Let’s do this together
I’ve got my ticket to the Museum of Antiquities – I’ve been loving all the kit and caboodle you’ve been remembering that were the height of fashion in their day, and are now just curiosities.
To the exhibits, I would like to add the weird vibrating belt machine… It came into my life in the 70s, so must have been a second-hand purchase by Mum as they originated in the decade before.
One day, there it was, standing proud in the kitchen, an instrument of torture that looked like a mixer or a mangle, with a base to stand on, a large belt to loop around your jiggly bits, and a metal toggle that started all the fun.
And what was that fun?
It violently shook and vibrated your flesh, supposedly to melt the fat away. So Mum slung the belt around her bottom, up a bit to her love handles, then turned round and did her belly too.
Of course us kids couldn’t wait to have a go!
I soon regretted it. I had no fat to lose, being a skinny thing in a growth spurt but it vibrated me nonetheless. And made my bum totally, horribly numb. And itchy.
There were lots of occasions when adults mystified me. This was definitely one of them.
Did anyone really expect them to work?
My theory is they just made whichever bit of you you wanted rid of so numb that you only thought it was gone.
But it’s Judith Brook who wins the Museum of Antiquities award today.
“I had to smile when I saw the Ewbank sweeper,” she says. “When l got married in 1980 a friend bought me one for a wedding present.
“She said, ‘I’ve tried it out and it works’, and sure enough when I unwrapped it, she hadn’t even cleaned out the dust! How cheeky was that?”
■ Can any of you beat that? Tell us about the strangest wedding gift you ever received. Email siobhan.mcnally@mirror.co.uk or you can write to Community Corner, PO Box 791, Winchester SO23 3RP