Cold houses in the past…

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 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.

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.

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? 🤣

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

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!

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.

When in England I lived in RAF married quarters and they were freezing in the winter. We had a coal fire in the lounge and an Ideal boiler in the kitchen run on coke which would be kept going all the time because it heated the water. Mum would hang our school clothes on a wooden clothes airer in front of it overnight and it was bliss to put on warm clothes first thing.
I would get told off for sitting too close to the fire while reading because your legs could end up with horrid mottled scorch marks that took a while to fade.
I hated winters and couldn’t wait for spring.

Am I the only person here without central heating ?

Crikey I remember being really cold as a child and how horrible it was. Even on Christmas morning when we opened our presents in bed we couldn't stand being so cold and would dive back under the covers!

We had coal fires downstairs but the bathroom was freezing! We would run out in our skimpy towels to get dried by the fire.

Now I have my heating on all the time at a constant temperature. I hate being cold!

Of course we were cold growing up, houses without central heating were pretty standard. I still remember our first house, living there throughout my infant and junior school years. It had an open fire in the dining room, I can recall the toasting of crumpets and occasionally slices of thick bread off a long toasting fork. It has also stuck in my mind my brother bringing in a wheelbarrow of conkers through the French doors and emptying them on to the fire where they spat and pinged around the room causing my mother to hit the roof. Although that would have been Autumn, when I suppose the first coal deliveries preempting winter arrived. They were emptied into some outside covered place adjacent to an outdoor loo, which I seem to remember using occasionally if playing outside. In the corner of the dining room we had a tall cardboard box of toys probably a fire hazard So that room was generally pretty warm.

In the front living room, I think there was some sort of an electric fire, but it wouldn't have been on all the time. The rest of the house would have been freezing cold. I guess we were used to it, and wrapped up accordingly because I did spend a lot of time in my bedroom.

I do remember the freezing cold winter of 62/63 having just read about it. My brother and I were in and out of the house into the garden building snowmen, which often caused my father to explode about all the snow we were bringing in on our Wellington boots. I still remember his constant refrain "stay in or go out, but stop coming in and out all the time"

Walking to school trussed up like idiots, scarf tied around our heads, with our respective hats on top, but then we weren't alone, that was pretty de rigueur for the school child on cold winter days. Oh God the frozen milk, how I hated it, can't remember what was worse winter time milk, which we were encouraged to drink with some ridiculous teacher telling us to drink up "the lumps of ice make the milk just like ice cream" no it didn't! or the gone off sour summer time milk. Where was Thatcher the Milk Snatcher when I needed her ?

We moved in the summer from a three story Victorian house in a conservation area so no double glazing at the front!

We are now in a 3 year old house with underfloor heating, no heating on this morning, the main living area is at 17.5, I turned it off at around 8.00pm last night.

Our bedroom however has windows open 24/7 and is like a fridge, just the way we love it!

BlueBelle

I still get ice inside my windows, pretty though

It was very pretty, patterns drawn by Jack Frost.

I remember being very cold as a child. We didn’t get central heating until I was in my late teens, and then it was only downstairs, as my father thought cold bedrooms were healthy. At school, if we hugged the radiators we were told we’d get chilblains, but I never did.

My mother warmed my clothes by the kitchen boiler. Our cat slept on the boiler in winter - I remember her outraged expression when she jumped onto it in spring, and found it cold.

DHs parents lived in a Victorian double bay window house and only heated the large kitchen with a back boiler that also provided hot water. When I went there for Christmas I was allowed a one bar electric heater in my bedroom but could only have it on when I was in the room. Growing up DH said they only had a fire in the bedroom if they were ill. Apparently they would all come home from school and sit round the table in the kitchen to do their homework. I grew up in a flat where we only had a fire in the lounge but it was never as cold as that house.

When I was a student in the 70s I was invited to stay with a friend's family in the Midlands for the weekend. They had no heating on and I went to be fully clothed with my coat on. Friend's mum brought me a cuppa first thing and knocked on the door. I had to take my coat off and pretend I had just got dressed. We had liver stew ALL weekend for every meal. Mother said she had cooked a big pot of it as a warmer for the cold weather. I hated liver and have never been happier getting back to my student digs and fish and chips.

