Half a century ago... what were you up to?

I was 22, living on my own in a small flat. Had taught the entire school year as a teacher's aid in a class for immigrant children learning Danish so they could be incoporated in the normal class for their age-group ASAP.

Not enough holiday pay to see me through 8 weeks school holidays, so I took a job preparing Danish open sandwiches in a catering firm. Six days a week from 5. a,m to 2 p.m.

Shops closed then at 5.30 p.m. on weekdays and 12.30 p.m. on Saturday and were closed all day Sunday, so if I took a much needed nap when I got home at 3 I had to set the alarm to get any shopping done on weekdays, or do it before lying down, which usually meant I could not get to sleep at nine in the evening.

The pay was reasonable, and I could take foodstuffs like cooked ham home with me every day - the cat loved that job of mine, I can tell you! I didn't have to ask my parents for financial help either, which was one of the main points of the exercise.

Those were the days when if you needed a job you could find one in a two minute search of the small ads in a local or national paper. How times have changed!

The downside, apart from the hours which did not suit a night-owl, was strip-washing every day when I got home, no bathroom only W.C. and kitchen sink in that flat, and no summer holiday that year.

Two lovely young teen daughters, business extraordinarily successful. Lovely summer holiday around Germany, Austria and Italy.

I was 26 and a full time mother to my 6 month old son.
Happy days as well!

Living in Headcorn, Kent and expecting our first baby!

I was doing a hairdressing apprenticeship in a very large salon, loving what I was doing and had just got engaged to my first husband who I was in love with, plus my parents were still together (my DF left my DM 4 years later) so now in hindsight I look back on my teens as one of the happiest times of my life. If only I knew then all that was to happen to my life in the future years I would have tried to make the rest of my life a bit happier.

yes "sidelined" I too had just met my husband. I was 17 and very stry eyed. We are still together coming up to our 48th wedding aniversary

In 1973 I had just left my husband of 3 years and joined Courtline Aviation in Luton as cabin crew. A whole new life began.

31 years old….married with two children (7 and 3).and we had left the UK at the end of May and arrived in Ottawa Canada six weeks previously. My husband had been hired as plant manager on a 3 year contract for a printing company that produced cartons for McDonalds French fries! We were renting a house in a little village called Westport which was beautiful ……and I was desperately homesick! I missed my mum and dad, our house and all our friends! Fifty years on …..we’re still in Canada, still married but with many house moves under our belt!

Married stay at home mother with 3 month old baby suffering from unrecognized depression oblivious of what was going to happen in under a year’s time.

Oh, and I never remarried.

mother of one daughter and pregnant with number two (who turned out to be a son born on his sister's birthday later in the year).
can't really remenber much else as it's lost in the mists of time.

I was 28, widowed with 4 children. I’d helped start a one parent family group in my area and was group contact. I heard so many horror stories that I felt the more I saw of men, the more I preferred dogs.

*of us

Not many of were still in school.😄😆

Just finishing Foundation year at Art School - didn’t get accepted for my first choice specialisation so went to work as a stage hand. One of those many ‘if only’ situations that I have abandoned. It was what it was - and now, it is what it is. C’est la vie.

Oh gosh, i was practically the baby of the bunch then- in 1973 i had just gone ten years old and was looking forward to summer school holidays (the ones when it was always sunny back then!) and playing out with friends nd maybe a visit back to my 'posh' aunts house down in Berkshire, before buckling down to a year of hard school work in september for last year before secondary school!😆😊Gawd knows where all those years have flown by to😂

Pregnant with second child and extremely sick.

Just made a huge mistake & on my honeymoon!! Everyone told me not to .. but at 21 I knew everything!
Well had a wonderful son I wouldn’t be without & met a wonderful man who was the best of fathers to him .. and still it!
Still have my Quant dress I bought that yr. oh to be able to get in it!!!

Marydoll and I left school together in June ‘73. I worked in the export department of Chivas Brothers whisky distillers for the summer before going to teacher training college in September.

I was looking forward to our wedding in August.

I was 27, Married for 3 years- no children (Thank God for the pill!) Was warned on my annual check-up- "Your fertility has not been tested" But I was teaching and having great weekends drinking, eating out and clubbing. Not to mention holidays in Spain.

I was ten, my parents had split up and we were moving with my mother to a large town from a village. The next few years were terrible for me.

I was an 18 year old student with a holiday job as a waitress at Butlins in Filey. It was fun, but ghastly. The staff chalets flooded regularly and I saw a chef drop peas on the kitchen floor and then clear them up with a dustpan and brush and yes......they went straight back on a plate. Food poisoning was common. After 3 weeks I'd had enough!

Just 17 and doing a holiday job in Wales between A level years; total freedom from siblings for the first time - it was a great summer !!

I was 21, living with my boyfriend and looking for a house to buy. We found somewhere we could afford around 18 months later, married and are still together after 53 years in all.
I remember this as a particularly happy time of my life, neither of us were earning much but we had enough and could afford to go out and run two cars. Everything is so expensive now, even relative to the much higher salaries today.