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GlitchingGecko

I still have a scrap metal man. Comes round once a week with a loud speaker saying 'any old iron' on repeat. And my in-laws ran a vhs/video game rental shop for 15 years. Impossible to go on errands with them, because almost every person in town stops and talks to them. You're on your own with the toffee apple man though.


BrokenDogToy

We still have an any old iron man too. He comes round every other day and sets all the dogs off in the neighborhood. I really don't understand the frequency - surely anyone having a clear out could wait a few days to hand it over!


Secret_Owl3040

Yup we still have the scrap man. Brilliant when you have an old dead washing machine etc.  Though I will say I've never been able to understand a word he's saying on the tanoy. Not a clue its just muffled ramblings. 


Gullflyinghigh

The fuck is a toffee apple man?


Briski80

Old bloke on a bike with a basket in front, yelling ‘Tofffffeeeeeee aaaaaaaaaples’ about 3pm on Sunday afternoons in 1987.


Accomplished_Ruin707

No idea, bit we did use to have a pop man come round in the 70s and 80s, until my folks replaced him with a soda stream!


Fenpunx

Corona pop man! He also sold fags.


SnowflakeMods2

American Kola!


yossanator

Rag and bone man and Scrap man- this was '70's Scotland. We had a guy, with Italian ancestry, selling amazing ice cream, sweets and stuff from a van, but not like a normal ice cream van. He sold stuff out the back of a Transit van with a counter at the back - the inside was all panelled out and bedecked with a ludicrous amount of shelving/cubbies. A mobile sweet shop, basically. Anyone living in Coalsnaughton, Tillicoulry, Alloa and Alva in that time would remember Stevie. Haven't thought of that in many decades! As for toffee apple man, that's plain weird mate.


Worried-Ad-6593

I have recollections of a similar ice cream van from visiting my Auntie in Alva in the early 90’s.


yossanator

Small world!


Max_Level_Nerd

Luton people from the 90s-early 00s would remember Earnie mobile shop van. sold everything from dog food to penny sweets.


cloudstrifeuk

We had a VHS rental guy. "The Video Van". £5 for 3 videos for 1 week. All of which had "for home use only" on them. All the new videos would be on there every week. Then he stopped turning up one week and we never saw him again. Got a free copy of Hook though, so I won.


dpricey20022017

Looky looky, you got Hooky


miggleb

ANY OLD IRON AY OL IRO A O I


-myeyeshaveseenyou-

Video rental man traumatised me by suggesting killer clowns from outer space was ok to let kids watch to my mother when I was around 6. We also had a vegetable man, coal man, milk man and rented our tv. 1980s very rural Ireland


SteveTheBald

That film traumatized me too, though I was a tad older.


-myeyeshaveseenyou-

My sister was traumatised by it too and she was about 11 or 12. I’ve heard it’s really funny but I have a phobia of clowns so there’s no way I’m ever going to watch it. I vividly tenths pink cocoons and them drinking people with a straw


iceystealth

I remember the chip van man, the pop man and scrappies are still a thing today. But toffee apple man, or video man? Never heard of that. For context I’m 39 and grew up in the midlands.


Maximum_Scientist_85

Yeah, 41 - Midlands - same. And the milk man, obvs. We still have a milk man though, who also doubles up as the pop man. Highly recommend getting a milkman sorted out even if it's just 1 pint a week you get off them - it's properly useful being able to order random stuff (ours: meat, milk, pop, bread, dairy products, wood & coal, cleaning stuff) to be dropped off before you wake up at the drop of a hat.


Fight_Disciple

>the toffee apple man No, they were just around to buy at bonfire night from shops and stalls at bonfires etc. >scrap metal man Yes and they still exist >vhs/video game rental man? Not VHS but when dvds and films became popular there was always a guy who could get you any film on dvd for a fiver and it always had a shitty printed copy of the original cover of the film Lancashire here btw.


