General Chat

hi.
can i just say,that i know its hard for a lot of people in every generation,
i was born in 1963,and my mum sent me to sunday school and church on sundays,mum did not wash on sundays,and we were brought up with manners and talking at the dinner table was a no,no,if myself or my siblings were cheeky,we were sent to bed straight away and stayed there.if we went to visit relatives,we sat and didnt speak until spoken to.
i married in 1980,my hubby was still doing his apprentice(4yrs then)and money was tight.i had a washing machine that you had to fill with water and then when the washing was done you had to empty it(usually with a pan)i think it was a twin tub,i also had to boil my babys nappies on the stove in a big pan,we had no car and i walked everywhere,our house had no heating only a coal fire in the living rm,many times we slept in the living rm infront of the fire with the baby to keep her warm,and of course no benefits then only child benefit that everyone got when they had a child.so no i didnt have it easy ,but of course nothing like people in the 1900s, :-(

How I agree with Chris and Ann.We worked very hard in those days with no mod cons.church 3 times a day on Sunday,the only day you wore your best clothes,I had cancer in 1948 and it came back in 1951 when I had radium needles and a 9 hour operation.Mother told that I wouldn't have to work hard....how wrong was that!!!
Married 1956 lived in a top floor flat with no washer,a wringer that fitted on the sink,no fridge.Saved up my wage to get a deposit on a brand new house,bought in 1959.You had to leave work when you started a family and a mortgage was only given with a large deposit and based on two and a half times husband's wage only.Things were not as easy as they are today....but I think it is no bad thing it really toughens you up to deal with life.I can't change my ways now.I still loathe waste and have never had credit for anything except a mortgage.Saving up for it made you appreciate things more.
The thing is once benefits have been given it is hard to take them away....but the saying used to be"what you never have you never miss"
Glad I lived when I did!

Brenda x

ooh I was not allowed to knit or sew on Sundays Chris. I seem to remember that in some areas you were not allowed to hang washing out on Sundays. Not that we would have washed on Sundays of course that was another no no. Anyway, wash day was Monday. Remember the nappies on the line when it froze and they would stick there all strange shapes. Married in 1960 I did have neighbours who would call in for coffee.

Well, married in 1956 - was lucky had a 3 bedded house rent & rates £1.50 per week ( a lot then) (1 bedrm furnished) - mod cons consisted of an enamel table mangle (cool for pastry rolling), electric boiler (on rental), electric cooker (on rental), carpet sweeper, various brushes and mops for cleaning thereof. Tin each of Betterwear lavender and brown polish. Min cream for polishing of furniture. Plenty of lino to polish - all lino in those days with occasional mat. Saved hard for Wilton stair carpet - cost £25.

Mens collars still required starching as did damask table cloths. Try drying clothes in winter especially nappies when only heating was from one fireplace - I did have my mother's old fire put in which stayed lit all the time - banked down with slack and warmed water.

First vaccum 1960, washing machine with electric roller about 1962 (only got that because I was ill), fridge 1966, spin drier about 1968. Somewhere in mid sixties got a carpet square for lounge - thought I had moved up in world and when I got first fitted carpet wonder it did not wear out through me looking at it!

All meals cooked from scratch, babies food sieved, all home baking, in odd relaxing moments - sewed clothes for children and self and knitted woolies for all four of us.

Many members here will recall a lifestyle like that. Where I lived all neighbours kept themselves to themselves - as do many today - but then again women with families did not go to work.

No housework/gardening of ANY description on a Sunday - it was the Lord's Day however my mother did permit me to knit/embroider but NOT to use the sewing machine. And of course Communion classes in morning followed by church and then in the afternoon taught Sunday School. Mother's motto ' the devil finds work for idle hands'.

As to which period I would live in? This era has a lot going for it - unfortunately lack of respect in all walks of life, violence etc. has come in. Think the trend that everyone has to have designer clothes, latest phones/ipods and everything else out there, whether they can afford them or not - in other words plain greed.

However there are good people out there in all walks of life and of all ages, the rest should not be allowed to be permitted to make a misery for the rest of us e.g. why should staff in A & E especially be liable to attacks and other emergency services who are there to save lives not to be abused.

I am going - said too much already!

You obviously didn't have parents like mine Hayley. IRONING on Sunday?? No no no!!! Pub at any time???? again No no no!! No cinema on sundays, although TV was allowed thank goodness, preferably after attending church.

owwwwwww Teresa I do agree boring sundays wasnt too bad when I just left school and was working, I would do all my ironing big sunday tea then start getting ready to meet me mates outside the pub for 5 to 7.. :-D

I was born in 1963 and enjoyed all the years since growing up, but would never ever for all the tea in China, wish for those dull Sundays in the winter months where there was nothing to look foward to but the Top 20/30 on radio one and my Mums well cooked Sunday roast :-D

Oh the joy of going into a job where weekend working was the norm when I was 18. I have never had a dull Sunday since (and i still work weekends 30 years on) :-D

Teresa

Suzanne, cancer was definitely around in the 50s, my Mother in law (to be then) died from it in 1958. A very painful death, the pain killers didn't work well and if they did it was some form of Morphine that gave her all sorts of halucinations. No chemo to prolong life and maybe cure just radium treatment. Cancer had beena round with no cure for many years. My Gt Gt Grandmother died from it in the 19th century.

