50s thrift compared to now.

[Deleted User]

HH I havn't heard that expression for years but I know what you mean we had a lady like that in our road and my Mum was horrified that this woman never seemed to give much attention to her two children.They spent most of their childhood in our house and became just an additional brother and sister whom we played with

Holidays weren't really as they are today we went to visit relations in Scotland, or they came to stay with us. It was brilliant when my Aunt and Uncle came over from the U.S. to stay with us as we got spoiled by them, as my Aunt had no children of her own. My Uncle George worked for the FBI and I can remember him showing us his badge which I thought was amazing. Auntie Edie always brought smashing presents and I can remember getting a Viewmaster which you put reels into, and they showed photos of things from all over the U.S.
This toy wasn't on sale in the UK and my brother used to rent it out to his pals at school at 2d a time for a week Entrepenural little blighter (I got half because it was my toy)

When we visited relations it was always a 24 hour journey as they lived on the north-east coast of Scotland so we would set off from our house in a London suburb to Victoria Coach station at Sunday lunchtime .We got the 4.00.p.m. SMT overnight coach to Edinburgh which arrived there the next morning.We would then have to wait for another coach to Montrose and then another bus to Brechin, and we would get to my Aunt Lizzies house at 4.00.p.m. on Monday afternoon.She had four children, and with my family of five it was often a bit of a squeeze, but my two brothers and one of the boy cousins would be sent to next doors house to sleep over night on their spare mattress.

Folk often opened their house up to neighbours visiting families .Every year at some point my Dad would take us into Montrose, and we would have a paddle in the sea It was always freezing, but he said it was good for us (I could never see how when we were all blue with cold)

My Auntie Lizzie was a smashing cook and her 'high teas' were amazing I remember going to visit her Granny, who's husband worked on a farm, he must have been well into his seventies then, but still worked as it was a tied house It was so tiny inside like a dolls house, but she also served up this huge table full of food for us all and she cooked everything on a tiny little range in the sitting room-!!! kitchen
My Uncle Hughie also worked on a farm as a shepard, and when visiting him I wanted to play with his sheepdogs and got told very firmly that they were 'working dogs not playthings'

It was one long round of visiting relations when we went there as the family had been in Brechin for generations.

When we visited my Aunie Cissy in Glasgow (my Mums sister)I loved it, as I got to sleep in the 'hole in the wall' bed in the kitchen which was always warm as it was near to the range.Looking back because it always seemed to be cold as a child I have always appreciated heat and warmth so I don't think I'd like to return to the chilly 1940s-50s again I much prefer the warm central heating of my house and wall-to-wall carpets No lino to leap across to get into bed,( most kids my age could manage an Olypic leap by the time they were old enough from the light switch to the bed in one bound ,Linford Christy eat your heart out :))

Going4TheDream

I wasnt born until the mid 60's but Ive read the David Kynaston books, and they give a good insight to real people's lives over the various editions , rather than a generalisation.

I suppose its easy to look back at previous era's and pick the best bits from them, and colour our perceptions, conveniently leaving out the less desirable aspects if you weren't about then. I think of programmes like the Darling Buds of May set in idyilical Kent in the 50's and know that life wasnt like that for 90% of the population

I know it isnt perfect in todays world but I think we have to be thankful for all the advancements in medicine, health care, education, housing and even availability of food, which for many in many era's wasnt readiliby available to all in the same way it is today, amongst other things.

I suppose in todays societies we face different challenges but I know I would rather be living now than in the 50's and perhaps in 50 years time people will be saying do you think things were better in the 10's?

SpendlessKaren

I,too, love the 50's. I was born in 62 so remember the 70's and getting up for school during the strikes with no electricity. We had an outside toilet and my Mum cooked from scratch etc.

