Easier to be OS in the olden days?

candlelight_2013

Kittie well said on behalf of all of us.

No we wouldn't want to go back to those days, but if we had to we could manage. It was a good grounding for how we are today, we never take anything for granted. If we want something we save for it, and the older I become the more I appreciate everything we have.

We are lucky to have a works pension as well as a state pension, but of course we paid into that for a good many years, and now we have to pay tax on it because it was not taken at source. We manage very well I think and now that we are retired we cook from scratch, and try never to throw good food away I can always do something with it.

Candlelightx

[Deleted User]

I just want to say one more thing. I am a happy and cheerful person, always busy and glad to be so but I am glad to be almost 70, I hate what is happening in the world and what is happening in the uk.

My nieces and nephews and their friends all communicate via facebook, they don`t know their neighbours so there is no immediate support network. How has all this happened in such a short time? It feels as though the soul has gone and compassion has gone with it.

[Deleted User]

Good post KITTIE,I think unless you have lived through the sheer poverty of a period like that you can have no real understanding of just how little we actually made a fairly good life from. In this age of ease and plenty it must be incomprehensible to envisage a life where two slices of bread and a thin layer of jam were considered an adequate tea, because that's all there was. We had brown sauce or ketchup on bread sometimes if we were out of jam and crown jewel, people will shudder, was being lucky enough to get dripping on toast with some of the brown jelly from underneath on a Sunday evening and that was such a big treat. We didn't go hungry and there was 'enough' but there was never plenty or abundance and it all had to last until the next pay day. No topping up once the cash was gone, it was eat what you had or go hungry. Today we rely on Yellow Sticker reductions from the supermarkets to make ends stretch to meet but back then I can remember going to buy cracked eggs and soft tomatoes from the greengrocer, we ate them, they were cheaper and going to the greengrocer for a box of 'outsides' and damaged fruit which we processed and ate and the stale cakes from the baker late on Saturday afternoon because shops were not open on Sundays and they'd go to waste otherwise. The hand me down clothes and shoes were passed from one family to the next as kids grew and sooner or later you'd see them on the street on someone else or they'd reappear unpicked and remade but you'd still recognise the materials. I think people were quite inventive and resourceful much more so than is gerenal today and nothing was discarded because you were bored with it or because fashion was a different colour or shape. We had less posessions but made much better use of those we did have. Life goes on, it must as life is about change but I wonder if we're really better off these days?

candlelight_2013

OH lyn, dripping on toast with the jelly from the bottom and a sprinkle of salt. My lovely Dad and I used to have that for Sunday tea, absolute nectar.

Candlelightx

parsniphead

I love a dripping sandwich but however hard I try my dripping never tastes like mums. I keep asking her but I think she is keeping secrets.

lostinrates

MrsLurcherwalker wrote: »

Good post KITTIE,I think unless you have lived through the sheer poverty of a period like that you can have no real understanding of just how little we actually made a fairly good life from. In this age of ease and plenty it must be incomprehensible to envisage a life where two slices of bread and a thin layer of jam were considered an adequate tea, because that's all there was. We had brown sauce or ketchup on bread sometimes if we were out of jam and crown jewel, people will shudder, was being lucky enough to get dripping on toast with some of the brown jelly from underneath on a Sunday evening and that was such a big treat. We didn't go hungry and there was 'enough' but there was never plenty or abundance and it all had to last until the next pay day. No topping up once the cash was gone, it was eat what you had or go hungry. Today we rely on Yellow Sticker reductions from the supermarkets to make ends stretch to meet but back then I can remember going to buy cracked eggs and soft tomatoes from the greengrocer, we ate them, they were cheaper and going to the greengrocer for a box of 'outsides' and damaged fruit which we processed and ate and the stale cakes from the baker late on Saturday afternoon because shops were not open on Sundays and they'd go to waste otherwise. The hand me down clothes and shoes were passed from one family to the next as kids grew and sooner or later you'd see them on the street on someone else or they'd reappear unpicked and remade but you'd still recognise the materials. I think people were quite inventive and resourceful much more so than is gerenal today and nothing was discarded because you were bored with it or because fashion was a different colour or shape. We had less posessions but made much better use of those we did have. Life goes on, it must as life is about change but I wonder if we're really better off these days?

Inversely my maternal family ( not British) talk about how much LESS they eat now and how the reason people are fat is because they don't do so much physical work. They talk about the days of HUGELY substantial breakfasts, a kitchen always on standby to offer a mid morning offering, lunch, tea, vast dinners and light late night suppers. Despite a family tendency to low thyroid no one was obese...because people were busy! ( and knew personal and decent limits) Current generations of that family show something quite different often.