I am happy with when I was born (1940, fortunately didn't get bombed out in the war.) Can remember rationing and the excitement of being given a pear to eat by an American serviceman on a train when about 3 or 4, was a teenager in the 50s so saw the advent of rock and roll, jiving etc. I have no complaints. But there was violence (Teddy boys, flick knives), teenage fights. It wasn't all rosy and sweet.

I know the national health is not as good as it could be, but at least we don't have to pay for a doctor, at least we still get free treatment, vaccination against all those diseases Sue mentioned. I can remember being terrified at primary school because somebody had (now my memory fails a bit it was either scarlet fever, diptheria, I don't think it was typhoid) from the open drains we had at school and we were told to keep away from them. that would have been about 1946.

The reality in the early 1900s was probably OK if you were very well off, discounting all the potential diseases, afflictions etc.

However, for most, it was dingy (poor lighting), dirty, cold and a drudge. Just think how long it would take to do the weekly wash, or beat the carpets etc. If you were in service, you at least had a roof and reasonable food, but not many prospects. If you lived in the city, it was choked with coal dust, smelly and noisy. In the country, you probably lived in little more than a hovel.

Social mobility was extremely difficult and we were a class-ridden society. Snobbery and prudery were rife. The clothes may have looked elegant but were crippling and detrimental to health.

I like the idea of living in various times, but I'm sure I wouldn't like the reality when compared with today's freedom and choice.

I would of loved to be born in the 40's and be a teenager of the 60's....or I would of loved to be born in victorian times but not below stairs of course ;-)

Also, consider childbirth in the 1900's, childbirth without medication and much loss of life to both mother and child at that time. We only have to look at our own family trees to see the extent of that. A few generations ago, twins died at or in infancy which makes me consider that my own twin grandbabies would not have survived the pregnancy had they been conceived at that time.

If you could keep all the good things from the past (Lots of bad things to discard) and add them to the best things of today we would then live in a perfect world,

esprit de corps "espree de core."


Roy

'Some people seem to get nostalgic about a lot of things they weren't so crazy about the first time around'.

They had MS but it wasn't recognised as a disease of the nervous system (my daughter has MS), cancer was always around but undiagnosed.

Alzheimers and dementia...read lunatic and imbecile in the accounts.

No diseases are new we just have a name for each of them now.

Be fair Sue, mercury injected into the penis was a fine treatment for an STD ;-) but remember cure comes at a cost:

Syphilis experiments were also carried out in Guatemala from 1946 to 1948. They were United States-sponsored human experiments, conducted during the government of Juan José Arévalo with the cooperation of some Guatemalan health ministries and officials. Doctors infected soldiers, prisoners, and mental patients with syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases, without the informed consent of the subjects, and then treated them with antibiotics. In October 2010, the U.S.
formally apologized to Guatemala for conducting these experiments

Sue

NB informed consent didn't mean much to these guinea pigs.

Listen here girl - I'm older than you so listen to your elder and don't talk back :-D

Sue

yes but its much worse now,even with our state of the art treatments,its still rife,and what about TB how the hell has that come back?thought they got rid of that yrs ago?and the cancers,didnt hear much about them in the 50s and 60s.x :-(

Yes we have these horrid diseases but we also have treatments for them. The outlook is much more positive now after a cancer diagnosis. STD's were rife years ago - syphillis and gonnorea (sp) was not discussed but it was definately there with no treatment.

Sue

no change there then ,sounds just like 2011 lol. but today we have the delighful S.T.D,AIDS,TB(on the increase again)MS ,ALZHEMERS,BREAST CANCER,to name but a few,are we better off?i dont think so.
the difference these days with financial help is the more children you have,the more money you get,at the expence of the tax payer,who is properly struggling to keep his own family,is that better?
as for gas and electricity,if you can afford to keep your house warm in winter you must be in the money,it costs a bomb to keep ypur home warm these days,have things really changed so much?x :-|

I partly agree with you as far as benefits are concerned. However look how difficult it was for women left with young families often through the death of their husbands. They had no money coming in and often had to farm the children out so they could work at menial jobs to earn some pennies. At least now there is some relief. Not all people getting benefits are "dole bums'.

Sue

Oh dear, wishing to have been born in the early 1900s is a recipe for disaster, TB, rickets, diphtheria, polio, and every conceivable disease ending with pox.

Insanitary conditions even if relatively well off, food scarce depending on how the harvest came in. Shortages of gas and electricity (where available).

Dentists who were butchers, doctors who could be butchers and if you couldn't pay you were turned away to find a quack.

No financial help for large families unless you were good church attending Christians, then relying on charitable handouts.

No employment safe - working from day to day for the majority of people.

Yep the good old days.

I'll stick with my own time line which just included rationing and the National Health Service care for children. Well I am still here :-D

Sue