I too remember well the frost patterns in the bedroom window. Red rings round my calves from my wellies boots , no tights or trousers!! In winter our school boiler ' burst ' I was never sure what that meant , imagined a huge mess in the bowels of the building. This meant no heating - we were not sent home but sent into the cloakroom to put our coats on! Bedroom freezing although we did have hot water bottles , living room warm and cosy. We managed.

We had the solid fuel boiler, for hot water, in the breakfast room (off the small kitchen) so that room was always warm. Everywhere else was cold in winter. I well remember ice on the inside of windows.

We had gas fires in the bedrooms but the only time I can ever remember them being lit was occasionally during that very long cold winter of 1963 (?). (that was also when my two hibernating tortoises died 😰)

There were also different tall gas fires in the hall and the bathroom, but again, they were lit only during extreme cold.

My DM went back to work when I was 14, so the first thing I had to do when getting home from school, was to lay a fire for the sitting room - twisting newspapers into those rolled up zigzags.
The main thing she was saving up for was central heating - which was installed a year or so later - next door had it done at the same time. That first winter with CH was bliss!

Especially at the moment, I’m still always so thankful for a lovely warm house!

I still get ice inside my windows, pretty though

We lived near the Pennines, got snowed in and cut off several times every winter. A coal fire in the front room and a small electric bar fire in mum and dads bedroom where we all got dressed in turn. Ice in the insides of windows and snow drifts up to the outside window sills. But schools stayed open for as long as possible with all the kids herded into the assembly hall where the headteacher would read from a book to all of us or we would get out school books out on our knees do some work. I can remember walking through blizzards that fly at you horizontally and sting your face and eyes with near enough zero visibility holding onto the walls outside the houses on our street to keep my bearings.
It did feel cold 🥶 but I can’t remember us complaining about it. We also would have coats piled upon us at night as extra blankets.

Ice on the insides of the windows and getting dressed in double quick time in front of the kitchen range with layer upon layer of clothes.
No central heating, no running hot water and no bathroom. An outside toilet where you hoped you wouldn't have to be for too long as you could see your breath.
Setting off to walk to school no matter how deep the snow.
Writing this down makes me realise how pampered today's children are with warm homes, days off school in bad weather, cosy bathrooms with most things at the touch of a button and chauffeur driven most of the time.

We got dressed in front of the fire in the kitchen/living room.

Looking back, Mum had been up ages before, cleaning the grate out and getting a good fire going so my sister and I wouldn’t be too cold.

She held our clothes in front of the fire to take the chill off.

Our bedroom had a fireplace, only lit if we were laid up with mumps or measles.

And of course the frosted up windows.

I was brought up in the tropics so my problem as a child was being HOT 🥵! Sleepless nights trying to cool down - no fans and air conditioning hadn’t yet reached our shore, even if we could afford it.
I’m now used to the cold after over 50 years here, but suspect I would like it as much as I do now. I love being bundled up and cosy.

I grew up in the 1940’s with a range in the kitchen/ living room which heated that room, the hot water and the oven.
We had a fire in the “front room” at weekends and a tiny fire in one bedroom only if someone was ill.
The windows would be iced up in winter but we just accepted it as everyone we knew lived like us.
I recall we still played out and schools never closed like they do now after one inch of snow.
Now full central heating on about 16 hours a day and I am still bundled up with clothes indoors.

I remember being cold, my fathers airforce coat on top of my blankets in bed, Lino on the floors, the freezing bathroom and the gas oven on to warm the kitchen. We all huddled round the coal fire in the living room to get dressed and undressed. My widowed grandmother was far worse off, she huddled round a coal fire, no tv then, bed early with a crock hot water bottle, she had to get the coal in herself each day from top of her yard until she died at 96. Never remember her moaning. She never had anyone check if she could manage, if you had no family near it was a hard life. You had children young so when you were old your children were and your grandchildren working and living away, no cars by us until I was 12. Just buses.

Oh I can well remember being cold in my childhood home. The only warm rooms were the front room which had a coal fire and the kitchen, warmed by a small paraffin heater. Upstairs was absolutely freezing. We had our winter coats laid on top of our eiderdowns for extra warmth and I placed my school uniform under the bedcovers to stop it from getting damp, as the room was so cold. I still feel the cold and have the central heating on all day in winter; a luxury I know, but since my childhood I have a pathological fear of being cold!