General Chat

see below

I shall act as devil’s advocate here and say that people these days often think they are poor because they can’t afford what our ancestors would have considered luxuries. How do other people feel?

personaly i dont think we could ever come near to the poverty that our ancestors had,even my dad b 1916's life was horrific,but we dont know the life they lived and its a mirical they survived and we are here today ,,

Gwen Someone mentioned children not being able to go to school as they couldn't afford to have their shoes mended, and it started me thinking. Doubt that happens these days in the UK Dee xx

Hi Dee I don't know about shoes but I do know the government introduced school meals in the early 1900s because children were going to school starving becausemthey didn't have anywhere near enough to eat. Juliexx

Morning all i think it's more a case of living below the bread line!! but peoples values have changed Love Helenxx

I remember my dad telling me that at times he had no shoes,slept on the stairs,gran was left with about nine children when grandad disapeared in 1917 never to be seen again,she became a washer woman, today with carboots and charity shops there ias no real reason why you cant get clothes on the cheap,but a hunderd years + ago you wore the same thing day after day till it fell of if you were that poor

I look back on my childhood spent with my Grandma in the west of Ireland as idyllic and carefree. Yet when I think of her I realize now how very difficult her life must have been. No electricity so lamps had to be lit every evening, water was lugged from a spring well ten minutes walk away, No sewage, so shovel and dock leaves accompanied you to your daily evacuation, somewhere off in the fields....food cooked over an open fire, and so on. My point is her life was arduous and poor...but to a child it was heaven....

Absolutely agree Dee. But everything is relative isn't it? My younger daughter, a single parent, likes to have everything brand new (as do all her friends) - although that has changed slightly since she discovered ebay! She would not dream of going to jumble sales or the like to buy stuff for her home and family as I used to - and still do on occasion! It is to do with the 'throw away' society we now live in I suppose. Whereas my generation (baby boomer) was brought up to 'make do and mend', nowadays possessions, and designer labels, seem to be the norm. People think they are hard done by if they cannot have what they want, when they want it despite the cost. In reality we are so very much better off than our ancestors with our centrally heated homes with 'all mod cons', healthy and easily obtainable food, and much shorter working week. My life would probably seem very boring to some, but we are proud of the fact that we have worked hard all our lives, our house is paid for, our children have never gone hungry or needed for anything important in their lives, and although we may not have had the material possessions of some others, our family are remarkably happy with their lot! I've just reread that and it sounds very smug - I didn't mean it to. We have had our fair share of mishaps over the years, but have survived relatively unscathed - despite our relative 'poverty'. Sue xx

Just rememberd somthing ,when my kids was little 30+yrs ago we went through a really tough patch as all couples do,i sold my wedding ring,got a big sack of potatos,tins of beans eggs and sausages with the money,and by being inventive with cooking and the freezer,it lasted us for a month

I think a lot of youngers have a very different view of what poverty is - quite simply because they haven't really experienced REAL poverty.They see it on the TV, but it is a world away from their world and hence dont appreciate what it actually means (or should i say, implies). Jess

Hi Dee I think it's relative - a lot of people can't afford to do things like pay for dentistry because they are up to their ears in repayments for things. If some people have to pay for a few prescriptions, they have to go without something else. People aren't starving in this country but they do have to go without putting the heating on etc because of fear of the bills. We don't have the poverty that people endured in past times but there are people who live go without things that some of us take for granted - so I would say our perception of poverty has changed.

This is the Government's modern day definition of poverty :- 'Anyone living on less than 60% of the UK average (median) income. For a single person it means an income of less than £100 per week after tax, housing costs and benefits, says the New Policy Institute. For a family of two adults and two pre-school children it means living on a weekly income less than £260 ' I wonder what our ancestors would have thought ?

I feel the main difference now a days is that we tend to more often than not buy what we want rather than what we need, then end up having nothing to spend on the real things we acutually do need, our priorites have changed somewhat, just think in the days of our ancestors the price of most of our pcs would have bought them a house !!!!! xxhugxx

There are two types of poverty absolute poverty and relative poverty. Absolute poverty for example when you can't afford to feed yourself and your family much less anything else is found in places like Africa. Relative poverty (a definition from my a handout from my sociology classs) Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diets, participate in the activities and habe the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or at least widely encouraged or approved, in societies to which they belong. Their resources are so seriously below those commanded by the average individual or family that they are, in effect, excluded from ordinary living patterns, customs and activities. Despite the complaints of poverty nowadays it is most unlikely that anyone, in this country, lives in absolute poverty and what is classed as poverty today is far from the conditions our forbears had to live in. Juliexx

going back to the clothes that they used to wear day in and day out as they couldnt afford wardrobes like we do today. How on earth did they keep those long dresses clean around the hems??? Especially with horses instead of cars. The filth around the bottoms must have been a constant battle!!!

both my husband & i have had bad heath so we are on sick ,between we get £156 a week we still have to pay for every thing & we are finding it difficult i got ayearly presciption payment card as i couldnt afford my monthly presciptsionsi have to have 12 items at a time! but we just had to cut down on things loveJoycexx

I think that the perception of poverty changes with each generation. The next always wanting to start where the last left off as far as material possessions are concerned and they consider themselves poor if they can’t have those things. I can remember my mum being chuffed to bits at being able to get carpets in the bedrooms. I took it as a foregone conclusion that I would have them when I had my first house. I don’t think perceiving oneself as poor has changed much over the years but the level at which that happens has. I can remember seeing a programme on television over 30 years ago comparing the lives of two men on an equal level of benefits. One was scruffy, unshaved, dining on fish and chips with a tin of fruit for ‘afters’. He couldn’t afford this, couldn’t afford that. His house was a pig-sty and it seemed he spent his day sitting in front of a television, smoking. The second was clean and tidy, proudly admitting to shopping in charity shops, visited markets late in the day to buy cheap fruit and veg and the same with supermarkets to buy the bargains there, arranging his menu according to whatever he managed to get hold of. His house was spick and span, his bills paid on time. He was proud of the way he managed and thankful for the benefits system. To me that illustrated that often it is peoples management of money that affects our perception at first sight of how poor they really are. We must often get it wrong and have sympathy for those who are just feckless while those that give an outward appearance of managing are ignored. If I could have doubled an income, I know which one I would have given it to. Mags x

Oh most definitely Dee. My Grandfather was down the pits when he was 13. (1899) My husband was working full time as an apprentice baker at 13. (1946) Children went to school regularly without shoes, some even in the winter. Poverty I believe is decided in this country, by how we manage to keep up with eachother. When my children were all at home in 1973'ish and onward. They (whomever they are) decided that ' children without a coloured television... were living in poverty!! Oh my poor children. LOL Deanna X

As Montypython said.............. Michael Palin: Ahh.. Very passable, this, very passable. Graham Chapman: Nothing like a good glass of Chateau de Chassilier wine, ay Gessiah? Terry Gilliam: You're right there Obediah. Eric Idle: Who'd a thought thirty years ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Chateau de Chassilier wine? MP: Aye. In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup o' tea. GC: A cup ' COLD tea. EI: Without milk or sugar. TG: OR tea! MP: In a filthy, cracked cup. EI: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper. GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth. TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor. MP: Aye. BECAUSE we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, 'Money doesn't buy you happiness.' EI: 'E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof. GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING! TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor! MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor! Woulda' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph. EI: Well when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpaulin, but it was a house to US. GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake! TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road. MP: Cardboard box? TG: Aye. MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day, week in, week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt! GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY! TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife. EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing 'Hallelujah.' MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'. ALL: Nope, nope.