How We Used To Live

I remember those mcClaren pushchairs. When you hung shopping over the handles they used to tip up, baby and all! No one hurt, thankfully

Oh yes! They tipped over gently, the toddler cushioned by the shopping! They were ideal for taking on the bus.

The big lovely sprung pram with big wheels,with a cat net on top when baby was sleeping outside in that pram, in the fresh air. The shopping trolley at the bottom and the pram seat for a toddler
Those too. DC1 was happy to walk until we got to the bottom of the steep hill on the way home then said "I think I'd like to sit on the pram seat now".
No wonder I was slim ?

I married in 1964 but didn’t own a home until 1983 when I was nearly 40
I did have a twin tub and a fridge but not much else in way of appliances most furniture came from sale rooms auctions or given etc I didn’t have a house telephone until I was nearly 30 and got a small Tv with an aerial we used to move round the room when I was early 20 s
I used to plug the iron into the light socket

Sure we had it good !!!!

that big pram was second hand but people did look after their things and it was in lovely condition when we bought it. It was passed on again after my three

yes a very interesting thread, brings back a lot of memories. I remember those Mclaren pushchairs that were so handy when getting a bus. The big lovely sprung pram with big wheels,with a cat net on top when baby was sleeping outside in that pram, in the fresh air. The shopping trolley at the bottom and the pram seat for a toddler

All that walking but we did have shops that we could walk to then and toddler facing mum and talking away, sadly that is often missing nowadays

I have saved this thread to read when rubbish on tv and so glad I did, very, very interesting and inspiring in many ways..?

This is such an interesting thread, brings back so many memories. I remember those mcClaren pushchairs. When you hung shopping over the handles they used to tip up, baby and all! No one hurt, thankfully. With my eldest, born in 1971, I had a lovely big pram and I used to walk for miles with it. No wonder I was so slim then, looking back. The rot set in when I started driving around in Australia because distances were just too large to walk.

Married in 1975, remember the power cuts and petrol shortages.
Had 2 children quickly. Husband had bought a house with 100% mortgage.
Having always lived in a nurse's home now had my own kitchen.
Yes had a twin tub. Did get the washing done quickly.
Bought a twin pram secondhand. Wonderful suspension but the little pests kicked each other! Deliberately.
Then bought a twin McClaren and they biffed each other. My daughter was the wind up.
Great days.

I was married in 1977. Once family came along it wasn't the norm for a woman to work certain not until kids were a good age and then it was usually part time. Money was extremely tight as wage was extremely poor then. The bed was new everything else second hand. My first child was 9 months before I got a second hand twin tub which my mother in law bought for £15 because she felt sorry for me washing nappies and all our clothes by hand every day. Sometimes I used my mother's washer but we lived a few miles away from our parents. My shopping was done and took back on the tray under my big pram. Most places we walked to with babies in big prams. I got one of those newly fangled buggies. Wow to be able now to travel on the bus!! One tv in the house it was rented. A 2nd hand basic cooker. A second hand hoover. Terry towelling nappies not disposable ones. I wouldn't ho back to that life for a million pounds. We didn't have time for false nails snd eyelashes. No home telephone til we had been married years.

Juliet27

Much of this link is familiar!
What were houses like 100 years ago
www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zqhyb9q/articles/zpgggk7

Much of it’s familiar

EEk! although not 100 or more there are so many familiar things in those illustrations!

May I ask, how many of you were housewives when you married, or had full careers or worked part time? I had the luxury of working or not when I married in 1983 aged 20. I dipped in and out of interesting work & didn't work at all for about 14 years whilst I had children & before they were in senior school. I know I was very fortunate but in 1983 I wasn't alone but shortly afterwards there was a rapid trend of both partners working full time & this was connected to how much mortgage lenders were offering.

Our first baby was born in 1970 and until she was a year old I did all the washing by hand, boiling nappies daily.
Then I won £25 on a Premium Bond and bought a reconditioned twin-tub washing machine. I’ve always said that the washing machine was the greatest invention of the 20th century, freeing women from a day’s hard manual labour every week.

We were also married in 1971 and managed to buy a wee 1 bedroom flat for just over £1000. No car, telephone, television,. washing machine. Toilet out on landing. On telling my granddaughter this, she looked at me and said "Gran in the Roman times" I know I am getting old but not that old. I also remember when interest rates soared

My friend’s dad had an old fridge in his garage and said we could have it. This was 1975. Unfortunately when attempting to back his car out to allow us access to the fridge he put the car in a forward gear and drove into it making a huge dent in the front of it. We took it anyway and lived with it for many years.

