Preparedness for when

lobbyludd

mardatha wrote: »

I never said life was easier. I said it was simpler. or I meant to
My youngest son is self-employed and recently took on a young lad for casual labouring. He turned up in trainers and my son asked where his boots were ..."dunno". Then son noticed he had no bag with him and asked where his piece was (lunch)-- lad said "I dinny eat" :D

no you didn't sorry!

but what past are we talking about in terms of self respect, cleanliness and hygeine? even in the very recent past people slept in the undergarments they would wear the next day. Clothes would be repeatedly worn despite more manual work and lifestyles. hair was slicked down. housing stock was damp and overcrowded meaning clothes stored in it were damp and harboured smelly mould. whilst they may have looked presentable in photos to our modern eye they would have smelt horrible to our modern noses - even ones that have become acclimatised to tube station odours.

their teeth were very definitely rotten, they were overrun with parasites and other diseases of poor hygeine and sanitation.

if you read contemporary victorian, edwardian, war-time reports it is full of the same "people today have no self respect" describing similar terrible behaviour and harping back to a golden age in the past where everyone was respectful, clean and less lazy.

does looking tatty/dishevelled/not taking pride in one's appearance have anything to do with self-respect, cleanliness or work-ethics? One could argue that society spends far too much time/energy uselessly fixated on how things look.

mardatha

Ah I see - my post was before that one about standards - I was just talking about having a kitchen range, with a wee fire that did everything.
Basically because I can't cook, and if I had that kind of range then I could just blame the fire....

jk0

This comment on 'The Slog' made me laugh. Perhaps I should take a page out of his book.

http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/at-the-end-of-the-day-516/#comment-475669

[Deleted User]

There is NO romance in how people lived in past times, just hard work, canniness, making the very most of the meagre resources that they had and HAVING to cope whatever life threw thier way without the NHS, withour social support, without benefits to buy thier daily needs and yes disease was rife and teeth were rotten people most likely smelt very rancid indeed and if you only had one outfit for marrying and burying and one for everyday working you are bound to have looked and smelt unkempt. I think what I see as the way things are in 2014 is that WITH all the support, with the NHS, with benefits (little though that may be for your needs, I say NEEDS not WANTS) it should still be possible to buy a bar of soap and present a clean appearance, not smart, not fashionable, not even fitting properly but clean of person and head, dirty hair can be washed with that same bar of soap. I'm generalising here but the people I see in that condition are generally drinking fizzy drinks, smoking, and eating junk food. Surely that is a choice? I know it's really hard to make ends meet, to give your family decent meals and to keep up a home, to heat that home and keep a family clothed and shod but these folks are generally towing several youngsters around with them and they are all drinking fizzy drinks and eating sweets and chips. Surely a little education in money management would help and break the circle of behaviour. I wonder if a considerable amount of this IS due to having taken Home Economics out of the schools curriculum and that we were expected to take on home skills and do our part when we were young because our parents had those skills, something that seems to be lacking in some sectors of society these days.

GreyQueen

lobbyludd wrote: »

no you didn't sorry!

but what past are we talking about in terms of self respect, cleanliness and hygeine? even in the very recent past people slept in the undergarments they would wear the next day. Clothes would be repeatedly worn despite more manual work and lifestyles. hair was slicked down. housing stock was damp and overcrowded meaning clothes stored in it were damp and harboured smelly mould. whilst they may have looked presentable in photos to our modern eye they would have smelt horrible to our modern noses - even ones that have become acclimatised to tube station odours.

their teeth were very definitely rotten, they were overrun with parasites and other diseases of poor hygeine and sanitation.

if you read contemporary victorian, edwardian, war-time reports it is full of the same "people today have no self respect" describing similar terrible behaviour and harping back to a golden age in the past where everyone was respectful, clean and less lazy.

does looking tatty/dishevelled/not taking pride in one's appearance have anything to do with self-respect, cleanliness or work-ethics? One could argue that society spends far too much time/energy uselessly fixated on how things look.

I would both agree and disagree with some of your post. I was posting about things as recently 50 years ago. The early 1960s was the young adulthood of today's seventy-somethings. The welfare state was in place, although far less encompassing than now. Work was mostly-available, although the pay was poor, particularly women's wages.

Yes, working men who were labourers like my Dad would have looked rough on the building site and the farm (he did both kinds of work) in their army surplus and finishing up their old clothes. But you washed and changed as soon as you came home.

Get this; it was commonplace for a working man to dress in suit and tie, even if he was hanging just around the streets/ pubs of an evening. Your working clothes were rough and you didn't stay in them one moment longer than necessary. My Dad, one of the sixties Mods, is absolutely gobsmacked at how young men go about these days, and the fact that these dirty slovenly creatures manage to get a girlfriend. No girl of his era would have touched them with a (disinfected) barge pole.

Although I agree that society is very appearance-fixated, this is nothing new. Conmen have always found it beneficial to dress smartly, after all. But I would very much say that my experience of life has confirmed that how people conduct themselves in one aspect of their life is reflective of how they conduct themselves in the other areas.

