Keeping warm

Even in the early 1960s my grandparents used to put a candle under an inverted plant pot in their outside loo. My husband says his dad just used to take the oven shelves out of the oven, wrap them in a towel and use them to warm his bed, as well as bricks.

No you're not imagining it ExDancer DS does this with tea lights to keep his camper van warm.

My father made electric bed warmers out of a light bulb fixed inside a big toffee tin.

I shudder now to think how dangerous that could have been..

In mining villages, the miners put their Davy or Geordie lamps in the outside loos (netties) to stop the water freezing.
Coal wasn’t a problem, as it was seen as part of their ‘wages’ working for the NCB. Sometimes miners would sell half a load for extra money, or give non-mining neighbours a couple of bucketsful. In those days the coal was just tipped - no bags, so the women would turn out with shovels and buckets to move it from the road into the coal house.

My old dad would warm a brick in the bottom of the oven when the dinner was cooking and slip it in their bed wrapped in a tea towel, when my sister or I were poorly he would put the brick in our bed.

My OH does this too keep the chill off plants/seedlings when he has them in the greenhouse. Uses the cheap pillar candles.

Very cold today and I have been out most of the day but lovely and warm. I put a pair of ladies thin thermal black long johns under my leggings. I have been toasty warm.

My tiny hands ( and feet and nose and toes) are frozen.
Despite 3 layers plus blanket. Heating on, but still . .really cold.
I have been sitting most of the afternoon looking at GN, and need to move.

Yes we had oven plates wrapped in cloths to take to bed. Hot water bottles were a luxury! We also slept under coats on top of the blankets.

I do recall also having coal fires in the bedrooms when we were very small.

My dad worked at the pit so we were never short of coal.

Someone up thread mentioned a home made bed warmer.
My uncle made a wooden frame and fixed a light bulb inside.
It warmed the bed nicely which as a child in the 50s I thought was great,but had no idea how dangerous it probably was.
Thanks for the memory.

If you watch You Tube, they are telling you how to do that to this day. They give instructions. There was a warning about it though.

I've warned our DS TopGunner; just hope he's listened .

Georgesgran I remember my grandma,a widow, shovelling the coal. However I believe she had to give neighbours some very, very carefully. The coal board might have taken the coal away if they knew she shared it.

I’ve got one of those old Belling bedwarmers that look like a flying saucer. I got it on eBay years ago for £40. Warms the bed great in quite a short time.

ExDancer

I was born in 1938 and have a vague recollection during the war of my mother putting a lighted candle into a plant pot (terracotta) and inverting another plant pot on top of it, as a kind of heater. Am I imagining it?
Coal was rationed and we used to huddle around a miserable little fire wearing hats and scarves, listening to the wireless. A brick in the fireside oven served as a hot water bottle at bedtime.

I was born in 1937 ExDancer so I lived exactly the same life as you. The oven shelf wrapped in an old bit of cloth in bed to warm it and a stone hot water bottle to do the same. The fire was kept below two bars in the black range and Dad making fire bricks out of coal dust and cement, always a pot of something simmering on the range and all of us gathering round in the evening listening to Wilfred pickles and Tommy
Handley on the wireless and dont use too much battery as mother wants to listen to armchair theatre.
We survived in the snow, we went to school and wore our coats and scarves when the coke for the boiler ran out and we played in snow and we loved it. Thanks for the memory I loved reading your post. 😍

when i was younger me and my sister shared a double bed, we had a big candlewick and my mums sheepskin coat, at the moment my flat is very cold as they took the cladding of the building and have not replaced it yet, meaning lots of draughts.

Georgesgran

In mining villages, the miners put their Davy or Geordie lamps in the outside loos (netties) to stop the water freezing.
Coal wasn’t a problem, as it was seen as part of their ‘wages’ working for the NCB. Sometimes miners would sell half a load for extra money, or give non-mining neighbours a couple of bucketsful. In those days the coal was just tipped - no bags, so the women would turn out with shovels and buckets to move it from the road into the coal house.

I lived in S. Yorkshire in mid 70's and coal was still tipped on the pavement outside houses for the mining families. Memories!

I remember the ice forming on the inside of the bedroom window and studying with a hot water bottle strapped under dressingown. Oh and chilblains.....I think from standing waiting on a bus to school 4 times a day.

Our indoor toilet had no heating when I was a child, so in frosty weather a very small parafin lamp was placed on the floor beside the waste pipe to prevent the water in the bowl and cistern from freezing.

It kept the temperature just above freezing, but did not warm the very small room, so we did our business fast!

We had stone pigs and rubber hotties to warm our beds with, and when we children were sent upstairs with the hot water bottles we placed our night clothes on top of them so our nighties weren't icy cold to get into to at bed-time.

The advantage of the stone pig was that it stayed warm all night, so you could put your underclothes round it before getting into bed, so they were not cold in the morning.

I had heard of the candle in the flower-pots - I think they were still in use amongst greenhouse owners in the 1950s.

Yes, grandtanteJE65, we had one of those paraffin heaters in the bathroom too when I was a child - I can still remember the smell to this day. And I also remember the ice on the inside of the bedroom window and the patterns it made. Living in what is still a cold house (although fortunately no ice inside now!), I often sit with a hot water bottle - in addition to umpteen layers of clothing and often a blanket around me too. Oh, and gloves - or my hands would be too cold to type!

When we were first married my FIL put a greenhouse heater in the bed to warm it for us. I was so embarrassed when I had to shout the beds on fire as smoke drifted up!! Still makes me laugh and we have been married fifty years now

My mother used to put my dad's big overcoat on our bed. i shared a bed with my sister for quite a few years. Also would put the oven on and open the door to warm the kitchen.

I still have the belling but it’s in the attic

Did anyone else have a mains gas poker to start the fire? It started the fire so quickly but cannot have been totally safe! We still had a gas point for a poker in our old house- we had to get it sealed off when we moved in.
I remember the smell of oil heaters - my grandparents had one.
My father ( a physicist) made a sort of early secondary glazing with plastic film, to try and keep the main room warm. It made a very characteristic sound in the breeze ( windows were not well sealed back then.
The other sound I remember is the rattling out of the ashes for the coal boiler - my father used to get up first to light it, ( it went out overnight), - it heated water as well as the kitchen.