50s thrift compared to now.

Justamum

janb5 wrote: »

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

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

I've just googled it too. It's the first time I've ever heard that meaning. I think those of us with the clean meaning of it are in the majority though.

maryb

Meritaten, I'm sure nice girls and women didn't drink outside big cities in the 1940s and 50s. But my mother was 20 when war broke out and it took her away from home and I think a lot of girls then enjoyed their freedom when they were living away from home and earning money they didn't have to hand over to Mum. They reverted back to respectability after the war when they got married

mumps

I was born right at the start of the 50s and I remember some of the things on here but others don't reflect my life.

When my Gran married in 1920 she gave up work as she was expected to do. The family story is that the first morning that grandad was going back to work he said, "I will give you anything I can but you have to ask." When he got home she said, "I have got my job back and I will buy what I want." Maybe this explains why we never went to jumble sales, my mother never knitted me anything, neither did my grandmothers. They all worked and didn't have time for knitting. I wore trousers when it was cold and had a bath every day. We were poor, lived in a slum area and I won't bother describing the vermin, it still makes me shudder, but we always had fruit (my parents believed fruit was better than medicine.) I never once in my life remember my mother baking a cake, she was too busy working. We had a television from about 1955, I remember my mother wheeling it home on the pram. My dad probably worked a 70 hr week, if he was lucky he had a weeks holiday at the seaside but some years we went without him if he had to work. I don't remember a time when my mother didn't work, even with a new baby. Life was tough and she hand washed everything.

I have no fond memories of the cold, thank heavens for central heating and double glazing. I love having a car, a warm house, no bugs, I don't want to go back to Sundays which were so boring and the limited choice of food.

Call the Midwife reminded me of the tired, worn out women at the local clinic, which was opposite our house. They wore a cotton pinafore over their normal clothes so you couldn't see that the buttons didn't meet and skirts held together with safety pins. I remember so many men who subscribed to the "bare foot and pregnant" view of how to treat a woman. My family did not fit that as my parents worked hard and my father always respected my mother.

I am happy where I am and not nostalgic at all.

meritaten

janb5 wrote: »

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!

lmao - I didnt realise either that it had another meaning - until I was 'informed' after posting that my OH had given me 'another fake pearl necklace for christmas'!

Scrapaholic

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Talking about nurses does anyone remember the SEN's or greenies as they were known.........We need them back! Nurses need a degree now why? Only Doctors went to Uni in my day, nurses were trained in the hospitals and were much better at their jobs.
Ward sisters were terrifying and responsible for their own ward, so if they were not cleaned properly or a patient complained about no one answering the bell - all hell let loose!

Just reading through this post with interest . Brought back so many memories of 50's and 60's . I was born 1952 ,an only child and there didn't seem to be many of us then . I would have loved a brother or sister . Anyway , I started nursing at 16 as a junior cadet , senior cadet at 17 , student nurse at 18 . If a person didn't have the required amount of GCE's , as they were then, they could do State enrolled nurse training instead of state registered nurse training. Eventually the SEN's did further training to convert to SRN's . Who knows why nurses need to have a degree now, but that's what's called progress so we're led to believe .

Butterfly_Brain

I remember going to Church Street Market and my parents buying a bag of hot chestnuts from Chocolate Joe and there was an ice cream parlour that we went to only on our birthday and we either had a knickerbocker glory or a witches hat (triangular lolly with 3 layers) with a blob of ice cream on top.

We only ever had a tangerine, coxes apple, mars bar and a handful of nuts in our stockings which were a school sock, nothing like my children had when they were small and we got maybe two or three presents each and that was it.
Sunday's everything was closed - end of and we were expected to go to Church - no ifs or buts we had to go.
TV was in black and white and we had 3 channels and it shut down for I think was an hour and you had the potters wheel, windmill or train showing. This was so mothers could get their children to bed, before the dad's came in from work. We had a slot tv that you put the money in the back and if there was no money there was no tv we had that until the mid 70's before my dad bought a colour one on HP or the knock as he called it.

mumps

Scrapaholic wrote: »

Who knows why nurses need to have a degree now, but that's what's called progress so we're led to believe .

Didn't you do anything other than training on the wards? Todays nursing degree students do about 45/46 weeks a year, half in the classroom and half on placements. Don't think they do 20 hrs a week like some other subjects, they do a full week and when they are on placements they do the same hours as qualified nurses plus keeping up with essays etc. Some nurses are still only studying to diploma level but this option ends with the current years intake (I think!)

meritaten

we also had the 'wireless'! I can only remember Sing something simple as that was my que for bedtime! When we got the telly - I remember asking my mum why people 'blacked up' when there were real black people - and got a slap!
Some things were good about the fifties - life seemed much simpler - but tbh - us kids were just as competitive about our toys are kids are today - only we argued over mechano and chemistry sets (I desperately wanted a chemistry set but mum and dad wouldnt buy me one as it was a 'boys' toy!) I got dolls instead - which I coudnt have cared less about - I was spoiled, I got loads of presents but most of them were dolls or doll related and I would have loved mechano or a chemistry set.
I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up - and my parents laughed at me and bought me nurse outfits. That was the attitude in the fifties. Girls didnt have 'careers' or were even considered to be capable of being a 'professional'.
even when I left school in the 1970s - dad wouldnt consider me going to university - his stock answer was 'it isnt for the likes of us'. and thought I had hit the hieghts when I got a job as solicitors receptionist - earning about half of what the factory girls earned - but it was 'white collar' work - wouldnt have minded but mum took nearly all my earnings off me! I barely had enough to get to work!

I didnt last long - didnt like being chased around the desk by a junior partner and when I complained to the senior partner - it was go or be sacked!
I went to a factory and absolutley bluddy hated it! lasted eighteen months and when I had an accident which broke bones in my foot and they said it was my own fault - and mum went on at me for being careless (which I wasnt - nowadays I would have had a nice compensation claim in) I went into Retail.
I enjoyed that - tbh it was a doddle after the last two jobs! and paid sort of middling.
but this is getting into the seventies! you dont wanna hear about that!

Scrapaholic

mumps wrote: »

Didn't you do anything other than training on the wards? Todays nursing degree students do about 45/46 weeks a year, half in the classroom and half on placements. Don't think they do 20 hrs a week like some other subjects, they do a full week and when they are on placements they do the same hours as qualified nurses plus keeping up with essays etc. Some nurses are still only studying to diploma level but this option ends with the current years intake (I think!)

Yes, in the 3 year training , each year had a 6 week block of study . I know the students today don't have a 20 hour week like some do for other subjects + I wasn't meaning that the students don't work for their degree . It just seems that in the olden days of 60's 70's it wasn't as academic as it is now . I'm sure it's very challenging physically and mentally for today's student nurses .

meritaten

back in what I remember of the sixties - nurses were in a different role to today.
Todays nurses dont DO patient care! back then they did blanket baths etc and helped the patients eat and drink. and if matron or sister ordered them to they also cleaned the ward. most nurses started off by cleaning the ward and doing the dirty work. they also did the kind of care which people would get at home.
In hospital now - you dont get that care. the nurses wont do any cleaning or even washing the patients. They wont help feed them and they certainly wont help them to the toilets!
The nurses these days want to be thought of as 'health care professionals' - just a step below doctors. therefore they need degrees..........and are too posh to actually DO any nursing!
They used to have SENs who did the actual nursing care in the sixties and seventies - but they got rid of these.
now what do we have? nurses who think they are nearly doctors and unqualifed people who cannot touch the patients - No care there then!