General Chat

Lovely thread this Dee. Thank you...

Well I was born in 1950. My parents were lodging in 2 rooms - 1 was the sitting/bedroom and a tiny cupboard called a kitchenette - they shared an outside loo which was 3 floors down. They lived there for 6 years with 2 young kids. The old *** of a landlady would lock the outer door at 9.30 p.m. at night and many a time dad would have to shin up the drainpipes to get into our room when he and mum had taken us to visit family for the day. In the mid/late 50's when I was at infant/junior school, there were plenty of kids on calipers from polio and many more who would come to school with no socks on and very often no underwear (we all knew who these were because they were allowed not to take part in P.E. on those days). Within such a short time, we now have cars, tvs, puters, IT, clothes at a whim, its incredible and I think its such a shame that the generation after mine really dont value just what they do have.

It's all relative really, imho. I like Steve's post. :-) Joy

Well we seem to be agreed about a lot of things I agree with the comment about absolute and relative poverty, it seems to encapsulate what I was thinking about when I started the thread Certainly people attitudes have changed over the years, especially over things like hand me down clothes, and even home made clothes. I well remember being an oddity at school because my Mum used to insist on knitting me twin sets, when the other children had shop bought jumpers. She also made all her own jams, and preserved fruit and vegetables from the garden, in the days before freezers. This self-sufficiency was left over from the wartime, when people were encouraged to ‘make do and mend’ and ‘grow your own’ People’s priorities have changed as well, and the ease with which people can get credit makes it very easy for people to ‘buy now, pay later’ It is something my parents generation rarely did, and therefore people went without. The start of the Welfare State must have been a landmark in the lives of the people of the time, but even that was looked upon by some with suspicion. There are people, who even now, through no fault of their own, find it difficult to make ends meet, yet we also read so often about benefit fraud. A complex problem that successive governments have attempted to solve, with varying degrees of success

my dad was born in 1934, the middle one of 5 children. He always said that first up was best dressed. He and his brothers would sleep in a double bed - not end to end but sideways on. Claire

This thread is really interesting - thank you Dea.... My dad's family fit many of the stories already posted.....14 siblings, two bedrooms and the parlour to sleep in etc Another interesting point though is mum's family: My granddad was a ''professional man'' (that sounds so snobby - sorry!!) and I suppose he had certain standards to maintain.....his children had good paid for education and they always had good accommodation .........however, mum (now 81) is definitely from the ''make-do-and-mend brigade''!! She and her sister and my grandmother had to ensure clothes and household items lasted.......lots of darning, patching, turning sheets sides-to-middle, cutting down adult clothes to fit children etc etc....mum and her sister wore their school uniform at weekends, anything that could be mended would be, rather than buy another........................... No, they were not poor, but the way my grandparents lived was quite different from people in the same circumstances today. Merry

It isn't talked about, but according to oral testimony in the book 'All Quiet on The Home Front' many people actually starved to death in the first WW in this country. My mum is the one who couldn't go to school because she had no boots to wear (not shoes, they wore out too quickly and no use in bad weather)! She won a scholarship to the local grammar school. The scholarship paid for her school uniform, and she had no other decent clothes, so she never went to parties as she had nothing suitable to wear. At one point she and her sister shared one coat between them. She doesn't talk about this in a 'woe is me' way at all, she is just matter of fact - that's how it was. She is also very grateful that she lives in comfort now - central heating, wall-to-wall carpets etc. I think some of her family's poverty was due to the fact that my grandfather wasn't good at handling money. At one point they were going to be evicted, but fortunately my grandmother inherited some money from a dead uncle in the nick of time. nell

People's expectations seem to have changed dramatically, when we got married we were so lucky that my OH grandfather loaned us enough money to buy a small bungalow and Carpets!! We did not have central heating or a washing machine, we had a second handTV and gradually bought things as and when we could. We didn't expect to have a complete home furnished with everything. A few years ago, we were invited to a wedding and asked for the wedding present list OMG!! WE could hardly afford any presents-washing machines the lot was on the list. It seems that nowadays many newly weds want or expect to start married life fully equipped, no saving, waiting. I may be generalising madly here but I don't think the get it now pay no interest for a year helps. This alone can lead to later hardship when the payments have to start but I digress. Many of my son's friends 17 (I am an older mum) seem to expect a car as soon as they can drive. I really don't think that they don't understand 'can't afford' things. Things that were considered as luxuries now seem to be the expected norm. I do not think that many people understand poverty at all. (yes! I had a tin bath in front of the fire in my very young days!) Sorry, think I have rambled! Chris

Another interesting topic! GIven that poverty is the inability to provide material needs it's not suprising that (a) peoples perceptions have changed and (b) it's all relative anyway. Nowadays our standard living is very much higher than it used to be. Human nature being what it is, it's very easy for the comfortably off to maintain that there's no 'real' poverty for anyone who has more than one set of clothes and shoes on their feet, indoor toilets, running water or whatever, but it's not really fair to compare living today with living in the past. Everyone's expectations have been driven upwards. In society, poverty is relative. If a person cannot provide themselves with the average for that society, then they are poor, it's as simple as that. Take a very rich society for example where EVERYONE has a private jet, gold plated bathroom fittings designer clothing, you name it -pie in the sky I know, but just a hypothetical example. Anyone in that society who cannot have those things is reasonably deemed poor, even though other societies may have a lesser standard of living. For them, not having a bicycle may be a sign of poverty if that's the norm for them. Anyone living in Europe has riches beyond measure to someone on another continent affected by many years of famine. Older generations will always think that the young 'never had it so good' as long as we live in a growing economy and humans keep inventing things to have.

I agree with those of you that mention that everyone’s expectations have been driven upwards. Whilst agreeing with that, though, I am not sure that people are any happier for being materially better off, but that has probably been true in the past as well. I am certainly shocked by what people seem to ask for as wedding presents. My son and his wife have basically started married life with almost everything brand new, a far cry from how his father and I started out. I was interested to see what you put about the First World War, Nell. It is a period of social history I know very little about, perhaps it is time that I found out more. Thank you everyone for adding so many interesting snippets from your own experiences.

Father died in the war.....was put in the workhouse with mother brouhjt out by fathers brother and brought up with his family for the next four years mother got a home....one room in a closed public house with one cooker on the landing for all residents Returned to mother...scraped the ice off the bedroom windows in winter Used several coats on top of the blanket to keep warm in bed not an ancester ... it was myself Poor???? not on your life....there was no-one on the estate who had anymore than we did................ ..