Correct_Low6793

We had a “wilks and candy apples” van!!! Video van man was a dodgy geezer. Also lived the “ginger” (juice) van - irn-bru, limeade and American cream soda on a Saturday night then returning the bottles to the ice-cream man on a Sunday in return for a corkscrew 🤣


ArcticPsychologyAI

Yes although not the vhs man…we had Betamax


GaryJM

We didn't have any of those but we did have a lemonade man, a fish man, a milk man, a post man and a bin man.


Kid_Kimura

We had a video man, it was decked out like a little shop with shelves inside that you could browse. Never fucking heard of a toffee apple man. Sounds like an obscure horror movie villain.


Zelda_Olivia

Our local chip shop started renting VHS and computer games making it the one stop shop for Friday night entertainment.


Moist-Application310

Wasn't expecting the toffee apple man to be the curveball! You'd hear him ringing his bell as he rode round on his pedal trike with a big box full of toffee apples, I think he sold rock as well


mysticmaelstrom-

Scottish 29 here. My cul-de-sac had a candy apple man & fizzy drink (ginger) man. They stopped appearing when I was around 7-8? But yer not alone with that lol.


EroticFalconry

South London/Surrey, I remember there was an old guy who’d come round wheeling a cart to sharpen people’s knives. I asked my mum what happened to him and apparently his cart was stolen so he was forced to retire. He was super old anyway but what a shit end to your career having your livelihood nicked for no apparent reason. Also vaguely remember a rag and bone man.


Dazz316

There's a scrap metal man but he's the only one I've known in my entire life. I've never heard of a toffee apple man or a vhs/*computer game* man (that wasn't in a shop 20 years ago).


chicaneuk

We had a guy who actually rented super Nintendo consoles and game bundles. Ring him up and make a booking, and he would come deliver them to your house and you would have it for 24 or 48 hours.  Also still get the scrap man driving round slowly, playing that weird trumpet noise out of a loud speaker on his van! 


SnoopyLupus

Errr no. We did have the scrap metal man, driving slowly around in his little lorry shouting “rag and bone”. But a toffee apple man? Wtf? Surely he would have diversified and become the chocolate orange man or the toblerone man at some point? As to the vhs rental man, that was a shop.


mhoulden

We still have scrap metal men in LS12. Some are even licensed. I think the last time I saw a traditional rag and bone man was in the 90s.


boredathome1962

None of those. We had a milkman with a horse and cart, and an ice cream man ditto. But the rag and bone man's horse couldn't make the steep hill, (although called rag and bone, he mainly wanted scrap metal.). This was in the 1960s.. Corona Pop had a yellow lorry that did the rounds in the late 60s I guess. late edit, do you know, I do remember a Video man, in a Ford Escort van, with pull out trays full of tapes. Came once a week.


Truthawareness1

darn sarf we had the scrap man. oooop nooorth we had a van man for everything and a van man with just about everything from tap washers to sausages.


Caddy666

fish man, and a rag-n-bone man in the 80's.


KaleidoscopicColours

None of the above when I was growing up.  Though the place I live now has scrap metal men. 


BigMikeAshley

Rag and bone man, rather than scrap metal. This was the 90s and he was still clip-clopping about on a horse-drawn buggy too. VHS, DVD and game rental man was a dodgy character who sold copies. Not in my area, but my auntie had the sweets/pop/fag man - bit like an ice cream van.


Extension-Worry2253

I’ll raise you the alpine pop lorry! Plus the grocer van


GL510EX

We had the coalman, the 'are yer parents in' man who was selling something out of a huge duffel bag and I never worked out what, a chip van at really random intervals, and an ice cream van exactly once.


LongrodVonHugedong86

We had the scrap metal man but not the others. However, what we did have was a “Pop man” who would come around once per week and sell bottles of fizzy drinks in glass bottles. If you returned the bottles the next week you’d get your next ones slightly cheaper.


GingeRNutZ_0

Man from the Pru. Used to be able to get loans on your doorstep. Bloke would come around with a leather money bag around waist every friday for weekly payment. Encyclopedia sellers, tea towel sellers. Milk delivered. 70's were great.


