How poor were you?

Did Jeyes do toilet paper on a roll as well? I seem to remember we had that too, not as hard and scratchy as Izal and it was whiter (but not tissue like today's toilet rolls).

My Dad didn't like Izal toilet paper so we always had Jeyes interleaved tissue which was great for tracing. When soft tissue came in in the 60s he still insisted on Jeyes so for years there were two types of loo paper in the toilet.

Lovely to read this thread. I was born in 1944 but we always had a home with bathroom. I don't think
most of us who grew up in the 50s were particularly aware of the fact we were poor. I was aware that some friends didn't have new clothes like I did but was also aware that their Dads didnt work hard like mine. My mother was the 3rd of 4 girls so she always had hand me down clothes and because of this she was determined my brother and I always had new clothes and shoes. She made all our clothes and knitted our jumpers etc. Obviously they had to budget very carefully for everything but we were never aware of it. Things were never discussed in front of us unlike today when everything seems to be said in front of the children. We were simply but well fed but like has already been said only the living room was heated in the winter so we all sat round the fire together. I remember the ice on the inside of the windows but also how steamy the bathroom got when the hot water for the bath was run on Sunday evenings. We didnt have much but I think we were mostly happier than the youngsters today with their want want want all the time. It also gave us an incentive to strive for a better life and we were prepared to go without to achieve it.

I'd heard Izal/Bronco was rationed in the army -5 sheets -2 up, 2 down and a polisher!! Yikes

Izal and Bronco......not only scratchy but didn't do the job properly! Thank goodness for soft toilet paper and bottom wipes.

My granny wouldn't use anything else! We found rolls and rolls of it when clearing her flat after she'd died. Soft stuff was for invalids and sissies!!

From 1979 to 1984 I worked as a representative for Sterling Industrial - the company that made Izal toilet rolls. It was actually a big seller, although everybody knew that it was only popular because it didn't get stolen from offices and factories! As an employee of the company, I was entitled to as much free product as I wanted, and while we did use many of the other products in the Izal range (some of the polishes were particularly good) I used to throw away the free sample toilet rolls!

When I worked at a primary school in 1999 we discovered a huge stock of Izal in an old storeroom. Our head teacher was all for using it up, but we persuaded her it was too impractical for children so it went into the staff toilets as an alternative to the usual tissue. Some people actually preferred it, but perhaps they had masochistic tendencies!

The only good memories I have of Izal toilet paper are that you could wrap it round a comb and play a tune !! and it made great tracing paper for school work .

We were poor and most of your memories from the 50's apply to me ... but I was loved so much by my DD that I didnt mind any of it as long as he came riding up the road each night with his lovely smile and then took me for a cross bar ride before going in for tea .

In the late eighties I worked for a firm who equipped its lavatories with Izal. It was the same dreadful stuff I remembered from childhood! The directors had soft tissue in their facilities . I used to keep a roll of soft in my desk drawer!

You could actually buy Izal toilet paper until a few years ago. DH bought his dad a roll as a joke Christmas present one year!

Yes!! That's all we had as I might add did the Civil Service (whoops state secret)

Oh yes

I went somewhere recently where they had that type of toilet paper, can't remember where. Not in this country.

Morethan2 We must have been posh then as we had Izal toilet rolls that smelt of disinfectant
Any one remember these ghastly pieces of scratchy toilet paper on a roll.

I was born in October 1945 in a 3-bed terraced council house in North London, my granny lived with us too. It had an indoor bathroom but no heating other than a coal fire in the living room, which had to burn all year to provide hot water. Mum did piece-work at home (making dolls) then when I was about 7 she got some evening shifts at the London Rubber Company; I was told they made balloons, but of course it was condoms! Dad was an HGV driver, they were really poor but there was always enough to eat and they were savers, so we always had a week's holiday in a caravan in Littlehampton, Sussex.

When I passed my 11+ and went to grammar school they really had to scrimp to afford my uniform (the blazer lasted me 5 years) and it was only later in life I realised what sacrifices they made for me. But we were a very happy unit and I know I had wonderful parents who instilled into me their values of hard work, standing on your own feet and taking pleasure from small things.

Born just after the War, we lived with my grandparents in the Black Country till I was six. They owned the house, and my grandfather was a keen gardener, growing all his own vegetables, so we ate well. No central heating, of course. I remember ice on the inside of bedroom windows and grandfather 'drawing' the fire in the living room with newspaper. What health and safety? I remember pea souper fogs. In the Winter, when the furnaces were opened up to cool them for maintenance, the sky and the snow covered ground were lit with a pink glow.

I think we feel poverty when we are poorer than our neighbours. When everyone's in the same boat, we don't seem to regard ourselves as worse off than anyone else. As someone has said on this thread, it's a relative thing.

