When I was born........

I too was brought up in a flat with no bathroom and a loo in a leanto but we did have a lovely big garden as we were on the ground floor. My father also worked incredibly hard 5 1/2 days a week. No central heating in the council house we moved to when I was 11 but we did have a bathroom. How things have changed.

Literally when I was born...my date of birth is officially 24 November 1948. When my late Mum was around 80, she said, out of the blue, "You know, you were actually born on 23rd November at a quarter to midnight. The nurse said it was snowing outside, 'so we'll register her tomorrow'". That wouldn't happen today, I think...

The realisation that events in my childhood are now taught as history - I was born in 1937, so "the war" was everyday life for me. My dad was born in 1900 - Queen Victoria was on the throne, and his dad was born in 1840 - 25 years after Waterloo!

I was born before the war and I married young (21) consequently I am somewhat ahead of most of you.
We bought a new build 3 bed semi for less than the price of a sofa, never mind a car.
It cost £2,250 and was lovely, our mortgage was In the teens of pounds a month, I can’t remember exactly.

My memories of school are not quite as happy, we had some very strict and not fair teachers, some were downright nasty.

My overriding thoughts now is technology, it is wonderful and our GP’ generation would think they were living with Aliens.

Overall how happy I am to still be here to see this progress and to be able to enjoy it, though obviously things are difficult now, how much worse would it seem to us without our contact with friend and family.

Crossed posts MrsEggy I was also born in 1937.

I never want to have a phone with a screen on it so people can see me when I use the phone - I would have to put something over the screen. I don't like having my photograph taken either.

I think the house we bought in 1964 was around £2500, a new three bedroomed semi. Amazing to think of now. Some years later we were looking to move and found a perfect house in Lincoln, three floors, a granny flat, several bedrooms and reception rooms - would have made a really nice bed and breakfast place but it was £5000 and we couldn't afford it. How I have regretted that since as it would have been perfect for my mum when my parents split up and she had to find jobs to support herself, And somewhere for my grandmother to move into as well.

I was born 3 months before war started so I agree with all your comments. I often wonder how my parents managed. A completely different world ago.

My mum did all the washing for all of us in a dolly tub.

DH's auntie used to send him food parcels from Australia, tinned fruit etc.
They, and letters, took about six weeks to arrive.

We lived just outside a small village. The school was about a mile and a half away, one teacher for about 15 children, mostly farm labourers' children. I remember walking to school crying with cold as my legs were chafed by my thick tweed skirt. There was a coal stove in the classroom with a iron fence around it. My mother kept a couple of pigs and we knew farmers who helped with food. There was a German prisoner who helped in the garden; he couldn't go home yet because there wasn't enough food or housing. After he went home to East Germany, he and my late mother kept in touch until his death in about 1995.
Children had a huge amount of freedom. We roamed the fields and woods and swam in the little river. I think country children had a better time of it than town children. But for teenagers, the town was where you wanted to be, and we had to rely on an hourly bus.

The whole of Monday was devoted to doing the laundry. Mum had to light a boiler in the kitchen to get hot water, then she used a dolly tub to get the laundry clean, followed by rinsing it all on cold water in the sink and finally putting it through the wringer. Dad had to wear a collar and tie for his job and she used to make his shirts white by using a blue bag and she also starched the collars. She didn’t have a washing machine until after I left school at 16.

I am still excited that I can carry books music magazines and newspapers in my pocket. We are so fortunate to have all the advantages of technology. Plus after a family virtual activity with our 7 AC and their children I wonder how much sadder this lockdown would have been without it.

My father used to wind a handle to turn the electricity on, it was a Pelton wheel hydro electric system, only enough to run light bulbs! He was a farmer and one Christmas the lights went of as the phone rang, the neighbour was ringing to say suspected foot and mouth on their farm and a from had got stuck in the water pipe. Not a happy evening!

