Poverty

[commoner]

Born in 1934 and this is how I lived my first 10 or so years....Today you need £17,500 per annum or you are in poverty....so they say..

Here is a list of things which would be taken for granted today and which I did without....was I brought up in poverty..I never thought so at the time....

There was NO:-
TV.
Video Recorders.
DVD/CD.
Pop groups.
Mobile phones.
Video Games.
Computers.
Cameras were forbidden.(wartime).
Hot water.
Bathroom.
Inside toilet.
Electricity.
Washing machine.
Spin drier.
Hoover.
Electric kettle.
Central Heating.millions of coal fires in use.

Food rationed.(0ne egg a week etc)
Clothing /shoes on coupons.
Furniture on dockets.
No exotic fruit.oranges bananas et.
Sweets/chocolate on points system.
Cars..petrol for war work or business only.
Seaside or foreign holidays.
Fast food exepting Chip shops(often no fish)

No NHS (1948)
No benefit system as we know it.
No family allowance.
Hanging was allowed.
Flogging allowed (in schools too)
No Uni. education for the masses.
Teenage mums looked after by parents or Shotgun marriages.

No mass immigration ergo no Asian/WI etc communities...

I could go on and on but sure I've bored you all to sleep by now, sure you oldies could think of more things that are taken for granted today. :-))

[Georgiesmum]

No rotary washing lines then.
no tumble dryers
no fabric conditioners,
no calculators
plenty of carbolic soap!

[commoner]

Lol...wash day was a real pain in the ar3e...heat the water in pans and kettles on the Yorkshire range fire....clothes into a tub like a metal dustbin ...scrube em on a wash board and swish em about with a woodn dolly...squash them throug the MANGLE then a final rinse in cold water wring em out again and out to dry in the fresh air from a thousand coal fires....then when dry..iron with flat iron heated near the fire...great job....and if the water was still warm enough and not too mucky..I got my weekly batn.....good old days my bum !!

[craft1948]

I was born in 1948 and vaguely remember 'the good old days'. We lived at my nan's 3 bedroomed house (there were 11 of us). We had gas lighting and a fire range/oven for cooking/baking, and the washing was done in the copper. We used the tin bath for washing and the adults used to go to the 'slipper baths'. We had an outside toilet with the newspaper squares hung on a piece of string (I was petrified by the spiders in there). All 9 adults went out to work (the main employer was Rowntrees chocolate factory) and although we were never hungry we didn't have any luxuries. My sister and I used to get new clothes twice a year, I think it was Whitsuntide and Christmas.................there did however always seem to be enough money for alcohol and we were surrounded by 4 pubs which were always packed out.

[mazie]

Sounds just like me upbringing craft, we lived with my Grandparent. The twice a year I had new clothes were Christmas and Easter. My Grandad used to say if you didn't have new clothes for Easter the birds would sh*t on you !

[mazie]

But of course I'm younger than you.......

[craft1948]

lol mazie................by how much?

[mazie]

6 months...I'm still 63 :o) 64 in December

[craft1948]

So it's actually 4 months....................we're almost twins.

[mazie]

Oh, I thought we were !

[mazie]

well nearly 5, it's the end of December

[commoner]

Jeez..the memories keep flooding back...food was never short..Grandad always had a great big pig in a pen and at about 40 stones weight would with the help of my 6 uncles wrastle it onto a massive table in the back yard and cut it's throat...lovely fatty ham and bacon..brawn and chitterlins...wow..the feasts we had....my dad kept hens so the odd chicken dinner was available..if you gave up your one egg a week you could have grass meal to mix with tatie peelings to feed hens...but if you produced too many eggs they had to go to the war effort to feed others.....yep things were very different not just the material goods but the whole way of life....

[dennisb66]

In the early 40's i was invited to my friends for tea,we were having bread and jam.I asked if I could have marge on the bread as well as jam,you would have thought that I'd asked for the crown jewels. It was marge OR jam but not both.

[commoner]

So extavagant....It's a wonder they didn't say "don't you know there's a war on.." that was a favourite saying back then ;-)

[parkie]

I was interested about your comment about the cameras commoner. I have photo's taken of our family during the war and I have never heard they were 'illegal'.

[quinie]

I've enjoyed reading all the posts.Born a few years before you,commoner, I suppose we would have been classed as deprived.We had a happy childhood despite no electrity, often sadistic teachers.handed down clothes etc, We were lucky to have good parents and never went hungry-plenty home grown veggies. Not really all that many good things in the "good old days" Wonder what a list would be like in 50 years time!!! One thing stands out when I reminisce-very few obese people during rationing and very few fat children-not because of lack of food but because we spent time outdoors skipping,playing rounders etc.

[Dee Sa]

we had it tough in those days commoner though to us it was normal life, I did not taste a banana until the war was well over and my mum used to go banging on about dreaming of banana splits.

[Dee Sa]

agree with you quinie no fat kids we all used to be playing outside or a long walk to the park, not sitting with a playstation and not moving off the settee, after breakfast at weekends and school holidays we were exected to go out and play.

[emmie]

as already pointed out many of those items hadn't been invented then.
I grew up with lots of disadvantages too, poorish family, it wasn't so much that we went hungry, but the old man was a useless fecker, so my mother by and large kept us. Outside loos were horrible, thank heavens for modern life.

[Infomaniac]

I so agree Em - having to tote a pail of water up the yard to the outside loo (no flush of course), especially in the rain or when the ground was icey - horrible.

[mrs.chappie]

That link by Graham-W is hilarious. I read it around lunchtime today and chuckled all afternoon.