Cold houses in the past…

makes me realise how pampered today’s children are

Very true for many, but not all, of course.

Back when we were young, the vast majority lived like we did, so you knew no different.

My experiences of cold childhood winters are reflected in many of these posts - a two up two down terrace with no central heating and no hot running water. We had one cold tap in the kitchen until my father could be prevailed upon to have a water heater installed over the sink. There was a Yorkshire range in the kitchen which gave out heat, but a fire in the front room was reserved for weekends only. The worst thing, though, was having to “cross the yard” to go to the outside toilet and sit there in the freezing cold, teeth chattering! A small paraffin lamp was all that stopped the cistern from freezing in the winter (and often it didn’t) and it was often necessary to dig a path through the snow to get to it!
DH and I lived in a few pretty dismal unheated, no mod cons quarters during his Army service, and it was almost like going back to those dark ages in the 50s and 60s!

A coal fire only in the living room. Frost on the inside of windows. We huddled round the fire to put our clothes on. The bathroom had a light/heater combo which didn't really warm the room and there was condensation and mould. Eventually we had a gas fire and central heating installed but I was a teenager before that happened.
My friend only had ice lollies in winter. Hee dad made them and stuck them on the outside of the kitchen window sill

BlueBelle

Am I the only person here without central heating ?

I moved to my flat four years ago when my husband died, after always having lived in centrally heated houses.
These flats, when built in around 1960, were then advertised as ‘luxury”, which they were at the time. Because of that, I was very surprised to find that, in a three-bedroom flat, the only heating is in the lounge and bathroom! I have had to buy a couple of freestanding heaters to make things more comfortable. That said, I have wanted to live here for years, and have, at last, managed it, so I mustn’t complain!
Does that count, BlueBelle? 🤣

Now we are in the middle of this cold snap I do wonder how many people with central heating are too nervous of high bills to put it on, or for just an hour or two when they can’t stand the cold any longer.

In the past on here there have been shocking accounts of people living in unheated homes with the thermostat showing 13 deg.

I certainly remember being cold especially overnight and painfully cold toes and fingers - and the ice on the inside of the windows.
Dad used to be the first up to clean out the coal back boiler in the kitchen and relight it for hot water. The loud distinction rattling noise of raking out the ashes were our signal to get up.We had hot water bottles to warm our beds and our coats were put on the bed. We kept our day clothes in the bed to keep warm for the morning. All the bedrooms had a fireplace but were rarely if ever used! Mum and Dad had a gas fire fitted in their bedroom grate and one in the lounge at some point in my childhood. My youngest brother had his clothes warmed on an airer in front of the new gas fire- it was my job to dress him. I remember how cold the bathroom ( and toilet seat!) could be in winter.
Our school coats ( the only coats we had) were gabardine but were not very warm or waterproof. I remember the long snowy winter of ? 1962? When the snow drifts were so high it was hard to see where the hedges were to find our way to school. Fortunately any ditches were frozen solid too!
We had a coal boiler in both classrooms at school. The frozen school milk bottles ( remember the tops pushed off by the icy milk) were put on the top of the boiler to thaw and would be hot - sometimes too hot by break time. There was a guard around the classroom boiler so very wet gloves could be dried there. Knitted wool mittens were the norm, but did not help much in bitter conditions. I used to get an itchy rash on the back of my knees from the cold - we wore knee length skirts and long socks in winter- but knees got cold.

Who else remembers sitting too close to the fire, and getting those awful red marks on their shins?

Plus of course the endless cry in so many families, of ‘Shut that door!!’

I too grew up in a freezing cold terrace house with no bathroom and an outside loo. And of course the ice on the windows inside on winter mornings.

The first time I remember being cold was when the mini skirt was popular in the 1960s and in winter you sat on icy cold leather seats on unheated buses. That was when I bought a maxi coat.

I moved from home in the mid 1960s into a new build central heated flat. Wonderful.

I do feel the cold because I have hypothyroidism and that is one of the symptoms. I have the heating on full and am wearing a furry puncho with a hood and thick tights underneath. I feel miserable and depressed when Im cold.

Witzend

Who else remembers sitting too close to the fire, and getting those awful red marks on their shins?

