MANY families had a medicine cupboard stocked with potions to tackle all but the most serious of ailments.

It was a necessary part of life before the National Health Service was created in 1948, unless you belonged to a works’ scheme or had private health insurance.

To avoid the expense of paying a doctor, families would often keep a range of remedies to treat themselves.

Bob Hounslow, of Squires Close, Brize Norton, recalls: “One medicine immediately springs to mind – California Syrup of Figs for constipation. I still shudder at the memory of the taste of that dreadful concoction.

“One curious item my mother kept in her cupboard was a lump of goose grease fat, which she reckoned was good for a sore throat, although thankfully she never tried it out on me.

“I can also recall her discussing with my aunt the merits of a baked onion placed inside a sweaty sock and applied to the ear as a cure for earache.

“Paracetamol wasn’t available in the UK until 1956, so she would have kept a strip of aspirin-based Aspro tablets as a painkiller.

“Along with a packet of Beecham’s Powders, that made you sweat out in bed any symptoms of a fever.

“A few spoonfuls of Eno’s Fruit Salts in a glass of water were used to cure indigestion and, in lesser quantities, made a nice fizzy lemonade drink.

“Oil of Cloves dabbed on a tooth eased the pain of toothache and sniffing the fumes from a bowl of hot water, with a few drops of Friars Balsam added to it, eased nasal congestion.

“My father firmly believed a glass of rum and cloves was an excellent preventive measure against the common cold and every time he went outside in the winter time, he would religiously partake of a glassful.

“Oddly enough, I don’t remember him ever having a cold.”

Mr Hounslow recalls that to improve the health of the nation’s children, the Government issued every family with a big brown jar of cod liver oil and malt.

“So every day, with a screwed-up face, every child in the land had a spoonful of this glutinous fishy mixture poured down their throats. “Our mother took pity on us and we had the sweet-tasting Virol instead.

“When I caught chicken pox, after all my spots had been dabbed with calamine lotion, I was put to bed and the curtains were drawn.

“Then my mother went downstairs and came back up with a shovelful of hot coals from the living room fire to light a fire in the small decorative iron grate in the bedroom. “It was so nice just lying in bed in that darkened room, watching the lights from the fire flickering on the ceiling, that it almost made it worthwhile being ill.”

Mr Hounslow recalls one occasion when his grandfather sought advice from his doctor, because he was starting to go bald. “He was told to buy a bottle of Oil of Paraffin from the chemist and rub some on his head twice a day.

“Thinking he’d save himself some money, as he already had a can of paraffin at home for the oil lamp, he rubbed that on his head instead – so everywhere he went, he smelt of paraffin for days afterwards!

Any other memories of home medicines to share with readers?

Write and let me know.