I think today people have lost the feeling of family, which to me is sad. Family life seemed more important then than now and I think it is all too materialistic today -hence so many people in debt

Ty for the book recommendation, I have ordered the set really cheaply on ebay and look forward to reading them

thriftwizard

Westcoastscot, "happy slapping" is where a teen wanders up to a total stranger and slaps them, usually pretty hard, completely out of the blue. This, and the slapee's reaction, is filmed by other teens on their mobile phones, then posted on facebwk or similar for the entertainment of the masses. Harmless fun, eh?

Need2bthrifty

I am loving this thread, its bringing back a lot of happy memories, but as a child of those times I know I would have been protected from or oblivious to the more unpleasant aspects.

Like many others who have posted I was born in the 50’s and throughout my childhood grew up in a very rural part of Scotland. My parents instilled a strong work ethic in us and as children we were encouraged from an early age to understand the value of money. I remember as a primary school age child (from about 8yrs) my elder brother and I would spend most of our summer holidays berry picking and October break picking tatties. It was hard back breaking work and I hated when we had to go and pick the blackcurrents - it took forever to fill a punnet.

The money we earned was used to buy new clothes – in particular a new duffle coat for the winter or a dress for the school and church Christmas parties, one particular favourite was blue velvet with a ruffled, embroidered bodice and lace collar :cool:.

We had to cycle to the farm about 3 miles away, no gears on my bike at that time, but a saddle bag attached to the seat for my packed lunch. We spent the day picking and still had the energy to have a cycle race to see who could get home first. Packed lunches normally consisted of spam/corned beef and if we were really lucky chicken or my favourite cold mince. There was always a flask of sweet, milky tea for morning/lunch break, orange squash for the afternoon – no fizzy drinks we couldn’t afford it. Mum usually did some of her home bakes normally pancakes or girdle scones, otherwise snack was two rich tea or digestive biscuits sandwiched together with butter. Early foraging started then too as we always had to fill our flask and “piece” box with whatever fruit we were picking so that mum could make jam. At tattie time we always sneaked a boiling into our bags.

Because it was a small village with very little traffic we did have freedom to roam a bit, within limits. I remember one nearby field, used for the local Agricultural Show, which had a rather grand Horse Chestnut tree. So at conker season this was where we went, unfortunately it was also a favourite spot for the cattle to shelter during the rain, so you can imagine what we got covered in :rotfl: – E-coli, was it around back then - who knew :eek:.

We didn’t have family holidays but I do remember “days out” normally to places that didn’t cost anything. The family car was a Triumph Herald and we always took a picnic – we had a primus stove and a brown enamel pot and kettle for making soup and boiling up water – because we were used to having homemade soup a treat on picnics was packet soup normally Green Pea.

My mother was an enthusiastic SWI member and was all about “make do and mend” – holes in socks were darned; ladders in stockings and tights were sewn up. She also made a lot of our clothes; jumpers, pullovers and cardigans were all made up on the good old “knitmaster” machine and she had a skill of being able to sew and make things without a pattern. In the early sixties “hot pants” were the fashion and she made up a red pair for me – you know, the shorts with a bib and shoulder straps that fastened on to the waist :cool:.

Well enough reminiscing must go and make Sunday lunch.

GreyQueen

My parents left school in the early fifties as 15 year olds in a very rural area of England. Mum was offered the chance to "stay on" for another year but only to repeat the same work; there were no exams to be taken or qualifications to be earned. My Dad left school for farmwork, Mum for shop and then factory work.

What my folks have to say on the subject of work is that you could always get a job but the pay was rubbish. Mum says that if you wanted to go out, and the man wouldn't pay for you, you couldn't go to most places. Girls earned much less than boys and you had to give a big chunk over to your family for your keep. Pre-martial sex was totally-unacceptable and it wasn't unheard-of for girls who fell pregnant out of wedlock to feel so disgraced that they committed suicide. People felt justified in turfing a pregnant daughter, or a young woman with a babe in arms, out on the street because of the shame she'd brought on the family. Since sex education was non-existant, and contraception very limited, unplanned pregnancies were a real risk. People were incredibly unknowing about sexual matters by comparison with modern teens.