Thanks for the thread, OP. It has been a walk down Memory Lane.

But really I think the point is as we can all testify happiness can be found everywhere whatever your circumstances.

We were all so lucky as just after or before most of our births the welfare state was formed and we have all so much to be thankful for as we have all benefited from it either directly or indirectly. Just think how different so many of our lives would have been without the welfare state.

I think also some things were just what happened then and not necessarily down to being poor. We had a car but it was never used for shopping or going to work (Dad had a bike ) but was used for chapel on Sundays or holidays. My mother always saved string, reused wrapping paper etc, I suppose this was wartime thing, she had lived through both wars. I never remember having shop bought cake or going to a restaurant with my parents.

Reading this thread has brought back many memories of childhood in the 50s and 60s. The biting cold, Ice on the inside of the windows, being able to see my breath as I laid in bed, getting dressed under the covers and the chilblains. We were talking about this a while ago and I was delighted when my son (30) said he has never known a cold house. He has also never known hiding from the tally man, having to borrow meter money from neighbours, wet feet from leaking shoes, lack of food, second hand clothing or domestic violence. It'd be lovely to think that all these things are confined to the past like they are for me but unfortunately for a great many people they are still day to day reality. The most surprising thing on this thread though is the high number of working mothers. Current social history would have us believe that most women stayed home in the 50s & 60s and only took to work in the 70s but that ain't necessarily true.

Reading these posts especially the ones from the baby boomers. I realise how lucky I was! An only child living in Sussex by the coast in a large detached house that my great grandmother had purchased in the 1920's and which my grandparents gave to my parents upon marriage; I had my own room and a large garden to play in.we always had a car (my mothers father used to buy them for us) and at least one holiday a year usually abroad! Both my parents had been brought up in affluent circumstances and had the benefit of public school educations, they therefore prioritised this for me and sent me to be educated privately something I have always been grateful for. My own experience of poverty was when my own girls were small and my husband became ill and unable to work for a while I was a carer and parent to three small girls. I lived on a tiny income never had new clothes or luxuries like hair cuts! But all available money was ploughed in to trying to raise the children's standard of education so I paid for French lessons dance lessons gym classes and horse riding because I felt guilty that I couldn't provide for them what my parents had provided for me. I am not sure my girls appreciate even now how hard this all was but I have seen them take degrees, travel the world and now become excellent parents themselves so I think it was worth it!

Oh, those swimming costumes Dot

And I remember clothes were always bought a bit too big, turned up, let down, let out, then a false hem put on the bottom.

Elbows in jumpers and cardigans got darned, as did socks.

Our house had no damp proof and was shockingly cold and wet in the winter. The wallpaper used to peel off regularly and flap down. When I was six we had a flat roof bathroom extension built on the back, but it too was seriously cold and a paraffin stove was kept burning in it overnight so the pipes didnt freeze up. I can remember having sugar sandwiches with a cup of milky tea for a meal - we loved it - but as the bread was white sliced with marg I dont think it was very nutritious.

My Dad had retired from the Police force on a fixed pension before any of us were born. When I asked him once why he had more children on a reduced income he said when he married my Mum (his second wife) he thought she understood he didn't want anymore children but clearly not as there are three of us. We were lucky to have a huge garden and Mum grew all our veg and fruit there, our house had been built in what had been an orchard so we had apple, pear, plum and baking/cooking apple trees all around the walls. Mum was an expert in letting down dresses and skirts by inserting a band of contrasting material, I got my older sister's clothes as she outgrew them. Older cousins clothes were passed on by my Aunties and Mum also knitted cardigans and jumpers, unwinding the wool when outgrown and reknitting the next one with it. Sheets were cut in half when worn and sewn together again to get more life out of them, then made into pillow cases when too worn to use. We had blankets from the Army and Navy store. Mum knitted our swimming costumes which looked lovely until they got wet and hung down by our knees Dad kept hens and rabbits and we ate well - Mum made soups and stews with dumplings to fill us up, eggs were exchanged for fish with the fishmonger - but, apart from all the rows my parents had (initiated by my Mum) we had a happy childhood, I have lots of happy memories of playing out with friends, climbing up the trees and sitting on the branches hidden away and reading my books, going swimming and playing tennis in the street.

I remember going to a trades union children's Christmas party where I ate one of those imitation strawberries they used to put on the top of buns. I only realised it wasn't real once I'd got it in my mouth, and was too embarrassed to spit it out!

I remember going to my Father's works children's Xmas party and being given a goody bag with an orange, a few sweets and some crayons in it. Also remember my Mum cutting a Mars bar into slices and sharing it between myself and my two siblings. Times were hard. A bag of crisps also had to be shared. No wonder there are so many overweight little'uns around these days, they'd be horrified at such meagre portions!