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

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😂

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.

Not many of were still in school.😄😆

*of us

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.

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.

Oh, and I never remarried.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

Living in Headcorn, Kent and expecting our first baby!

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

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

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.

Not quite as young as @papermonster had just finished first year of primary school 🚸

Pregnant with first son who will be 50 in December. Where on earth has it gone?!

I was 10 years old and living on a South London council estate in a three bedroom 3rd floor flat with mum, dad, nan and 4 siblings, very happy memories

Age 23, working in office, married 3 years, trying for first baby, new house, no phone, no car, miles away from disabled mum 😟. (First baby came 2 years later)

Had been married for 5 years and had just moved into our own home after rented properties. We are still in the same bungalow.

We had just been told we were relocating to Brussels (because U.K. joining the Common Market).... Wondering what to do about children's schools, whether to rent house out or sell it (decided to rent out - but came back to trashed house and all furniture, equipment & fittings stolen - and neighbours in high dudgeon about what they had suffered) - the landlord v. tenant laws had changed dramatically following some awful exploitative stories in London, but was bad news for those of us who were posted away but just wanted to keep their home. But all in all it was a great experience, - in spite of trying to connect with plumbers in Flemish - met some lovely friends, learnt about other food and cultures, travelling around Europe on holidays was so easy, and realising that all cultures want the same things: peace, friendship, a good education for our children, and some good food to put on the table.

I was 19 living in Switzerland as an au pair and learning German. Would love to go back and do it all again.

I was at one primary school, about to move to another and experience bullying at school for the first time, and abuse at home was soon to start too. My husband to be (10 years older) was in his first job as a chef, and about to have a motorbike accident which would affect both of us for the rest of eternity.

I'd just left school and was preparing to go to University. When my results came my grades were too low for my university choices so I went to a polytechnic (which is now a university) and got a degree there.