Make Do and Mend

tandraig

has anyone seen the series 'Coal House' about life in welsh village during the war? it took some present day families and sent them to live in some old terrace houses on top of hill and they had to work live and play as would have happened during WW2. I saw some of it and it was fascinating how quickly the families adapted! after the series ended some of the younger ones said how they wished modern life was more like that! (but i suspect with tvs mobiles and computers!)

tryingtoruletheworld

I'm not so sure you can tar everyone with the same brush!

I am 20 something, and cook meals from scratch, use up all of my leftovers, make and mend clothes/home furnishings, buy as many things without packaging as possible, re-use as much as I can and grow some of my own food (well, as much as I can fit into my tiny front yard!

Generally society is too 'throw-away', but eventually we will probably have no choice as oil reserves and raw materials run out.

geordie_joe

tandraig wrote: »

I saw some of it and it was fascinating how quickly the families adapted!

I didn't see it, but like all these types of programme, you have to remember that those taking part actually wanted to. They weren't dragged off the street and forced into it. They were chosen because they were the most like to succeed and the least likely to give up half way through.

thriftlady_2

I had a little go at living on wartime rationing for a fortnight. It was fun and perfectly possible -I missed exotic fruit and spices. I'm sometimes tempted to give it another go. I think we are spolied Zara but I don't think it just the younger generation my mum is pretty wasteful and my mil is even worse- presumably with them it is a case of not wanting to have make do and who can blame them?

Thriftlady's Wartime Experiment

foxgloves

That's really interesting, because the thrifty gene has skipped a generation in our family. My Nan was incredibly thrifty. We always joked about how she could make a jar of meat paste last a whole week but of course, she lived through the war and only had a very small income to live on. My Mum has gone the other way. She isn't profligate with money, but because she was fed a wartime diet, I think, she isn't interested about the sort of home economies which my Nan & now I would do as a matter of course. For example, when she cooked a Sunday lunch for us recently, she'd done a lovely roast leg of lamb, divided it up between the 4 of us (there was LOADS!) because she didn't want to be fussing around with leftover meat which would just be a nuisance (not even a sandwich) and the lovely cooking liquid (she used onions, etc, around the lamb) was just about to go down the sink when I asked if I could take it home. She found various bottles & jars & that's just what I did. The next day, I added some veg, yellow split peas, etc, and made several containers of tasty thick soup for the freezer. That's normal for me, I simply would not have been able to chuck that fantastic stock away, but Nan would have fed my Mum recycled leftovers all through her childhood & teens, so I think that's why she's kind of gone the other way with thrift. She's very good at mending things, though.

rosieben

tandraig wrote: »

I'm mid fifties so didnt go through the war - but people who did talked endlessly about it and every ruddy film on tv during the late fifties early sixties seemed to be about the war - so i feel as if i did!!!! ..

I was born 1949 and I know exactly what you mean! and talking of eggs, in cookery lesson when we cracked an egg, we had to make sure we left absolutely no egg white in the shell, had to scrape it out with your pinky! I suppose that was a left over from rationing as a surprising amount does stay in the shell otherwise

Margaret52129

I was born in '52 and at secondary school it was normal for the girls to do cooking/sewing and they boys to do woodwork/metal work. We had 2 boys in our cookery class in my last 2 years at the school, but I can't remember any girls going into woodwork etc.

Our school actually had a little 1 bedroom/bathroom flat which we learned how to keep clean, make beds, iron etc. Then we could invite up to 4 friends and cook them a meal and entertain them in this flat! We did this only once in our school time. I loved it! I hated sewing though - but can now sew/knit (both of which i actually like to do) to keep me going which is a bonus.

My dad was a bricklayer and handyman, and mum was one of 10 siblings, so learnt how to make do and mend, plus help do manual jobs. They passed down their skills to me and even now I think I am 'handier' than my OH! I've tried to pass these skills onto my daughters, as I would have done cooking onto any sons (if I had them).

thriftlady_2

rosieben wrote: »

I was born 1949 and I know exactly what you mean! and talking of eggs, in cookery lesson when we cracked an egg, we had to make sure we left absolutely no egg white in the shell, had to scrape it out with your pinky! I suppose that was a left over from rationing as a surprising amount does stay in the shell otherwise

I've just done exactly that whilst making muffins;)

nannyboo1

zara*elise wrote: »

I was thinking about a comment I saw earlier about how back during wartime people were literally told to make do and mend. Rationing to me means buying only gala melon, not gala and honeydew a week! I really think that the generation of twenty-somethings today (which is where I fall btw :rolleyes: ) is spoiled. Spoiled spoiled spoiled, most would prefer to 'be famous' than learn a trade or skill.

I don't think being spoiled is just a generational thing for the 20 somethings though. I am in my mid 40's and I think no matter what age we become used to things.

I remember as a girl my mum using a mangle and a boiler to wash with then the twin tub came and she was over the moon but I would never have had the patience to use a twin tub. We didn't have a colour TV for many years after the neighbours and when i went away to nanny in the 80's mum had to go next door at a certain time to wait for my phone call - she eventually got her own as she didn't like putting the neighbours out

Do you think as a society today if we were to face the hardships many did during WWII we would survive... survive is the wrong word, but as it's the only word I can think of that fits... as graciously as our grandparents/parents did?

I think we would survive as we wouldn't have a choice but as someone put it it wouldn't be graciously and boy would we moan. I think the recession has meant people have had to rethink their lifestyles and it will be interesteing to see what happens when it is over and things ago back to normal - to see if everyone will carry on what they have been doing or go back to how they were.

This site is a brilliant site but the people here do these things for a reason so possibly are biased (not meant to sound how that does) to OS lifestyle and so they would cope - hope that makes sense


If you went through it, what did you do to make it more bearable? And how did you survive on one egg a week?

xxxxx

I may be a little bit controversial now so please don't hate me everyone as I don't mean this in a bad way.

I think that if it ever did happens then it wouldn't be the same and the reason is society in general is so different.

When I was little very few women worked (told you I might be controversial and do not mean to offend any ladies who work) so you knew your neighbours and people relied on their neighbours. Nowadays nobody knows anyone else or if they do it is more a minority than before.

I live on a ten foot of about 16 houses and apart from the neighbours under the same roof and the two houses opposite I know a few more by sight and none of the rest.

I grew up in a cul de sac of the same amount of houses and we knew everyone and knew if mum or dad were not there we were safe to go and knock on one of the neighbours doors.

I think what is really lacking in this day and age is that community spirit that was there when we were small

As I said hope I haven't offended anyone as I wouldn't ever want to do that

nannyboo1

That's enough seriousness from me: I'm the same age group as you, Zara-Elise, and I'm not sure I agree that school home economics lessons were useless. In five years I learnt to cook one thing - cheese scones - and I am still under orders from my sister to make them for her as a birthday present every year. The lessons DO come in useful, you see! ;


I still have my old cookery book with all the recipes we had to write out by hand in it and I still use it for the old favourites occasionally. That and how many uses for a basic mince recipe - shepherds pie, cobbler, bolgnese, moussaka