In 'those days' gadgets were made to last!
Nowadays, they're considered throw away products as they wear out so quickly, or rather go out of fashion especially when trying to keep up with the Joneses!

When my parents got married, way back in the 50s, they had amongst their gifts & later subsequent buys an oak blanket chest, an oak dining table & 4 chairs, an oak bed frame, an oak tallboy cupboard & handmade wooden ironing board complete with the asbestos tile for standing the iron on!
My siblings & I sat & played on that table and it was as solid the day she died in 2018 as the day it was made. The blanket chest and bed frame were still in constant use, although maybe the springs on the bed could have done with replacing if someone received it afterwards, depending on their personal comfort!
We hid in the blanket chest while playing, we had all sorts stored in the tallboy over the years (it had 2 large drawers at the bottom and a 2 door cupboard above, great for storing towels, blanket, woolies etc).
In my parents room was a solid dressing table, I think oak again, and in mine & my sisters room a good dressing table, too. Ours had 2 very large drawers that we had one each of, and my BFF used one as a cot for whenever she stayed over with her baby. We'd empty it, put in a thick blanket & drape it over the sides and tuck underneath so the drawer held the blanket in place solidly, then babies (one at a time, although we'd quite easily have fitted 2 lengthwise) would have a beautiful night's sleep - she said the babies slept better in there than their cot at home!!
This furniture went through myself and my siblings, and cousins and friends, and lasted well.
Much more than I can say of the flimsy rubbish they make today!!!

My Mum and Dad , didn't get a fridge until I was 16, milk was stood in cold water in the summer, they never had a phone until I left home at 23 so they could phone me, there wasn't central heating in our house when I was a child it was a coal fire, replaced later by gas fires,washing machine had a wringer, washing hung out or on a pulley which was nice when you had chips for tea fried in the chip pan as your clothes had a lovely fragrance,I was happy I had my little Dansette record player and my transistor radio, tranny had a different meaning then!
Mum and I went to Ireland to Aunties from Stranraer to Larne on a luxurious ship which also carried cattle! It was great I loved it, and have loads of happy memories,

AGAA4

Most of our large items of furniture was bought by our parents when we married. We bought the smaller items bit by bit. The one thing I scrimped and saved for was an automatic washing machine when our first son was born. I had been washing by hand till then.
I remember it used to do a dance and scuttle about when it was spinning. The good old days.

I'd been living with my boyfriend for some years. The first time I knew for sure we were in a serious relationship was when he bought me an automatic washing machine - before that we'd had to go to the launderette every weekend! We married the next year and have been together ever since.
Many people didn't have a washing machine then, let alone a tumble dryer or microwave.
Today everyone seems to expect to have these machines, even if they are renting.

We married in 1972 and our first home was a two-room flat, the only appliance other than a fridge and a stove that came with the flat was a toaster (a wedding gift)
when we moved into our tiny two-bedroom house the only appliances that we got were an electric jug, a TV ant a twin tub.
This continued for many years, no extra appliances. Now I think we are over applianced and I am not so sure that they save the time everyone says they do

We had no washing machine, tv, wardrobes or anything else much but we bought a bright orange carpet from Warrington market for 20 quid and the bloke told us we were lucky it didn’t have ‘a bloody great hole ‘ in it for that price! I was a student and my husband has his first job and we had lots of parties and drunken nights at that house. We had a 100% mortgage, no deposit required. Luckily we got on ok with our neighbours and I am still in touch with one lot all these years later.

The rent on our Council house was £2:3:4pence and standing in line to pay it one week, I joined in the general moan about the newly announced rent increase. An older gentleman rounded on me saying that at my age I should be thinking of buying a house so I replied truthfully saying we couldn’t get a deposit together. He told me the local council were offering mortgages to all tenants paying full rent and the deposit was £25. That was in 1966 and the Council had been building houses for sale using their own workmen.
Why isn’t this type of scheme being used nowadays? It free’d up many Council houses and for some years there was only long waiting times for 1 x. Bedroomed houses/ flats and many young families who’d applied for 2 x bedroomed houses were offered 3 x bedroomed ones as there were more of them available. Unfortunately a state of affairs that didn’t last very long.
I doubt if we would ever have managed to buy our own house without the help of our local council.

We married in 1964…my husband was working for the Bank of England at that time and they offered employees 100% mortgage at 1% interest up to a certain amount…. linked to the employee’s annual salary. . We bought a new build 2 bedroom bungalow for £4500 in a fairly rural location about a 30 minute drive from my husband’s work. I worked in the City and it took me at least 75 minutes each way to and from my job! I had saved £500 during the two years we were engaged which bought our cooker, our twin tub washing machine, our bed and fitted carpet throughout! We stayed in that bungalow for about 6 years before moving to a larger home in the suburbs …..and that opportunity really kick started our climb up the the property ladder. Even after all these years I realize how fortunate we were to start our married life owning our own home.

We were married in 1968. We rented a cottage with an outside loo for 28/6 a week. (£1.45) We sold our car and saved to buy a house £1,800 with interest rate of 9%. I used the laundrette every week. Our first holiday abroad was in 1980. When we moved into our current house 35 years ago the mortgage interest rate was 17.5% …… but we just got on with life. I’m still grateful for washing machine, dish washer, mobile phone etc etc

What a brilliant thread, I have so enjoyed reading it and all the memories that came flooding back. Thank you everyone. It's really made me stop and think about what I take for granted.

Like Karmalady, I have a real sense of how we kept cheerful (mostly) and just got on with life and looking after ourselves. No sense of being different or hard done by. We did not have the expectations that seem to be current now. We were happy (mostly): our expectation was that by dint of hard work and saving we could sort ourselves out.

No one asks for hardship, but it has to be how we choose to deal with the twists and turns, the ups and downs that determines our outlook. Not how much we possess in the way of material things: when I saw the devastation wrought by hurricane Ian in Florida (or even worse, Mariupol) it was a stark reminder to take stock of the things that really matter because it can all be gone in a flash.

My daily gratitude list before I go to sleep: love, a measure of health, shelter, clean water, food, clothing, just for starters - these are the things which matter to me now; all else is optional.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy having the material comforts that I could never have dreamed of 60+ years ago, but if I had to start again from scratch, I could. I did have to do it some 20 years ago when I became homeless for a while but came through it in one piece. My parents had to do it when they became refugees overnight and without warning in their 50's.

Sorry, rambling on now so will stop!

Married in 1966. Our bed was the one my husband used at his home but as used by two instead of him on his own we had to put wooden slats on top of the springs. We had enough money for carpets but no furniture. Wedding presents were the likes of dishes, towels,cutlery, toaster and kettle so they saw us through. I "borrowed" some pans from my mum. Curtains in the living room, double windows, were different and donated and, one set hardly met so had to be closed with safety pins. The house came with a cooker and an electric boiler, my husband found a nearly new Acne wringer in a scrap yard for a £1 that, with the deep porcelain sink, scrubbing board and boiler was how the washing was done. We saved for everything as we went along, hire purchase wasn't the done thing. When we had enough money for sitting room furniture the guy in the shop on hearing we were sitting on cushions gave us a couple of chairs to use until our furniture arrived. We did not consider we were living in hardship. I made curtains, a lot of my own clothes and we saved like mad. Eventually we had a well furnished, well equiped home with no debt. 3 years until we had a rented tv. On buying a house, interest rates were a lot higher than experienced over the recent years 8% was the norm and I can recall the rate being 15% in 1994. Can't recall how long it took for the rate to reduce. There does seem to be so much expectation to have everything nowadays. Yes both can be in jobs, as were my husband and I, so the excuse of having to go to work, needing all the "must haves" falls on deaf ears I'm afraid. How much is spent on hen/stag dos, weddings nowadays. Just had news from a friend tgat her daughter's friend got married in her garden with 20 guests. Why, they preferred to have the money parent's would have spent on a full wedding as a gift to put towards a deposit for a house. To me they have to be applauded

We are the ones the younger generation hate, those of us rhat bought our council houses. At the time we bought ours, we were still u dervthe impression that the money was going to be used to build more council houses. By the time we found out that wasn't happening it was too late. I don't think it would have made any difference. We had scraped and saved all our previous married life and had no credit until then.

I see very similar experiences all through this thread, the scrimping and scraping and also the deep sense of happiness at achieving our own homes, never mind that most stuff was second hand. I also had that feeling of satisfaction whenever we managed to save enough to but something big, such as a piece of furniture or a washing machine

I painted some of our furniture, lime green and had a bright orange suite. Happy days