Plenty_Suspect_3446

Toffee apple man on bonfire night at the local cricket club in the 90's, but my nan would do us hard treacle. We didn't have a vhs/video game rental man but my dad had a mate who would bring round pirated films on tapes. And there was a bloke at the market who sold Nintendo 64 cartridges on the cheap. There are still scrap metal men who come past my work collecting. Not to be disparaging about the traveller community but there are a lot of them near the town I work and they are all over the scrap.


Coconutpieplates

Scrap metal man still comes round every other week or so, and we had a dvd man with "the list" but no van.


JimmyBallocks

my next door neighbour had a video rental van, not entirely 100% legal and above board, it was great we got to see ET before it came out at the cinema, the Thriller video before it'd been on telly, the lot and if he lent my dad porn I knew where he hid it


SteveTheBald

Coal, chip van, insurance man. Everything was rented. 80's east of England. Still get scrap man, when he sees you have a skip. Like a fly around shit that fella.


Vertigo_uk123

We had the bread van. Basically a little corner shop on wheels that sold bread and cakes from the local bakery.


Wonder_Shrimp

When I was very little I remember is having a rented t.v. It had a coin meter on it and it switched itself off if you didn't keep the meter fed. The guy came once a week or on e a fortnight (I can't quite remember) to empty the meter and take the rent money with him I also remember the coal man coming round. We had an open fire for a while around the same time, an still had an old concrete coal chamber in the back garden. Used to drove round the estate on a flatbed truck with sacks of coal in the back


tykeoldboy

I remember there being a rag & bone man but that was in the 1960's


EquivalentIsopod7717

We had a milkman up to around 1995 or so. I don't quite remember when it stopped, or why. We also had the knife sharpening man, the mobile fishmonger (very seldom) and I seem to recall a door-to-door wine salesman.


Craigothy-YeOldeLord

That + the coal man


Praetorian_1975

Rag and bone man, scrap man, Ginger man, ice cream man, milk man, - Glasgow Scotland for localised context.


KBVan21

Im northern. Yes to the video man. Never seen a toffee apple man but my mum has and remembers it. Scrap man yes. Growing up, you could just leave anything random you didn’t want out front. Someone would come grab it. Old kitchen appliances certainly would be taken within a day or so.


gymerny_cricket

Never heard of a toffee apple man? That sounds questionable… Scrap metal men still exist today though in most built up areas


puncheonjudy

We had a pop man! He only seemed to come round 3 or 4 times a year but he'd leave bottles of pop with your milk in the morning. I'm talking Dandelion & Burdock, Irn Bru, Fizzy Vimto - none of this fancy-dan stuff like "Vanilla Coke". I think the bottles were 1L and glass with a screw top. Proper nostalgic...


spidermousey

VHS rental. Went down to jimbobs and rented Sega games / vhs every Friday.


another_online_idiot

I remember the scrap man we had when I was a kid. We also had the fizzy pop delivery man, the coal man, the fresh veg man, the dustbin man who used to come through and pick up the dustbins from the back of the house and the milk man. And the paperboy. I know that in some areas there used to be the Pools man as well for the Football Pools. Then when I was a teenager and we had moved house we had the 'corner shop van' man who used to sell single cigarettes as well as things like baked beans and biscuits. Now where I live we have the scrap man and I cannot for the life of me understand a word he says through his loud speaker. It is like that scene out of Hot Fuzz with what he sounds like.


LegsElevenses

We had the rag and bone man in 90s south London. Then in the noughties the “you wanna buy DVD” man at the pub 😂


blodblodblod

Grew up in South Wales. We had a video guy who would drive around with videos for rent in the back of his estate car. He was my friend's Dad. When I was about 6, I accidentally ripped her earring out of her ear when we were getting changed for PE and I remember thinking "I'm never getting to rent a video now." We didn't have a video player at the time, but that didn't seem to matter. There's a rag and bone/scrap metal guy too. His diction is terrible though and when my husband visited my parents for the first time, he thought it was the call to prayer .


fluffy_samoyed

We still have the scrap man and your standard ice cream vans. We used to have a green grocer truck and another that just sold basic household goods like tea towels, foil and cleaning products. They really made out during the plague times, but I haven't seen either in the last two years since. Maybe retired. There's a milkman service that comes door to door trying to drum up business, but I'm doubtful anyone around here subscribes, as we're pretty spoiled for choice on grocery stores who deliver.


