What would my Granny think of OS?

balmaiden

I think my old Gran would have a bit of a chuckle if I described myself as old style.
Dont get me wrong I love everything about this site, and learn something new all the time.

But poor old Gran had no washing machine,tumble drier,slow cooker etc ( just as well really as she didnt have any electricity!!) She had no mains water and had to get all water from a stream 1/4 mile away. Obviously no indoor toilet. Meat was kept in a "meatsafe" on the outside wall There were no shops where she lived, let alone supermarkets.Everything was either home grown, home reared or delivered once a week. Im not talking of that long ago, but how things have changed.The Good old Days, I wonder?

I think I will think of myself as "new style old style"and keep reading,and trying all the brilliant tips.

LJM

Im always chatting with my nan about o/s its amazing how they got through on so little

CLARABEL

I agree, but as you say, things HAVE changed very fast.

there are so many tings in just the last 10-20 years have changed beyond recognition...

nappies until the 80s were all fabric
a tumble drier was a true luxury
ready meals were very new and considered pointless and expensive

I have a clear memory about being about 8 or 9 and sitting in front of my grandmas new automatic washer with my sister chanting 'do the washing washing machine' cos it did everything! this was only about 20-ish years ago!

all we are is old style in a sensible make the most of what we have way...it's just more sensible, green and economical, it''s actually new style...everyone's now saying it...chefs, shops, everywhere!

New Old Style Rules!

:T :T :T Clara :T :T :T

lil_me

Drier my parents did have when I was a nipper to do my terry nappies, I know because I used it after them for my sons terry nappies (I'm 29 this year) it sadly died of old age at 28 years old last year, in all it's time it only ever needed a belt until then (when it was 27) when the heating parts went pop and couldn't get one to replace it. Possibly was a luxury then, but I doubt any made now will last as long as that one did.

Washing machines, my Nana still has a twin tub, we used a spinner at home until I was about 12.

Parents never drove when I lived at home, so we only shopped locally. Holidays were in this country only until I was 16 when my Dad medically retired we went for one holiday abroad. I do drive now as do my parents (both started learning in their 40s) but we live in a smallish village where there are a lot who don't drive so we still have regular delivery people who do fruit and veg etc. Ok they have a van now, not horse and kart but still delivered weekly. One guys been doing it since he was a teenager, I think passed on from family, I know he's got grown up grandchildren now.

OS now is nowhere near what OS was, but I like it.

mrbadexample

I can remember when my Mum & Dad bought their first tumble dryer - it was when I got into the school rugby team, and I needed my kit ready between training on Friday night and the match on Saturday morning. Would've been about 1981.... :eek:

squeaky

Yes,

most of the "Old Style" of bygone years wasn't so much about "doing without" as making the best of what you had. (As has been said, many of the things we pretty much take for granted didn't even exist back then, or were luxuries.)

My mum had a second hand big gas fired copper kettle for the laundry and we used to have to wring things out by hand.

Then Dad bought a wringer to fit over the top of it. (Again second hand). Wow! What luxury! No hot hands, no "chinese burns" and no wrist ache. Lots of arm ache though - winding the handle on the wringer was hard work.

Later a second hand twin tub arrived. Yay!

So my parents took advantage of every "new" gadget that they could - but generally bought second hand or used hand-me-downs from family friends and neighbours.

It's this ethos of "making the best of what you have" and of "spending your money wisely and thriftily" which is the real part of "Old Style". Using up leftovers, shopping around for best prices, buying what you need and reducing impulse buys that all too often end up not used and in the bin...

..so life has changed in some practical ways since then - but being frugal and thrifty still has its place.

Making the best use of your own time and effort is also helpful - which is where modern new fangled gadgets like slow cooker and breadmakers come into their own. But you can still shop around for a good deal if you want to buy new; or use second hand shops, bootsales, ebay etc. to buy second hand, or even get lucky on Freecycle and get one free


Old Style isn't really about being Old Fashioned. If it was, we'd all be down the nearest stream bashing our laundry on the nearest rock and using ashes from the outdoor cooking fire in our gardens as soap!

It's the old fashioned "values" that live on in Old Style

So gran might chuckle at your fancy breadmaker gizmo - but she's likely to pat you on the back if you got a good deal and spent your money wisely

Queenie

My mum was born in 1921 and my paternal Gran in 1800's (not sure what era your Mum's/Gran's were born in).

Certainly my mum had a version of the modern tumble dryer - big tub thing with wooden slats for hanging the clothes over. She'd had that since the 60's. Prior to that, it was clothes airers in front of the fire/over the bath.

In our eco-moneysaving world of today, clothes horses are now being encouraged instead of tumble dryers.

Vesta Curry was the orginal "ready meal" (YUK!) and then it reached a point where shops were very much filled with a whole variety of ready meals, my own mum came home chuckling when she spotted "Bread and Butter" pudding in M&S late 70's early 80's.
Home Economic lessons went out the window as being 'sexist' and undermining women. School dinners went from good on the premises cooking from scratch to quick to serve frozen 'pre-prepared' reconstituted crub.

Now Jamie Oliver et al are all promoting cooking from scratch, better quality foods in the school dinner hall and certainly in OS there have been many conversations about teaching kids to cook "properly"!

