shield stamps for. Mainly from petrol as we lived in the country and used a lot. I think we had an ironing board too but long gone.

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    1. Wonder how different in look it is to a modern day one?

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  2. I remember Green Shield stamps but didn't know they were anything to do with A***s - thanks for that!

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    1. News to us as well. We didn't realise they were sold in lots of shops either!

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  3. Wow, I haven't thought of the S&H Green Stamps (what they were called here in America) in so long! My mother allowed me to collect the ones she earned at the stores and I put them into books. I remember for my parents' birthdays one year (they had the same birthday,) I gathered the stamp books and put them in the basket of my bike and rode down to the shopping center where the Green Stamp shop was. I exchanged the green stamp books for an electric popcorn maker! I was so excited to give that to my parents. We had that popcorn maker for a lot of years. What a good memory! :-)

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    1. I thought for one minute you were going to say you had lost them on the way to the shop!

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  4. Wow its been a lot of years since I have thought about green shield stamps, I can remember getting some glassware with it once.

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    1. Part of the same culture as buying things on tick as that was the only way to do it for some. Mind you back then we would have been too scared to default on the payments.

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