Dad spent his early working life with older men who'd fought in WW1 and WW2. If you went to the pub as a youngster in the villages, you could get served, even underage, as long as you were no trouble. You didn't get rowdy or the veterans would smack you down, hard. They'd been to hell and back and weren't going to take any nonsense from young lads. People lived at home with their parents until they married, the usual pattern being in work (both genders) from 15, seriously "courting" from about 19 and married about 21 or 22 and parents within a year or two. People considered themelves pretty grown up by their late teens. This was true for working-class people like us, anyway.

Casual violence directed at strangers was unusual in our region. There were a few families in each village that were known to be rough and whose menfolk liked to have a brawl, but they'd fight with likeminded men from similar families, they didn't involve innocent parties, it was more by way of being ritualised clan violence. People would go to dances on Saturday night but they had to be over so that they didn't run into Sunday, so this idea of nightclubbing until dawn still strikes my folks as peculiar.

There wasn't the wealth of decent second-hand goods that we have access to now. There were far fewer goods in general, the War had disrupted production, and such things which did come up for grabs secondhand were absolute rubbish. No ebay, Freecycle, car boots or charity shops. I've seen my Mum look longingly at the cornucopia spread out at a big weekly booter near where we lived as youngsters; our life would've been a lot easier if such things had been available then.

Crime was so scarce that the local bobby used to hide in the hedgerows on country roads, where cars were very rare, to leap out at anyone committing in heinous crime of cycling without lights. Dad recalls one case where the Plod accosted one of the local farmers, who was Plymouth Brethren and very religious.

Plod; "Where are your lights?"
Farmer; "The Lord is my light!"
Plod; "Well, the Lord can pay your fine in the magistrate's court."

The Police were so stuck for something to do that they'd knock on doors and ask to see your radio license and your dog license. Most people woiuldn't have locked thier doors, and burglary was unknown, but the majority of people had the same; beggar all!

Domestic life for the woman was very hard physical work. My Mum's family had no running water (had to go to the hand-cranked pump in the dairy and bucket it up, complete with slugs). There were no bathrooms, no WC, just a bucket privy whose contents was buried in the garden. We grew very good gooseberries. Laundry took all Monday and was back-breaking work. People were very very proud and laundry had to be spotless, and old clothes mended and kept tidy. My Gran felt that one of her DIL's wasn't much of a housewife and that those grandchildren were kept disgracefully; she was actually embarrassed to be seen in public with them because they were untidy.

Talking to my folks, and my Nan, they don't get rosy-eyed about the 1950s. Bigotries which would deservedly see you prosecuted in this day and age were commonplace. People cared very much what the neighbours thought of them; their morals, their housekeeping, the whiteness of the front step; all these things mattered enormously. If you made a bad choice of spouse, you were expected to just get on with it; people would come out with sayings about how you'd made your bed and you'd have to lie in it. There wasn't a lot of sympathy for the vulnerable and people had a real fear of being "put away" if they were too much trouble. The death penalty still existed back then and there was an awareness if a man went too far in a fight, and killed someone, he could hang for it.

People lived much quieter lives that we do now, with plainer food, very few entertainments, less of everything. I guess that for a lot of them, anything was better than the War, and the 1930s were bitterly-hard for so many people. Things were slowly improving for the average person, and kept improving until things bottomed-out recently, athought it's taken 2 wages to sustain a family for 30-odd years now.

Even if we're feeling the pinch now, we'd have to have a helluva recession to take things back to where they were for the majority in the 1950s.

ETA Buttefly Brain and Thriftwizard; schoolteachers were still throwing woodenbacked blackboard rubbers and chalk at schoolchildren in the late 1970s; it happened to me. The board-rubbers were easy to dodge, not so easy to avoid the chalk and it really stung. Ohh yes, and chilblains....wahtever happened to those.........?