[Deleted User]

we got bacon bits and they were fried to crispy, then let go cold and that was lovely spread on bread. Sugar sandwiches kept us going too. We never had a roast dinner. My friend`s mum, from the valleys was too poor to have a joint of meat but she was a proud woman and still used to go outside and sharpen her carving knife on the step, just so that her neighbours would not know that they had no joint

Do you remember whitening the front step? I used to sit on the upstairs window cill so I could clean the outside of the sash windows, age about 12. Some kind old lady gave me a wind up record player and a tall pile of 78s, I wish I had kept them. I used to play `theres a pawnshop on the corner`, there must have been real gems in that lot

That very cold and snowy winter 60 something, I had my one pair of shoes, going through deep snow to get to school. My feet were blue with cold, no boots then and only one pair of shoes and then putting the same pair of wet shoes on in the morning for school again.

Do you remember the horrible atmosphere upstairs on the buses? Running with condensation and full of cigarette smoke and people coughing their guts up. I got a saturday job, first in a cheque shop and I always worked very hard to get the prize of a pair of tights. Then in a chemists shop, which I liked and which put me of wanting to be a doctor, so many people moaning about doctors even then. It was so easy to get a job in those days, not so much competition and once in, then you worked hard to stay in. I went to an all girls grammar school and all the girls worked hard and were no trouble, so most of us went onto higher education. Dh did not pass the 11 plus and took the hard road but did very well, getting the top student exam award for structural engineering when he was 21. Schools were better tbh, parents supported the teachers in the main and there were a lot of good teachers then.

lessonlearned

Teachers were very supportive. They understood that most of the children were dirt poor and that education was our ticket to a better life. Parents wanted the best for us and often went without. I passed my 11 plus to a very posh grammar school. The skimping and saving that was needed to fund my school uniform;) Even the aunts chipped in to help out.

I confess that I am often dismayed at the amount of boomer bashing that goes on. Yes we benefitted from more affordable housing, full employment and the newly created NHS but most of us have worked and saved all our lives. We didn't have inheritances to set us on our paths, we had to stand on our own two feet. Those mortgages often took every last penny to service.

Anyway that's another story and I'm not going to dwell on the boomer bashers. No matter how you try to explain what the "golden age" of the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's was really like. The discontented youth won't believe us because they are too busy feeling sorry for themselves.

That is not to say that I dont have sympathy for their plight, I do but moaning and whinging won't solve anything.

mardatha

I never had a dripping piece or a sugar piece, and I can't remember life being hard. But I do agree that we didn't eat all day, or go around the streets with a can of fizzy stuff stuck in our faces like big babies with a bottle. I do fee sorry for the younger ones because life is turning full circle now and we are going backwards.
Re the people who moan about babyboomers, there's not bloody much we can do about when we were born is there? LOL - bit of a waste of time moaning at us!

meritaten

lol I think you have a point about not walking about with a can of pop - or burger or pasty in hand. I am a bit disgusted at how many people think nothing of going through town with a tray of chips (often with gravy or curry sauce poured over). not only would my nan have recoiled in horror (one just did NOT eat outdoors unless on a picnic), but they go into shops and finger the goods! yeeeuchh!

it seems that eating and drinking is an 'all day affair' now - no wonder so many are obese.

I rarely eat outside mealtimes (and have just two meals a day). and weigh the same as my wedding day (lol - I was six months pregnant though, so that statement has a lot of leeway).
my first job was a Saturday girl in Woolworths - and those jobs were like gold dust - luckily my aunt was best friends with the senior supervisor (nowadays she would be 'assistant manager'). and I treasured that job. I was there for two years - started the week I turned fifteen and left when I was seventeen and just finished my college course. I earned 15 shillings! less than one pound - but then wages for the week were less than £5.00 when I left. and they were considered 'good money'! it was bluddy hard work too - no sitting down at ALL all day except for breaks. up and down stairs to the stockroom - only the goods came down in the lift - YOU didn't! stock the displays, serve customers, deal with endless questions - but I had worked every single 'counter' and knew quite a lot. I really enjoyed it. I mostly have enjoyed all my subsequent retail jobs. the other staff were mostly single girls - who left as soon as the ring was on their finger or much older single mums (who had been widowed in the war - and were still there, as Widows War pension was abysmal. but, the 'girls' all looked out for each other and we did manage to have a 'laff' most days.