How do you define being Common !!!

And we're not that, are we ^Greatnan*?

I am not sure about you, jingle, but just because I live alone up a mountain does not make me eccentric and nor does taking up mountain walking at the age of 70 nor going snorkeling alone all over the world ............

It all sounds quite logical to me. Like taking up cruising and the harp in the 60s
'nearer my god to thee'

The harp - tell us more!

I've bought a Celtic harp with sharping keys and am TRYING to teach myself to play it!
So far, ican play twinkle twinkle little star!
I've just found Denman college does a short course on the harp and I am thinking of enrolling.
Has anybody ever been there?

No. 'course not Greatnan.

Yes expat now one is judged by money. I grew up in a comfortable family but all were frugal and lived conventional lives. Now I am a pensioner in a council bedsit and I am treated as if I haven't got a brain. Acquaintances who would have lived near me in council houses/prefabs now boast about what they have and where they go on holiday. I am the same person. Money and youth seem to be the new 'gods'.

My mother was a working class girl growing up in a Midlands street. However, she considered herself a cut above her neighbour who was 'a dirty cat' for putting up her long hair with a solution of sugar and water.

When my brother and I were children, our grandad, who was very poor, used to send us out with a small tin to look for fag ends (no tips in those days) in the gutters, open them up and put the tobacco in the tin. We got a real sense of achievement from filling the tin.

No wonder poor grandad died of a serious lung disease when he was seventy!

Where about in the midlands? I'm a wednesbury girl,

We were considered posh in our back street in Salford in the 1940s because we had a piano, an indoor bathroom (the house was an ex pub which had been requisitioned during the war), books, and our parents did not hit us.
In the country of the blind..............

petallus, from when she was three in 1912 my grandma was sent out with a bucket and shovel to collect manure left by passing horses. her father (whom she adored) was a keen gardener. i think you got off lightly with the fag ends!
greatnan, having books in the house was still considered posh in the 80s - at primary school my daughter was told she was 'posh', though we lived in a tiny terraced house two minutes from school and never had holidays, because she spoke clearly and read books.
i should imagine having a piano is still fairly posh in some parts of salford - a lot of my pupils are from salford and those who are doing well financially are more likely to have home gyms than pianos.

The rag and bone man used to park his horse and cart outside my granny's house in the cul-de-sac where she lived, and she or granddad always went out to collect the manure, for their roses. That was in the 1950s.

The rag and bone man used to pay for old jam jars as well, I remember.

Our rag and bone man gave us goldfish in bags in exchange for our old clothes.
We also had a 'wireless' (I still call it that sometimes) but it had a massive battery which had to be taken to the rag and bone yard to be recharged.

Most families who had pianos sold them and bought TV sets.

I think having a harp is very, very posh!

It's only a small harp

Don't worry, jeni, you just add a bit of class to our forum!
I believe a harp is one of the hardest instruments to play.

I used to play the violin in my salad days!

And I don't do 'class' I am what I am. Take me or leave me!

It's not the size of the harp, Jeni, it's what you do with it!

Looks nice in the corner?

And polished lovingly...

Polish? Isn't that a foreign language

Jeni it was Rugby. Probably not near to Wednesbury.

Our rag and bone man once gave us baby chicks, a couple just tossed into a brown paper bag. They didn't last long. The dog got one and my mother trod on the other in her high heel. I was only about three but I can still see the poor little fluffy yellow creature, squawking and writhing on the lino with mum's heel through it's middle.

Erghh! Thinking about that makes me want a cup of tea so I'm off to make one.

Our house used to be a very noisy house, we had a piano, an organ, four guitars, a violin and three keyboards with usual amplifiers. Now we have an empty nest and just the piano