Preparedness for when

[Deleted User]

Arrived home this evening, to find a card which said a package had been left with a neighbour.

Collected it, and it's my bow. :j

It's described in the paperwork as a "straight bow".

It's 56.5" (1.44 metres) long, and appears to be made of steel, with a rubberised (possibly neoprene) hand grip, on what seems to be a polymer riser.

Butterfly_Brain

GreyQueen wrote: »

Ooops! I know things were ruff in 1971 (my folks were pretty skint, f'rinstance) but that was clearly a typo. Well spotted, that woman.

Just had to put the light on to type this response or you'd've had even more (t)errors to contend with. :rotfl:

The 1970's were the best time of our lives when we look back on it.

[Deleted User]

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

The 1970's were the best time of our lives when we look back on it.

Even with the power cuts.

GreyQueen

The seventies weren't brill for my family, although we clawed our way out of the direst poverty when we kids were a bit older and Mum was able to rejoin the workforce. When we moved in 1971, the family 'wealth' was just £10, and that bought more than it does in 2014 but it was still pitiful.

It was tougher being skint then because there were no such things as bootsales, freegle, chazzers like there are now. Landline phones were luxuries, as were cars. I hardly ever rode in a car until the early eighties, they were so uncommon in my working-class background. I went abroad for the first time when I paid my own way in my twenties, flew in a plane for the first time in my thirties.

My Dad (early seventies) has all his own teeth, bar two lost in the early seventies when they should have been filled and there was no money to pay the dentist. It was a major crisis when kid bruv and I needed shoes at the same time and my parents were constantly stressed about money.

It was a loving childhood but it sure as hell wasn't easy in most respects. I'm far happier in the present decade, and certainly a lot more comfortable, even living towards to lower end of the income scale.

[Deleted User]

GreyQueen wrote: »

I hardly ever rode in a car until the early eighties

Me neither.

I vaguely remember my father, very briefly, owning a car (which I believe turned out to be a wreck, which wouldn't have got past a blind MOT tester) when I was very young, but the first family motor vehicle I clearly recall, was a motorbike and sidecar, when I was about 10.

GreyQueen

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Me neither.

I vaguely remember my father, very briefly, owning a car (which I believe turned out to be a wreck, which wouldn't have got past a blind MOT tester) when I was very young, but the first family motor vehicle I clearly recall, was a motorbike and sidecar, when I was about 10.

Prior to marriage, Dad was a Mod with a Vespa. After marriage, he had a bigger motorbike with a side-car, a real OS enclosed job. There are cute b & W pix of me as a tot in a pinafore with a rag cleaning big ole motorbikes. I was never gonna be normal, OK?!

Then we had Honda 90s and we kids took turn to ride pillion over to Nan's with our Dad but Mum only ever had a provisional motorbike license, so she couldn't take us as passengers. Bliddy freezing in winter. Eventually, we crept up to the point where Dad could afford to learn to drive a car (he went ahead of Mum in this respect because he'd experience of driving tractors on the farm, back in the day) then we got a crate called an Austin 1100. Not one of British Leyland's finest hours, but a quantum leap as it meant we could go somewhere together that was further than biking range and not on a bus.

DawnW

GreyQueen wrote: »

The seventies weren't brill for my family, although we clawed our way out of the direst poverty when we kids were a bit older and Mum was able to rejoin the workforce. When we moved in 1971, the family 'wealth' was just £10, and that bought more than it does in 2014 but it was still pitiful.

It was tougher being skint then because there were no such things as bootsales, freegle, chazzers like there are now. Landline phones were luxuries, as were cars. I hardly ever rode in a car until the early eighties, they were so uncommon in my working-class background. I went abroad for the first time when I paid my own way in my twenties, flew in a plane for the first time in my thirties.

My Dad (early seventies) has all his own teeth, bar two lost in the early seventies when they should have been filled and there was no money to pay the dentist. It was a major crisis when kid bruv and I needed shoes at the same time and my parents were constantly stressed about money.

It was a loving childhood but it sure as hell wasn't easy in most respects. I'm far happier in the present decade, and certainly a lot more comfortable, even living towards to lower end of the income scale.

I remember the 70s well GQ - my 2 eldest children were born in 1974 and 1976, and your childhood experiences are very similar to our family's, though I guess you came along a few years before my son. There were no tax credits or anything like that in those days, and I particularly remember the issue of new shoes for the children, and how difficult it was to afford these. Clarks children's shoes actually cost not that much more now than they did then, and my OH brought home about £14 a week from his farm job in the early 70s :eek:

A car, TV, a phone, holidays, carpets, a washing machine etc were all out of the question for some time. We had far less 'stuff' then, including things which would be considered essential now. Consumer goods were comparatively speaking much more expensive than they are now, and low income families just couldn't afford them. Although there were no charity shops or boot sales there were jumble sales which were usually held in village halls or similar where donated goods were sold in aid of local causes, and they were a good source of children's clothes etc.

It was a hard time for the low paid. However, housing costs make it equally hard, IMHO for families now

GreyQueen

Sounds very similar allthough me and my kid bruv are exactly 10 years older than your two.

I can remember Mum, who is an expert knitter, unravelling two adult-size jumble sale jumpers, to skein, wash and re-knit into stripy tank-tops. There wasn't even the cheap acrylic yarns you get nowadays, nor were there the cheap goods flooding in from China. A lot of secondhand stuff was absolute carp; you would give better stuff than that away, now.

I must admit to still finding the idea of buying furniture new rather strange and un-natural. I mean, I know it happens but I'm not sure it's quite me.

My folks got the telephone on the year I left home, but it was used very frugally. Housework was bliddy hard, esp the laundry. It wasn't at all uncommon to come in from school and find Mum (our family's expert handyperson) with either our single-tub washer or the spin-dryer propped over two kitchen chairs having its innards tweaked. It was often the drive belt, if memory serves, and you went to the spare parts stall on the market and got the components to fix it yourself.

Mum has gone in her life from a cottage with no running water, to one with a cold tap only as internal plumbing, to a centrally-heated house with a washing-machine doing its stuff tonight whilst she watches an old movie on tape. She abhors debt, absolutely won't entertain it, but reckons if the only way she could get an automatic washing machine was to have one on credit, she'd do it like a shot.

Nargleblast

I left school in 1976, and remember things being a lot simpler then. I was really impressed when I saw the forerunner of computer games, television tennis ( the green screen and the two blocks that represented the players....the epitome of high tech!).

I think today life is more stressful because of high expectations and gratification on demand. And celebrities were film stars and pop stars, not non-celebs who are famous because they showed their backsides on a third rate reality show. Oh dear, I feel myself slipping into Grumpy Old Bat mode....

GreyQueen

Can I join you in the grumpy corner?

I feel like tearing my hair out when confronted with people who express the opinion that you can't move into a house or a flat until it's fully-carpeted. Because they've got kids.

Gordon Bennett, however did I manage to live the first quarter of my life in a carpet-free zone and still thrive?!

Mind you, I lobbied for bare floorboards and just rugs in my childhood bedroom and wasn't impressed when Mum came home from town with Our First Carpets, two offcuts just about big enough for my bedroom and kid bruv's. You didn't get any choice, they had to go in the room they fitted.

I don't even have to close my eyes to recall them, esp the one inflicted on me, which was abstract swirls of brightest orange and lime green with black background, pure nylon (static electricity was a major feature of my life). Migraineous.

:mad: I f.n hated that carpet and still can't abide the colour orange.