General Chat

<3 Myself Being Born in 1946 how did parents cope with looking after us no bathroom no central heating .no health service no washing machine .it must have been very hard for them .now its press a button & everything automated .my late Dad had two Taxis his own Business .Grandma & Granddad had a public house .we are so lucky today x but I am still grateful for my loving Mum & Dad & were I am Today Barbara :-)

Good morning Barbara, I was born in 1945. Two brothers and I and my parents
shared two rooms with my Aunt and GrandFather.
House had a coal fire in every room.Half the house was lit by gas, the other half by electricity. I think there were also lodgers and my Aunt's children.
Mother used the public wash house. We seem to take it all for granted now (?)

My mother was a war widow and we lived first with my maternal grandparents, then with friends (rented bed sit) and I know it was a case of washing nappies/clothes by hand , hand wringer, dried on a clothes horse round an ideal boiler! They managed because they had to! Altered/mended clothes, handmedowns, knitted with recycled wool, stood in queues, cycled to town, did housework with a carpet sweeper, if you were lucky or 'Duppy' and brush one hard bristles one soft, and a broom. + a duster!! It was hard particularly that awful winter of 1947, which I just remember! It was SO cold with little or no utilities! Yes it was tough, but they were tough ladies our mother's!!! <3

Hello David & Maggie . the 1947 winter must have been awful we grumble to much rain or to hot . my brother was born 1949 .we shared a Bedroom but only being young didn't mind in those days .oh memories eh I could write a book x a lot of things stay with you all through your life our brains must be amazing .nice to think back .but also keep up with the times & live for today Barbara <3

Adam & Eve survived the cold evil slithering snake in the Garden of Eden & produced two offspring. But one of them turned out to be a very naughty fellow.

It was all well reported by the red tops of the time & subsequently appeared in the Bible - a lovely & popular book.

Don't compare.

It was not perceived as a particular hardship then because it was the norm and everybody lived that way.

When I was ten in,1964, we moved from bucket lavvy and well across the road to the luxury of this council house with its cold tap and outside flush toilet.

It now has constant hot water, central heating, double glazing, solar panels and that is the same as most other people have.

Hello Barbara, do you live in Australia? I only ask because of the Koala!!
I can just remember living with my grandparents, also going to the Day Nursery; my mother had to work as her war widows pension certainly wouldn't have begun to keep us!! But my real memories begin in that winter!! I was four in January so I can remember the snow, the lack of gas, bathing in the sink, and my future stepfather coming to visit us! Not consecutive memories, but odds and ends!! My mother and stepfather's wedding is a patchy memory, but other episodes I remember quite vividly!! It all worked out extremely well and I was very lucky with both my 'parents' as it could all have been very different!! :-)

People just adapt.
When I was 4, we moved from Malta to live in a converted bus in Scotland.
No bathroom - toilet was a bucket outside in a shed, and no running water :-S
Then we moved into a caravan - unfortunately, there was still no bathroom, so the toilet was still a bucket outside in a shed, and I slept on a 'bench', that was actually an unplumbed-in bath.
We were in the small caravan in Scotland during the snow of 62/63, and got snowed in, as caravan doors open outwards!
Then we 'upgraded to a huge caravan with bedrooms and a bathroom :-D

After that, from the age of 10 to 20, I lived in houses.
Then, aged 20, I went to Shetland, and lived in a 2 man tent (as used by Bonnington on Everest) for 6 months - and worked in a fish factory.
There were toilets and a sink onsite, but no shower facilities, so after work, I'd go to the swimming pool, and, instead of paying 25p for a swim, would pay 10p for a shower.

We 'moved up' to a croft house. Gas lighting in 1 room - candles in the other 3, old fashioned peat-fueled stove to cook on, no bathroom - and, yes, the loo was a bucket in a shed :-( As an added bonus, the house was infested with mice!

Next croft house had electricity!!! No bathroom, and the loo was, yet again, a bucket in a shed. The added bonus here, was that we emptied the bucket in the voe, next to the house. I had lots of 'wash down' baths in the croft houses.

Then, still on Shetland, a small caravan - with not only hot water, but also a flushing toilet inside! :-D
We could also have a shower, in that there was a 'shower' area, and by utilising a large garden sprayer that we filled with water, pumping it with one hand, and holding the spray end over our heads with the other - we could have a shower! :-D

Moved down to the borders - another caravan, no loo, bathroom or hot water - but there were shower/toilet facilities on site.

Then we moved to Essex, where we lived in a tied cottage.
This was a 60's built 3 bedroomed house. One source of heat - an open fire in the living room. The kitchen and bathroom were a later-built extension that had ice on the inside of the walls in winter. I had my children here.
Next house (another tied cottage, down the road) had 3 bedrooms, an Aga, and a fire in the living room. The bathroom and separate toilet were in a small very cold extension.
The children were bathed in the kitchen sink, next to the Aga.
This place had a lovely oak front door that opened into a small room next to the living room. Unfortunately, no-one had ever oiled the door, and it had shrunk, so, in the winter, we had a snowdrift in the room.

Then we moved to Hampshire - to a prefab! Pure luxury :-D :-D :-D

Contrary to popular myth such items as running H&C water, indoor loos, fridges, electric light, Hornby model trains, TV (London), motor cars, cameras, telephone were enjoyed (and paid for) by quite a big chunk of the population of the UK long before ww2.

I am well aware that for many life was rough but the experience was far from universal.

In 1947 my parents lived in Esher, Imber Park Rd. def. no outside loos! Their 1947 wedding photos show the shed loads of snow. My father thought that the winter of 1962/3 was worse than 1947/8.

MY GGF owned quite a lot of houses in the East End whch had been damaged by bombing but were repairable. Given the housing shortage of the time you might imagine that the govt would have been eager to get them fixed. Not a bit of it. Atlee's govt used the crisis as a means to force private landlords out of business as repair materials were subject to all kinds of bureaucracy. My GGF got his repairs sorted, angering the local commisar who took him to court (not guilty). I am sure all of the tenants were real chuffed to move into repaired houses with electricity & indoor loos. All but 4 of the houses are still there, owned now by a trust.

We ate everything on the plate. I you left anything, you got it for your breakfast ;-)
Toilet ? sometimes had to use the bucket

Hand me downs, jumble sales, making clippy mats, RATIONING :-0

1962/3 (I was 20 that winter) was colder than 1946/7, the walls in my bedroom were iced up, much to my parents horror! (no central heating!) but unlike 1947 we weren't still suffering from the deprivations of the war which were more accute immediately post war than during owing to the fact that we and the Americans were supplying Europe with much needed foodstuffs fuel etc. It had to be done as in the case of the Dutch, they were literally starving. My Dutch friends are, 70 years along the line still enormously grateful to this country in particular, which is quite humbling. It did make for dreadful shortages though, and was one of the reasons rationing went on well into the 1950's. My parents used to give me their ration books to buy sweets as they didn't want them! I can well remember that! :-D

Maggie. dont live in OZ just think they are cute. I was Born in Lancashire but have lived in.Scotland for nearly eleven years .love it here x Rollo my Dad had his own.business so we had a phone. & electricity. .just put this up to.see how people feel.about way back don't dwel on it as I live for today but interesting to read other people's thoughts & memories. Barbara x

Tell you what I don't suffer from, that I did in my childhood - chilblains!!! :-D

Me too!! But not now!!

Firewatchers stippled legs sitting too close to the fire while your back was freezing.

I remember if the coalman delivered coal and spilt any in the lane we'd pick it up :-D

Yes that is true Maggie, I think most of us suffered from chilblanes when I was a child, came from getting very cold then toasting ourselves close to the fire.

I was fortunate, my parents were not ever so well off but Dad was well paid while he was in the RN so they managed to buy their own 3 bed bungalow, which they lived in until a couple of years after Mum died and Dad went into a residential home. (58 years they lived there). No central heating of course so the bedroom windows did ice up in winter but two coal fires one in lounge and one in kichen dining room. Inside bathroom/toilet, large garden for vegetables and fruit trees, chickens in the war. I was born in 1940 and remember both the winter of 1947 and 1962 (no central heating for either). I walked to school in 47 when the buses didn't run and pushed the pram through the snow in 62. What amazes me is Dad was invalided out of the RN in 1947 with stomach problems (he went on to live until he was 93) and had a problem getting a job, he was hardly ever out of work as he'd take anything but his jobs were not well paid. Yet they always paid their mortgage, there was always nourishing food on the table (Mum was a good plain cook and she also baked), there was a lot of make do and mend but we never felt deprived because they managed. We have become soft with all our household appliances. Even I didn't have a washing machine until I had been married about 9 years and that was a twin tub. Youngsters now expect all the appliances as soon as they get a house.

My first washing machine was a twin tub in 1981 - I think my eldest was 6 months old.
Had to drag it out to use it - and it took up most of the kitchen :-S

My first washing machine in 1964 was a Hoover twosome! The washing machine was separate from the spinner rinse so you could use them clipped together or separately! My parents bought the Spinner rinse (new) we bought the washing machine (second hand!!) I had it just before our first baby, and it was a treasure!!

I had a second hand spinner (yet more space 'wasted' in the tiny kitchen) :-(

I think we have to remember that our parents were probably born between about 1900 and 1920, and that in many cases what they had by the time we were born was better than they had grown up with during WW1 and the Depression.

My parents married in 1928, managed to buy the house before they married (probably on a mortgage of some sort, but they never told me!). It was a typical Victoria row house in a cotton mill town ........... 4 rooms (2 up 2 down), no bathroom, and the toilet was a water tippler at the end of the back yard. The toilet was flushed by running water into the kitchen sink until whatever was down there rose to a certain height and overflowed into the sewer.

Mum had a water boiler for washing, and a mangle.

Both had grown up in similar houses, but Dad's father had died in 1914 leaving a widow with 6 children, the eldest of whom had already joined up. Mum was the eldest of 4, her father was called up in 1915. EVERY child in those 2 families had to leave school at 12 and go out to work to help support the family.

I was born in that same house in 1940, Dad was in reserved occupation and that was the time when he made more money than he had ever done before, but we still had no bathroom or indoor toilet. I had to sleep in my parent's bedroom as my older brother had the other room

We moved to another house in 1951 ....... it was about 100 years old, built of stone, and had a 2 storey brick extension on the back with a big kitchen dowstairs and a bathroom and box room upstairs. Luxury!!!!!

Hot water was heated by a boiler behind the dining/living room fire, but there was also an immersion heater we could turn on "if necessary".

Mum still used the water boiler and mangle for laundry.

It also had a long garden at the front, and Dad was in heaven trying to grow flowers for Mum.


They still also lived as they were accustomed to after living through 2 wars and the Depression ........... re-use, re-cycle, nothing wasted.