Slow cookers *were* around, even in the war ... they were called hay boxes A rose by any other name ... :laugh:

Bottling, preserving, rug making, growing your own veggies, self sufficiency were all very much 'country crafts' and were done for survival and necessity, predominantly driven by that common denominator ... MONEY and MONEYSAVING See! Some things haven't changed at all really :laugh:

Lillibet_2

My wonderful Nan died when I was 5 (I'm now 32 by the way), last week as I sat knitting my first ever cable stitch & waxed lyrical about how much I was enjoying knitting, in between pulling weetabix cakes out of the oven & removing Spud from digging up the garlic, my Mum sat chuckling & muttering about ...."if your Nan could see you now....her gradaughter knitting...she hoped you wouldn't have to do all that & would have time to enjoy things in life.......assumed you'd be a career woman not a house wife....". My Nan's perception was that things would always get better & improve, as they had done during her lifetime, not that we would find all the gadgets would make our lives more tiresome & complicated and lead to faster & faster living & that we would long for a simpler time like her youth.

Becles

My Great Nana was born in 1902. Her father was a miner but he died when she was a little girl. Her mother, Nana and her sister worked incredibly hard to keep an income coming into the house as they were terrified of going into the workhouse.

She used to tell all sorts of tales about buying wool cheap to knit socks and gloves to sell to the miners on their way to work. They used to buy bundles of rags too and cut out the best bits of the clothes to make new ones with. She said it was great if you got two similar mens shirts, as you could make bloomers with matching legs

She was a fantastic cook which helped her through the war years. Give her a few random ingredients and she could knock up a decent meal without blinking! She taught me how to cook.

She became poorly with cancer when I was a teenager, and had to move in with my Gran as she needed full time care. We had great fun clearing out her old house and laughing about all the stuff she had horded. She had a poss tub and mangle in case her washer broke down, irons that go on the coal fire (even though it had been converted to gas!), and all other stuff like that. The best find was a very old family Bible that had loads of Christmas cards made for her by various children of the family over the years.

The worst find was her "laying out" clothes, and her tales of keeping dead bodies at home in the laying out clothes so people could come round and view the body.

I think my Nana would be chuckling if she knew what everyone here was up to, but ready to muck in with some new tips!

lynzpower

My nanna ( departed, but she was ACE) was poor, worked from 14, raised 6 kind in a 2 bed house and had very little, grandad gawd love im, drank what was there away but my nan was amazing, even at her funeral the Celebrant said of her she made sure everyone had enough, except herself, and she was known accross the neighbourhood for knowing "100 ways with mince!" Not so different to us here these days! I remember in her latter days she bought a salad spinner and then wondered what all the fuss was about but she wanted to keep up to date with a gadget! She had a twin tub table top spinner , and her meat & potato pie recipe went with her to her grave ( DROOOL damn I wanted that!!!!!! She never told anyone!!!! )

She too, grew seedlings in yoghurt pots (as I do) grew bits of her own food in the back yard of a tiny 2 bed council house and never ever paid for a carrier bag and had a wheelie trolley. ( as I do!) I know shed be proud of me and my OS efforts, and would have LOVED a breadmaker.

My grandma & grandad, (still fighting fit!) are quite well off and are way less OS than me, they buy veg preprepared now as thier hands arnt what they are and a roast in thier house is out of a bag Saying that my grandma will openly admit shes never been the best cook, and she reckons Aunt bessies are better than what she can make I tend to agree!

dolly_day_dream

Lillibet wrote: »

My wonderful Nan died when I was 5 (I'm now 32 by the way), last week as I sat knitting my first ever cable stitch & waxed lyrical about how much I was enjoying knitting, in between pulling weetabix cakes out of the oven & removing Spud from digging up the garlic, my Mum sat chuckling & muttering about ...."if your Nan could see you now....her gradaughter knitting...she hoped you wouldn't have to do all that & would have time to enjoy things in life.......assumed you'd be a career woman not a house wife....". My Nan's perception was that things would always get better & improve, as they had done during her lifetime, not that we would find all the gadgets would make our lives more tiresome & complicated and lead to faster & faster living & that we would long for a simpler time like her youth.

It has taken a while but people are now getting to realise what some of us have known for ages - material possessions do not make you happy. Creating by our own hands is very thereputic.

I was born in the 50s and during the 70s was convinced that I would not be pigeon holed into a 'womans role' in life. I would go out and have a career and make my partner share with the housework.:rotfl: We know that back then that rarely worked in practice.

Where is the happiness in rushing from place to place trying to please employer, spouse and family? Over 25 years ago I was trying to do that and decided - no I am going to become liberated in the proper sense. I gave up my part time job which meant that I only saw my family for half the day. My children were babies and needed me at home with them. I had listened to the people who had said that women shouldn't be trapped in the home and should be allowed to go out and have their own lives. That may well have worked for some but I knew that it wasn't working for me - why should I conform to what they thought I should be doing?

I had to use every trick that I knew to save money to be able to do it (I wish this site was around then cos I have learnt loads from it!) but I managed to stay at home untill my youngest was 6 and I felt that then we were ready as a family for me to work outside the home. I am now very happily established in my chosen career of teaching and I wouldn't change it for the world and I know that for me I did it the right way round.

I appreciate that this is not an option for everyone. But I would urge everyone to think what is best for them not what 'society' is saying that people ought to do. If you are working because the money buys you extra possessions consider what you could do with the extra time you could have instead. Time is perhaps the most precious comodity of all. I know that I see the difference at school between those children whose parents spend time with them and those who just spend money on them.

Sorry I'll get down from my soapbox now and get my coat:o