Pitlanepiglet

Thanks for the links to the Austerity Britain and Family Britain books, I've ordered from Amazon (used of course!) (my library charges to order books so buying cheap isn't a bad option).

meritaten

I love these 'memory lane' threads - people post about the 'good' and the 'bad'! and they are REAL memories and sometimes very amusing.

Peoples attitudes about gender were very different then - I suspect most posters are of the era where sex equality was almost a done deal!

attitudes in the fifties were very different! A woman was expected (and in some cases REQUIRED) to give up her job when she married! a married woman who worked, either had a husband who drank all HIS wages or HE wasnt man enough to 'keep' her! Men thought it was a matter of pride to be the 'breadwinner'. They also thought it manly to drink most of thier wages! well - some of them did! kids would be wearing patched and ragged clothes because most of the wages were drank away before the wife got her hands on them!

Men also wouldnt do 'womens work' - anything which smacked of housework was automatically 'hers'! including minding the kids - it was a rare man who knew how to make a meal or washed up or even minded the kids for the missus to go to bingo! I was fortunate - my dad was a 'rare' male and my grandad shocked the whole village apparently by wheeling me around in my pram when I was a babe! Men did NOT push prams - indeed I remember when my brother was little - dad would only pull the pram up the (very) steep hill between two villages! (lmao - pulling the pram was apparently 'manly' - pushing it wasnt!).

nan could squeeze a penny till it squeeked - no waste in nans house! if you left something on your plate it would get recycled! Thats why every couple of days my dad got bubble and squeek for his dinner. leftover cake was made into 'trifle' on sundays. leftover bread was bread pudding (not the custardy one - the heavy dense one made with soaked bread, sugar and currants and tasted heavenly yet left one feeling full for at least 24 hours!).
Nan was a joy - outwardly very moral and upright - yet the most sympathetic person. SHE never snubbed the mother of the illegitimate child - she was lovely to everyone! the first one to say 'well she wont be the first and she wont be the last'! my mother of course was scandalised! and very prone to gossip - and moralise. The attitude to unwed mothers was awful in the late fifties and early sixties - anything to do with pregnancy, childbirth and 'not being married but expecting' was so victorian it was unbelievable - considering that just ten years before there were thousands of 'illegitimate' births as fiances lost there intended and others just 'took chances' before they could marry.
even in the late 70s my mother didnt speak to me as just a couple of months before my wedding I told her I was pregnant! took until the baby was born before she would speak to me directly! Nan just took it all in her stride! and was a great comfort to me.
I love the more relaxed attitudes today - and that with DNA tests the fathers now have to pay up! in the fifties all a man had to do was deny paternity and get a mate or two to say they had er 'had her' to get away scot free! many a couple had a 'shotgun' wedding and it either worked out well or it didnt! but in the fifties a divorced woman was seen as a scarlet one for some reason - while the male who divorced was usually a poor sod whose wife would behave as she should (it was all HER fault - even if it was the man who had the affair - the wife was seen as somehow lacking).
The good thing about that I suppose is that people did generally TRY to make a go of marraige - and often succeeded. expectations were lower in one way - but hollywood did put stars in young womens eyes and gave them some really stupid expectations of the way life SHOULD be! perhaps it started the breeding of discontent with ordinary life? You cant help feeling that the majority of youngsters today are starring in thier own movies - and ordinary life just doesnt measure up!

pollypenny

Like Meritatan, I was born in the South Wales valleys.

My mother sewed all my dresses, the hems were let down the second year and ric-rac used to hide the mark.

Few people had a car, so playing tennis in the road was safe. There was a good bus service and lots of employment.

I wouldn't swop, but life seemed more comm unity based - for good or ill.

anguk

pollypenny wrote: »

Like Meritatan, I was born in the South Wales valleys.

My mother sewed all my dresses, the hems were let down the second year and ric-rac used to hide the mark.

Few people had a car, so playing tennis in the road was safe. There was a good bus service and lots of employment.

I wouldn't swop, but life seemed more comm unity based - for good or ill.

I think every child I knew in the 70s had a pair of trousers or a dress with the mark left by a let-down hem.