What is poverty? | 1960s UK | 1960s Nottingham | St Ann's | Documentary Report | 1969

When my parents were young they made a very little money sewing wash leather scraps together to make wash leathers. I never realised how poor we were till I looked back on that.

That sounds like a plan. It’s a good contribution to society, which doesn’t (or shouldn’t) have to be financial.

Doodle dog, I agree with your comments decrying “ being brought up by a bunch of strangers”. I felt very virtuous staying at home with my son for five years until I went back to teaching. However, since witnessing how my granddaughter has thrived and blossomed at nursery I’ve completely changed my mind! If society encourages young women to go onto further education, often accruing large student loans, it’s not surprising that they want to get back to work - for financial and personal advancement reasons. All I would say is that childcare is incredibly and cripplingly expensive!

Thank you, Sueki.

I agree that childcare is too expensive, and think that it should be subsidised. I know that there will be people who object though, either because they don't have children and don't want to subsidise those who do, or because they would see subsidy as 'paying someone else to look after children instead of the parents'. I don't see it that way at all, but it might be difficult to get the necessary support to allow parents (usually mothers) to be able to work, keep their independence, remain employable by keeping their skills up to date, contribute financially to the society they live in, boost their pension fund for later life and so on. As society ages and there are fewer 'economically active' members it is important that we don't lose workers because of the cost of childcare.

For Lemsip, and "of course better off". She means in relative terms!! Sure, wages have vastly increased, so have all costs!

We too were very poor, dad had a menial job, and mum rarely worked, just the odd p-t job for a few weeks, but we managed. Never had a car, and we didn't have a TV until I was about 12, but we managed.

What a lovely calm woman. No complaining. Life was tough for her in her damp house

TinSoldier

Yes, I have watched it. It resonated with me.

In the 50s and 60s, we lived in my grandmother’s council house in a predominantly industrial town. She had been widowed in her thirties, long before I was born. Our father had deserted my mother, brother and I when we were very young and did not support us. My gran and mum both worked in factories making industrial components. Gran did the day shift, mum the evening shift. They would have earned less than men doing the same jobs. They also cared for and supported my materal great-grandfather who lived across the road and was 89 at the time the film was made.

The notion of claiming National Assistance or claiming free school meals was shameful to them - a sentiment echoed by the woman in the film. They took in piecework too, just as the woman did with lace. We made ballpoint pens. All four of us sat around the kitchen table at weekends, assembling the components. Our nimble child-fingers came in useful. I imagine my family earned a pittance from it probably to pay for our clothes and shoes which were bought from the tally man or by Provident cheque.

I remember the one coal fire in the house; no heating in any other rooms, ice on the insides of windows. Outside lav, of course, and an inside bathroom that had no running hot water. Water for baths was heated in an old metal wash copper in the kitchen and taken through to the bathroom in bowls and buckets.

As a family, I doubt we were different from many people scraping to get by. Arguably, life would not have been quite so hard had there been a working man in the household.

In a nod to another discussion, it was a revelation to go to grammar school on the other side of town where I met girls whose fathers were bank managers and solicitors, whose mothers didn’t go out to work, who lived in big houses in tree-lined avenues and had cars and went on ski-ing holidays.

Some of these girls became lifelong friends. I realised that education is a great leveller. I was just as smart. We have all gone on to have succcesful professional careers. The only difference is that they have all inherited wealth from their parents while my gran and mum had little to leave despite a lifetime of hard work. I realised too late that my gran and mum were just as intelligent but trapped by working-class poverty and circumstance.

I was like you. However, I was terribly embarrassed by how poor my family was. I don’t think I mixed socially with the richer girls in my class. There was a small group of us poorer girls that hung around together. The worst part was the start of each term when I had to stand up and say what my father’s job was, and he was a labourer. It was so humiliating .I was an only child because my mums pregnancies ended up in miscarriages and I often wonder what our life would have been like if my parents had had a large family.