Plus of course the endless cry in so many families, of ‘Shut that door!!’

My dad used to call it ‘corned beef legs’ 🤣🤣

JenniferEccles

Now we are in the middle of this cold snap I do wonder how many people with central heating are too nervous of high bills to put it on, or for just an hour or two when they can’t stand the cold any longer.

In the past on here there have been shocking accounts of people living in unheated homes with the thermostat showing 13 deg.

Not me! I have gradually tuned up the thermostat as the winter has progressed. Although I have my heating on at a constant temperature I have saved money on what I spent last year, when it went off at night and around lunchtime.
I haven't had my usual ear nose throat or sinus problems and haven't had a cold yet.
I have two thermostats in my large living room- both reading 21 degress and there is lying snow outside.
I hate being cold!

We lived in a large mock gothic horror type house, the whole neighbourhood was like that, some even with straw roofs. It was rented. Horrors in winter, no insulation of course or double glazing but a large oil fire in the big hall which sort of heated the house but didn't really and a gas fire in the day room where we spent all our time and a bed was made up in there for any kids when we were ill so it was warm. But going to the kitchen was quite an adventure going through freezing corridors, past the cellar entrance, another unheated hallway and then a vast kitchen with a parafine heater. I remember my dad draining the waterpipes every night as they would freeze even indoors. The hot water bottles of course, and the ice flowers on the windows.
Us girls never wore just skirts, we wore them over long trousers underneath with thick stockings and hand knitted over knickers which my nan nitted and we all hated with a vengeance. But the nuns wouldn't let us wear just trousers!! We didnt have school uniforms, this was in holland were school uniforms had never been heard of. Baths on a Saturday night with a parafine heater, sometimes you could hardly see through the steam. I loved it, all 3 of us girls in the bath together and then drying our hair in front of the vast oil fire in the lounge with tv on, one one of those tiny screen ones with radio built underneath and gold black stripey lacquer doors.
We did a lot of ice skating and sledging and building the obligatory snow man which usually lasted all winter but looked distinctly odd at the end. I even remember making igloos, but the boy from next door was involved in that effort.
When I was 11 we moved to a newly build house which had a big oil fire and in the ceiling above it 2 grilles which you could adjust to let the warm air go upstairs, it worked too. But my room was in the loft with a little electric fire for homework times. Funnily enough I can not remember ever being cold.

The programme on bbc4 last night, the Big Freeze, brought back a lot of memories for a lot of people I think.

Witzend

Who else remembers sitting too close to the fire, and getting those awful red marks on their shins?

Plus of course the endless cry in so many families, of ‘Shut that door!!’

I can remember sitting in the kitchen with my new school socks on warming my feet by placing them briefly on the outside of the stove for a few seconds.

Unfortunately, manufacturers had jsut started making childrens socks from wool and nylon for durability. When I put my feet on the outside of the boiler, the heat immediately melted the nylon and it went hard and granular. My mother had to go out and buy me more socks, she was not best pleased.

Witzend

Who else remembers sitting too close to the fire, and getting those awful red marks on their shins?

Plus of course the endless cry in so many families, of ‘Shut that door!!’

Yes. I was thinking of that last night. I’ve just remembered my mum putting newspaper in front of the fire to get it started. There’s something about Christmas that takes me back to my childhood and makes me remember random things that I’d forgotten.

Mum used to put our clothes for morning, under the eiderdown at bedtime (at the foot end of the bed) so they wouldn't be quite so icy in the morning.

After my father died we moved to live in Mothers childhood home with grandpa and a cousin. It had no indoor plumbing whatever. The three of us shared one bedroom. We all shared the only lav, a bucket under a wooden seat in an unlit outhouse. After a few years hard work and desperate scrimping, Mother bought a prewar semi and we moved back to town. No CH, but it had hot and cold taps; a bathroom, two flushing loos. 3 bedrooms.We each had our own bedroom and mine had a plumbed in hand basin. The luxury, the privacy, the joy.

Our first winter there was exceptionally cold and my private basin's water pipe froze solid. So did the water in the porcelain bowl of the downstairs loo. When the thaw came,
my basin pipe had burst, flooding my bedroom, and the toilet bowl (cracked by ice) dropped right out of the lav onto the floor. Letting out the gases from the public sewer...