A person who is unkempt is often unreliable about timekeeping, honouring commitments and any number of other issues. This is because it takes planning, emotional energy, and regular commitment to maintain personal hygiene and an orderly environment. Why do militaries spend a lot of time teaching recruits to keep themselves smart? Not because the enemy cares whether boots are polished or uniforms are ironed, but because it's about the formation of good habits. If a soldier can't be arrised to keep himself as clean possible in the circumstances, will he be disciplined enough to keep a gun clean, and usable? Probably not.

And the slum clearance projects were about removing barriers to maintaining cleaniless and health, and now we have people who live in modern sanitary homes who, because of their lifestyle issues, turn the place into a slum which would have turned the stomach of the most doughty social-improver of the inter-war years.

VJsmum

A lot of it is down to the "Targets" introduced in schools - extra time to get reading, writing, maths skills up means less time for other things. Schools want to go up the league tables to the cost of a balanced rounded education. My kids studied "cooking" at school for a total of about 10 weeks - and mostly made cakes. Or pies with a tin of pie filling and ready made pastry.

Obviously a lot of it is down to parents also - notwithstanding the influence of media and advertising. it's been said here before but the "because I'm worth it" generation and the influence of certain policies by certain governments in the '80s are far reaching (yes, I am looking at you, Thatcher). I grew up in a fairly poor household, working class with 4/5 kids there at one time. Dad was a factory worker, mum a barmaid. But we never thought of ourselves as poor, cos everyone was the same. The widespread reach of TV and other media and the massive advertising budgets means that people now think "why shouldn't I have xyz".

Even as a feminist, I can see that the normality of working mums also does mean that families might feel they have less time to cook from scratch or spend time round the table discussing the day - it is something we have made a point of, but are considered a little old fashioned for not eating in front of the TV. When "mum" was home all day there was more time for the normal household chores that have to be crammed in to an evening or weekend nowadays. of course to some extent this is driven by the need for "stuff", but some of it is driven by the need for women to be treated equally and to be self fulfilled.

I am rambling None of it, of course, is an excuse for poor personal hygiene and poor nutrition / spending choices.

paidinchickens

Talking about untidy..

We just went to take the first round of dogs for a walk and there was a scruffy ish looking fella stood outside the gates of a flat complex. He was just stood, not doing anything and a little further down the road was an estate agent sat in his car.

It took until we walked the dogs, took them home, came back out with our other two dogs before the estate agent realised this was the fella who had booked the viewing for one of the flats that was up for sale.

Maybe he could afford it as he saved money on soap :rotfl:

PiC x

GreyQueen

paidinchickens wrote: »

Talking about untidy..

We just went to take the first round of dogs for a walk and there was a scruffy ish looking fella stood outside the gates of a flat complex. He was just stood, not doing anything and a little further down the road was an estate agent sat in his car.

It took until we walked the dogs, took them home, came back out with our other two dogs before the estate agent realised this was the fella who had booked the viewing for one of the flats that was up for sale.

Maybe he could afford it as he saved money on soap :rotfl:

PiC x

LOL.

Once heard the recommendation that any landlord meeting a prosective tenant ask to look in the boot of their car. The state of the boot being a reliable indicator of how they live indoors and will treat the flat.

You do get people who dress a-guinea-an-inch and are skint, and you do get people who look rather shabby and insantary who are minted, but these are very much the exceptions to the rule.

Speaking of appearances, it is time to get myself sorted out in allotment-appropriate apparel, which will be a shirt and trousers which are past their first flush of youth, and have indeed got a couple of discreet mends in them, although you'd be very clever to spot them. They are pretty clean now, and will go into the wash when I finish Sunday's allotment session.

I will be washed, teeth brushed, combed, deodorised and tidy, and will re-instate the cleaniness and change my clothes when I come back home in a few hours. Because I feel it's important, even if I'm not likely to be in someone else's smelling range in the next 3-4 hours whilst gardening.

lobbyludd

i didn't mean to imply any of this was new GQ and Mrs L - that is sort of my point - there have ALWAYS been people within every society who for a number of reasons have different standards of hygiene/appearance to other portions of society - and that people draw all manner of conclusions about others from their appearance - and that these standards of appearance are in large part arbitrary.

Humans have always made moral judgements based on appearance - that is not new either. wearing a tie does not confer any abilities on the person doing it and it is entirely possible to be unkempt and very organised, but simply to not think such things merit attention.

and whilst the line about the soldiers is a common one - I actually think that is more about breaking identification as an individual and instilling a question nothing attitude. focus them hard on following meaningless routines, structures and orders and they will do what you say without having to understand why.

anyway - i've veered the thread far-away from it's purpose - sorry! - as you were!

(did I mention I iron nothing, think life is too short to pair socks, last had my hair cut 5 years ago, get most of my clothes as cast offs from a much taller and larger friend?).

VJsmum

GreyQueen wrote: »

LOL.

Once heard the recommendation that any landlord meeting a prosective tenant ask to look in the boot of their car. The state of the boot being a reliable indicator of how they live indoors and will treat the flat.

:eek::eek:

Thank goodness i don't rent - I'd be homeless

:rotfl: