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

Same as you fiorentina51 preparing for my September wedding.

Age 16 I had completed my GCE's and was spending a month at my French penfriends in a little village in Normandy where her parents ran a family bakery and village boulangerie.

This time fifty years ago I was off to Geneva. The Quakers (I'm not one but I went to a Quaker school) ran a summer course there for school leavers to study the work of the UN. Spent two weeks in a very fancy student hostel, "Foyer John Knox", went to UN sessions and also visited other international institutions, ate interesting food, learnt how to smoke and drink, lost my virginity....

Travelling home overland from Kathmandu by bus after spending a couple of years working in Thailand!

8 months pregnant with first DS.it’s was a very worrying time as my first pregnancy was a still birth.All was good I had 9 pound very healthy baby boy.

In 1973 I was 6 enjoying life not a care in the world my sister was 13 & little did we know we’d be joined by a little brother 1 year later happy days

being 5

I was a student and working at a summer job along with my future husband.

Married with a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old. A stay-at-home Mum and facing the prospect of a milestone 30th birthday later that year.

Having my heart broken. I thought I'd never recover. Little do we know that's just the beginning...

Fifty years ago - I was in my second year as a student mental health nurse, recovered from my first love and going out with a lovely hairy folk musician. Horrible hours working 11 days a fortnight on rotating shifts. Even at 19 I swore I'd leave as soon as I qualified and find a more civilized job. I went on to do a degree, not nursing, and became a uni lecturer which was probably the right sort of job as it often involved teaching on the new nursing degree courses. If I'd known what I do now - I'd have kept my opinions to myself and taken a more political and less challenging approach at work instead of trying to change the world. It would have been a lot easier and probably more effective.

I was in hospital in Exeter which turned out to be osteomyelitis of the right ilium. Extremely painful. I also happened to be pregnant and after I had an operation to scrape the bone and a course of very strong antibiotics I eventually went home after 7 weeks. Not long after, I lost the baby I was carrying at 22 weeks. A year later I gave birth to my youngest son.

I'd just graduated from university and was applying for jobs. I landed one, reasonably locally, that was actually relevant to my degree subjects! Amazing luck! It was as an analytical chemist in a sewage works lab, analysing the constituents of sewage and trade effluents. Happy days!

This time in 1973 I was 20 and 2 weeks from giving birth to my DD . A week next Saturday she is hosting a big party for her 50th but is convinced nobody will turn up 😂.

I was preparing to go on stage in a ballet which I had also choreographed having taken four years out to look after my first child. Because of the break I was hugely nervous but very excited. It went well but it was my last season because it made me realise I definitely wanted to be a full time mum.

I was thirty and had three small children, husband just getting his business started so we were quite short of money but weren’t they happy days. I now have three adult children who are super and loving.

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.

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 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!

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 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 looking forward to our wedding in August.

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.

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!!!

Pregnant with second child and extremely sick.