Dad’s army coat thrown on the bed, called by Tom O’Connor a continental quilt with arms😁
I hated the stone ‘hot’ water bottles which could break your foot if it fell on it.
We were three girls in one bed in a two up two down terrace.
Plaster falling on to the bed from a hole in the wall…

My dad wouldn’t have coats on the bed. He said it meant poverty. Which is strange in a way because we were incredibly poor. But I guess his pride meant that he didn’t want to feel that we were even worse off than we actually were.

Witzend

Who else remembers sitting too close to the fire, and getting those awful red marks on their shins?

Plus of course the endless cry in so many families, of ‘Shut that door!!’

Oh yeah! Those marks were horrible, my Nan had them I remember.
Well we all survived didn’t we, however cold it was.I think being young then we were always on the go so didn’t feel the cold like our old relatives did.

BlueBelle I don't have central heating here. I've a bungalow with a multi fuel stove in the kitchen diner. I burn kiln dried logs from 6-10.30pm, leaving the door ajar so heat travels around the other rooms. I don't have heat in the bedroom, never have, but have a 'baavet' [duvet filled with sheepswool] on the bed which is brilliant and I'm cosy.

When in other rooms I put on oil-free radiators on low, shut the door and am warm in about 20minutes. In the mornings I'm always busy doing something, or out shopping etc. so don't feel cold. It all suits me.

I grew up with just the coal fire in the living room, and have a love of seeing a real fire. Ice inside the bedroom windows when I was a kid but my home now has good insulation and double glazing of course. I do like snuggling with a hot water bottle when there's a cold snap and always wear wool jumpers.

It was very cold in the old days and there was none of this closing schools for snow. I remember enormous slides in the playground. It's a wonder there weren't more accidents.

Witzend

Who else remembers sitting too close to the fire, and getting those awful red marks on their shins?

Plus of course the endless cry in so many families, of ‘Shut that door!!’

Ah yes, I remember it well. Always the left leg, which was closest to the fire. A judicious shifting to and fro of the metal fire guard when it got too sore.
The old dressing gown over the counterpain covering the ex-army blanket on the bed. Snow on the inside of the bedroom window where the frame was warped. Chilblains in spite of the hot waterbottle - which got cold all too quickly and always red, cold hands.
1962/63 winter, when the school boiler packed up and school continued. Warming hands over the lab bunsen burners. Coats and scarves on in the classroom and 5 minutes of star jumps between lessons.

When I was pregnant with my second child I was having baths in a bathroom where the temperature was 2C above freezing and the wash basin had ice from the dripping tap. I was 42 before I had the luxury of Central Heating.

BlueBelle

Am I the only person here without central heating ?

No. We don't have central heat.

Two fireplaces and cooking causes kitchen warmth.

More misery memoirs! Our first home in rural Banffshire had no electricity or piped gas in the early fifties. Cooking was by Calor Gas and lighting by hissing Tilly lamps. The fireplaces used coal and logs. Every so often Dad would disappear to cut peat. This smouldered pathetically in the grate as the family pets huddled round.
I don't remember feeling cold though. A Liberty bodice and puppy fat helped.

I grew up in a 3-storey house with no central heating. My sister and I shared a big attic room with no door! There was a flight of stairs up to our room from my brother’s room. In the winter ice would form on the inside of the window. No heating in any bedroom.

Downstairs in the lounge was a coal fire and an electric heater. There was also an airing cupboard where we kept our nightclothes. There was coal fire in the dining room which was only lit at Christmas. The rest of the year we made do with a 2-bar electric fire.

I remember the winter of 1962/63. On Boxing Day we were woken by a loud crash. The roof of the little conservatory had smashed to smithereens from the weight of the snow.

I also remember schools not closing due to snow, enormous dangerous slides in the playground and frozen milk.

I think we got used to being cold. My parents finally had central heat8ng installed after I left home.

I remember freezing in bed in 1955 ... I used to dream about a warm home also wanted to get into bed fully dressed , but mother wouldn't let me ...