When I was born in late fifties we lived in a house where another family lived upstairs and a family lived in the basement. We had a large room and I do not recall any bedrooms for anyone. There was a smallish separate kitchen where I would get a wash and on other occasions the tin bath was brought into the living room where either myself or siblings would be bathed in the tin bath. There was one toilet room which had to be shared with the family upstairs and I remember my mother always cleaning there and using a mop and bucket. The people in the basement had their own outside toilet down there.
My mothers sister lived close by and had a part-time job so my cousin was at our home most days and being only six months older than me it was like having a sister as my siblings were brothers. My memories of those days are still wonderful to me although I would imagine my mother had her work cut out for her.

In 1923 radio, cats whisker, had only been invented. Our house was one of the first to be built after the 14 /18 war so we had bathroom and toilet and electricity. It cost £100 with a deposit of £10 in 1922. It recently sold for £600,500.

We had no electricity when I was very small just after the Second World War. Gas lighting. And a gas iron with flames. This was common in Edinburgh at the time but then electricity came in very quickly. The thing that amazes me most is that I can get any information I want in seconds in my own home. See any painting in any museum, for example. Do free courses in universities across the world. Medical technology has improved. But there is global warming and environmental degradation. Threats to the continuation of life on the planet that we couldn’t have imagined. This current plague. I was brought up thinking things would go on improving but now the future seems desperate.

I heard a child, on her first day back at school since the virus, say to her mother ‘It was lovely today - we each had our own desks’. Took me back to my school days when every child had their own desks, and the teacher stood at the front with the blackboard. None of this going to and fro to other classrooms or parts of rooms.

Central heating for me too, Puzzler. And inside toilets. Where we lived, in a three storey house, the only toilet was half way down garden and in the winter of 62/63, when I was only 5, my dad dug the snow into piles either side so that we could get to it. The piles of snow were taller than I was and I was terrified of being buried under it on the way to have a wee!!!

I'm like you Puzzler61. Central heating & hot water. We just had a coal fire in living room&an oil heater on landing. Four girls in the house& we all shared the same bath water! I was the youngest so got in last.... Then a rush downstairs to stand in your towel in front of the fire to warm up. We were all so happy with what we had in those days.

Hello Bijou. Hope you are well.
Your house costing £100 seems like a veritable give away but that £100 was a lot of money in those days.
The first house we bought in 1970, a two up two down terrace in a relatively poor town in the south east cost £6,000a small fortune. We had managed to save £1000 over previous years as a deposit and oh we struggled with that £5,000 mortgage , but that’s where we learned to be frugal and manage with less. It’s always stood us in good stead and I still count the pennies, it’s habit.
Take care and keep safe Bijou.

I agree with everyone else. Technology and showers!

When I was first met my husband, 1970, his parents lived in Hong Kong. They had to book a phone call with the telephone exchange about 7 hours in advance! I remember sitting next to the phone excitedly waiting for the call from the operator who then put us through to them

I was born in the 50’s. Like most houses just a coal fire in the livingroom. One of the bedrooms also had an open fireplace but was only used if one of the family was ill in bed. That became the sick room.

If we were cold we put another jumper on. There was no going around the house in teeshirts and bare feet.

When we got up for school in winter the inside of the windows were covered in ice. TV was a small b+w till the early 70’s. Then we rented a coloured tv it felt like we’d won the lottery.

I feel like there should sad violin music playing in the background of this thread! ?

My childhood was in the late 40's, we did have a telephone - a big black thing, it terrified me. Dad had a car which frequently ran out of petrol - I can remember crying because the car had run out of petrol, it was dark and wet and dad had to take a petrol can with him to find a petrol station - today, cars are more reliable (think there was a leak in the petrol tank). We would use our mobiles to contact a roadside emergency company!! I feel in this Lockdown, many of us (including me) would not survive without the internet, which helps to keep in touch with the outside world.

As for my childhood, early 50s, it was a 2 bed Victorian terrace, one cold tap, toilet in the yard, no heating, no hot water, an open fire downstairs, no fridge or tv, no phone til I was about 14 and my poor mum never had a washing machine so handwashed everything the rest if her life. She had a mangle though, which helped .

Carol54

I am still excited that I can carry books music magazines and newspapers in my pocket. We are so fortunate to have all the advantages of technology. Plus after a family virtual activity with our 7 AC and their children I wonder how much sadder this lockdown would have been without it.

Exactly how I feel, Carol54 !