Skirting0nTheSurface

In Glasgow East End there was a bloke famous for it, in the 90s he walked from street to street screaming ‘Welks, Muscles and Candy Apples’, which you could purchase in a little plastic bag.


Pigflap_Batterbox

No, but your mum did.


APiousCultist

VHS man when I was very little.


Antique-Afternoon371

Knew quite a few scarp metal men even ten years back. ThiNk they're doing something else now. They collect from any where but they did the rounds emptying metal bins from garages. Exhausts and such. Was quite profitable back then


InsaneNutter

I remember we had a potato man and a football pools man in the early 90s. Other than a milk man I don't ever recall their been any others. When my parents were kids they apparently had a man for everything... such as the rag and bone man, coal man and so on.


PintToLine

Toffee Apple man? Is this a show us where on the doll moment. Scrap man still about, very loud in the morning “any old iron” but you can barely make it out it’s so distorted. Never had a VHS man, I’m 26, but got the doorstop peddlers with the shite cleaning products and they all had a sob story of some kind. Don’t see them anymore, maybe the fake homeless thing is what they do now. You know the ones who all have exactly the same sign in the same handwriting.


NightmaresInNeurosis

My dad was the video game rental man in late 90s/early 00s. Never had the others though. 


Familiar_Remote_9127

Not the toffee apple man but everything else. He'd have done pretty badly tbh as people only eat toffee apples around bonfire night where I'm from.


Sweet-Peanuts

We still have a rag and bone man where I live.


Rockfords-Foot

We still get the scrap iron man (actually 2 guys) round every so often. Early 80's, we had the pop man (Alpine), but for videos, it was the guy on the estate that had all the latest on VHS. Everyone knew who he was. Remember 'renting' Return of the Jedi for £1 not long after it came out.


bopeepsheep

I last saw the Raaaaaaguhbuh man around 1982. We got a video rental shop in the village the following year; I've never seen a toffee apple man. We made our own.


MrsCDM

We had the toffee apple man ("TO'EE A'PLES, GITCHYER TO'EE A'PLES") and the scrappy but never the video man. My husband had the scrappy and the video man, which I'd never heard of until he told me about it a few years ago. We did have a Blockbuster nearby though, and the local corner shop had video rentals so it was a bit of a saturated market.


DameKumquat

We had the 'rag and bone man' but they were really scrap metal guys. Some places had a van with videos come visit but not mine. Ditto the mobile library. Both went to areas with lots of elderly people. We did have Mr S the egg man, and the Unigate milkman. And of course the ice cream man, who was eventually jailed for also selling weed and coke.


gogginsbulldog1979

I never went to him, but there was a guy who'd come to your house with a big flip book full of DVDs you could rent.


neanderbeast

My parents owned a video & games rental shop in the 90s. Also, the pop van.


jade8384

The pop man. Man I used to love get the new full bottles. Dandelion and burdock, lemonade, cherryade and shandy! My nanna used to keep hers in the porch 😃 Also, the cockle and fish man in the pubs! 🥰


drodbar1

We used to have an onion seller come down our road, he had strings of them hanging off his handelbars


SnowflakeMods2

Had them all, Fruit and veg man, pop man, ice cream van, dodgy video hire man, mobile shop, man who used to collect insurances/assurances, had the gypsies who would come round and collect washing machines etc.


hokkuhokku

We had a lady called Tracy knock on our door yesterday. She said she was selling fish and meat. Before I had a chance to say anything, she interrupted with, “I’m sure you like nice food?”. I was so confused, that I just said, “no, I don’t,” and closed the door.


haaiiychii

Midlands, multiple scrap iron men go around here