50s thrift compared to now.

THIRZAH

My first Saturday job was helping the local baker deliver bread. We'd drive round the village and to all the outlying farms. Every so often we'd park, pack up our baskets and call at various houses.We sold groceries as well as bread.One house that I had to walk down a long path to had a weekly order of two 3lb bags of flour, 1lb lard, a bag of sugar and 1lb butter as well as the bread-this was for a family of four.

A large loaf was 1s 10d-this was just before decimal coinage came in.

I worked from 8 until 5-no break for lunch-for £1.

Justamum

culpepper wrote: »

we used to have a box full of 1950s electrical plugs,all with circular prongs,not rectangular like todays.
There were some unused light bulbs with screw threads too which mum sold to the hardware store owner as he said they were like gold dust(everywhere had gone over to the bayonet fitting).
My parents always removed the plugs from broken electricals because almost everything that you bought new, had no plug at all.

I get annoyed with light fittings these days as they aren't standard and we've got a variety of bayonet, small bayonet, screw and small screw!

I remember when things didn't come with a plug, and I still take plugs off things before throwing them out! I'm sure they'll come in handy one day.

Angel_Jenny

My books by David Kynaston have arrived! So excited to start reading them - must finish reading the compost book first though!

Pitlanepiglet

THIRZAH wrote: »

I used to love the Chalet school books. If you've still got any some of them are really collectable now

Really? I suspect I've got a good number of them in boxes....really must have a sort out. I used to LOVE them!

maryb

This has brought back lots of memories, not all of them rosy - well not many of them, actually. People who think that the 1950s were a golden age generally weren't there, I find. Looking back it seemed to me that women were treated in many ways like children. If they were lucky they were loved and indulged.

I'll take being treated as a grown up, thanks.

Interesting about women not drinking. I think a lot of my mother's generation actually drank quite a lot during the war and just after when they were young women - but they drank gin. Not beer and not wine. They probably would have done themselves quite a bit of damage except that they stopped when they got married. Women just a few years older didn't drink because they had never had the same freedom as women who were in their twenties when the war started. They did limit themselves to an occasional sherry - and got very pink in the face

meritaten

maryb wrote: »

This has brought back lots of memories, not all of them rosy - well not many of them, actually. People who think that the 1950s were a golden age generally weren't there, I find. Looking back it seemed to me that women were treated in many ways like children. If they were lucky they were loved and indulged.

I'll take being treated as a grown up, thanks.

Interesting about women not drinking. I think a lot of my mother's generation actually drank quite a lot during the war and just after when they were young women - but they drank gin. Not beer and not wine. They probably would have done themselves quite a bit of damage except that they stopped when they got married. Women just a few years older didn't drink because they had never had the same freedom as women who were in their twenties when the war started. They did limit themselves to an occasional sherry - and got very pink in the face

Here in the valleys - women didnt drink! homemade wine perhaps but gin was only available in the pubs and 'respectable' women didnt go in them. Their husbands often took home a couple of bottles of guiness especially if their wives were breastfeeding - it was 'good for them'!
in the fifties women did NOT go in pubs - not respectable ones! it was acceptable in the summer to go for a walk to the pub and the father would bring mum a shandy and the kids would get a lemonade and crisps. but they didnt go IN the pub! we all knew that some dads drank the wages in the pub and the women who er frequented the pubs were as they say 'no better than they should be' - but it was all sort of swept under the carpet! My mum and dad were very 'respectable' - nan was above reproach yet she was the first to commiserate with someone who had 'fallen'. my mum was like a victorian preacher - no sympathy at all! very narrow minded. I hope I am like nan - but then she didnt suffer fools gladly either

mollsnan

Born 1955 and brought up as eldest of nine we certainly had to be "good with money" Grocery shoppng was done on Saturday (my Mum called it getting the rations in) and what was bought had to last the week. When the cheese/jam/butter etc ran out that was it until Saturday. Veg and bread and milk were the only things I really remember buying during the week. Grandfather was a great gardener and salad and veg came regularly from him, and were bought from neighbours who grew tomatoes etc. Potatoes were bought from the greengrocer, and I remember having to go for them on a large trike - with a boot on the back. The greengrocer loaded the boot with the stone (14lbs) of spuds and I had to peddle uphill with them, the weight nearly tipping me backwards. Then we had to take turns at peeling them - about 10lbs each day. Butter was for sandwiches (until it ran out) and Echo margarine for toast. No school dinners or packed lunches, ran home for lunch each day. Crusty bread and jam/cheese and an apple or pear in summer, soup or hot choclate with it in winter. One fire downstairs in living room, one fire upstairs in main bedroom (only lit during snowfalls). We used to trail the blankets and pillows of our beds and sleep on the floor pretending we were camping out when the bedroom fire was lit. We had flannelnette sheets in winter and cotton in summer, and they lasted for years, eventually cut down for cot sheets, dusters etc. Hot water bottles put in the beds in winter, we all had our own bed, so I had to fill 10 bottles and put them in to warm the beds before we went up "make sure you push them right down" my Mum would shout. We didn't have a phone, or fridge until I was grown up, but neither did everyone else. We didn't expect to have everything, now people seem to feel they should have. We learnt to use what we had, make do, not waste, and try to do it yourself. At 7 we learnt to knit in school, at 8 to sew (thank you God) and felt great that we had made something ourselves. Hard times yes, but never felt poor, I think it has made us appreciate things a lot more,and to cope better when times are harder as they are now. We can cut back and make do, we know how to!

[Deleted User]

Well said MOLLSNAN, I was born in 1948 and can remember going to the sweet shop with my Mum to get 1oz of sweets on the rations - we didn't have much and certainly no television, fridge or telephone until I was in my teens but, we all had nothing so we didn't feel deprived or poor as there was so much neighbourly support that no one really went without. As kids we all had the freedom to play out in the street and we all lived in everyones houses - and were always welcomed by other folks parents as a matter of course. It wasn't an easy life, I remember the ice on the inside of the bedroom windows, chillblains, only one fire in the living room and a tin bath once a week, no car so all the shopping had to be carried home and a big adventure was going on the bus to the nearest town for a pair of shoes, but this was a rarity. You're right when you say we can manage hard times because we know how to from previous experience but it would be hard to have to go back permanently wouldn't it ?

janb5

PixieDust wrote: »

I remember, not so many years ago, being openly laughed at by a group of peers (NOT friends, please note)...talking about wedding presents between hubby and wife....and me saying that I had been so happy that my hubby had given me a pearl necklace. I had No.I.Dea. Once I looked it up I was upset that they had tried to spoil my joy of a much-wanted gift with smut....so now I don't let stuff like that bother me

Sorry but I`ve never heard that this would be a ` double entendre` what does it mean. Never heard of that at all and I`m a `glory hole` type of person!

janb5

OMG..just googled it. Never heard of this meaning before so I must be sheltered! I`m 58! x

I prefer the original meaning..............!