Easier to be OS in the olden days?

[Deleted User]

The way society is descending into uncaring abandonment on all levels these days I think we'd be very lucky to have something as abysmal as a workhouse even!!! It feels like the care system is being disabled and dismantled and that those who need help the most are the ones least likely to be considered for the limited help that is obtainable. Every man for himself will be the only future I think. Make your own provisions, no one else is going to do it for you are they?

candlelight_2013

I can remember Mum saying during her childhood in South Wales they would have to go to the Salvation Army soup kitchen each day. It was during the depression, and my Grandad couldn't find work, as of course thousands of others couldn't either. That was the only hot meal they had and years later she would always say how grateful she was to the "Sally" Army.

Here we are in the 21st century, and folks are having to go to food banks to feed their families, this can't be right can it?

Candlelightx

lillibet_dripping

mardatha wrote: »

The book is "All Quiet on the Home Front" by Richard Van Emden and Steve Humphries

Just ordered this from the library, Mar.
Thankyou
Lilli

mardatha

There's a lot of reading in it Lillbet, took me a while to get through it. But I learned a lot I didn't know.

ArthriticOldThing

I can only send you my sincere condolences Predaleko and lessonlearned. Be kind to yourselves.

lessonlearned

My late husband was ill for 9 years and I can tell you our system stinks.....it.s all lip service and precious little caring.

The NHS is no longer fit for purpose and having to wade your way through Adult Social Services is a nightmare. All this comes at a time when you are vulnerable, stressed and worried sick.

My husband was lucky in that I fought tooth and nail to get him the best care that I could, the same now with my elderly parents. What worries me is the people who have no one to speak up for them and fight their corner.

On an individual basis the vast number of health care professionals are wonderful, often going way beyond the call of duty to provide the best possible care. But it's the system itself which is in tatters.

My husband's illness nearly broke me, physically and financially. I'm still paying the price with my health but I'm getting better slowly but surely.

I had to,sell just about everything that wasn't nailed down and still ended up with £30k worth of debt. Eventually I had to sell the family home.

I have two sons, one has a good job but the other works in retail for just slightly above the NMW. They both have good degrees and student debt,

When I sold the family home I gave my sons the deposit for,their houses. They both bought wrecks and I'm helping them renovate them. At least they have a secure roof over their heads.

My remaining money will buy me a small house which, should I ever need it, can be sold to fund my care home needs.

At least I have been able to help my sons a little now when they need it most rather than them having to,wait until I pop my clogs.

I know I never had that kind of financial leg up and I'm sure that there are people who would criticise me and say IM making things too easy for my sons. Im just happy to be able to help them.

I feel that despite my impoverished background and all the deprivations of my childhood I was, in many ways, lucky to be young in the 60's. For all the poverty that was still around it was a period of opportunity and optimism, unlike today when all we hear is doom and gloom.

I sometimes wonder if that isn't the root of the problem. I sometimes think that a lot of,people today are very pessimistic and defeatist, they just give up too easily.

Children are not encouraged to blossom. Educators seem to be more interested in trying to make square pegs fit into round holes and churning out clones who all think alike. Students have Marxist dogma rammed down their throats and are not encouraged to think for themselves. It's as if individuality is too,dangerous and has to be stamped out.

I was always very much a square peg and I never did fit into that round hole. I'm still a rebel at heart and I've encouraged my boys to always look beyond the surface of things and think a little deeper.

The future may not look particularly rosy but those with old style skills and a practical bent will survive. When the chips are down its imagination, creative thinking and good old practical skills that see us through. Unfortunately a lot of people seem to lack those practical skills that helped so many of us through the bad times.

I do think the future looks difficult and I don't envy the young.

I would like some youthful energy though......:rotfl:

Shortypie

So Sorry to hear of people's recent bereavements on here:(

I have really enjoyed reading these posts, have been dipping in and out at work as I've been without wifi set home the past two weeks. I think I can tend to romanticise the past a bit, it sounds incredibly tough but as some have said, most people were in the same boat and remembered the hardship of the war. I'm really quite disillusioned with the way society had become and yearn for a simpler time (though not without the internet )

I was born in 1982 to working class parents living in a council maisonettes, dad was a London bus conductor, mum became a childminder when I was 18months so she was always at home, but very busy, I don't recall her playing with me much, or reading bedtime stories etc. looking back I now realise they were pretty hard up, but we always had one holiday (Butlins) and one theme park trip a year, one day trip to Brighton, occasionally stayed at my uncles caravan in Herne Bay. I had two birthday parties a year, one on Saturday for about 5 school friends, one on Sunday for 5 out of school friends, I guess because mum couldn't fit lots of kids in the house.

Christmas my sister and I were always so spoilt, a big stocking each on our beds (with a plastic dustbin full of sweets at the top)and half the docs full of presents for me, half for her. I now know it was because my mum was an agent for a few catalogues and bought the toys with her commission. I think she felt guilty that we were proportionately poorer than a lot of other people we knew.

This idea of how much children "should" get for christmas has unfortunately crept into my psyche, I'm really trying to make an effort not to get my 3 (age 7x2 and 4) too much this year - how silly that I gave to make an effort NOT to buy them too much! I'm aiming for no more than £100 each, which still sounds a lot but hasn't bought an awful lot. A friend of mine is getting her 3 a £280 bike, amongst other things, for one, and iPhone for another, and the 4 year old she is not going to spend "more than £200" as she "hasn't asked for much" :eek:

My mum parents still have no central heating, just a gas fire in the front room, a couple of electric heaters (only really the one in my sisters room gets used as she is still at home, now with a little boy of nearly 1), Emersion Heater gets switched on for bath nights, washing up is done with boiled water (mum seems to always have two kettles boiling on the hob at all times). Having said all that, they're not particularly frugal, despite not being particularly well off, most of their money seems to go on food shopping, lots of meat like lamb shanks, and other goodies (mind you I think my sister is quite a drain too).

We are very lucky that they are lending us £10k for a 5% deposit for a house. We bought a house at the height of the market in 07 on an interest only mortgage as I wasn't working (the twins were little) but suffered a lot with antisocial behaviour from the local settled traveller community, and unfortunately sold last year at no profit (if we had realised house prices were going to go bananas we could have held off 6 months and made 20k) we've been renting to the tune of 1200 a month the last year, cheapest three bed we could find, after only a year the landlord is selling. All we can afford for the same monthly outgoings is a tiny two bedroom (more like 1.5!) bungalow (and even then the mortgage is partly based on benefits even though we both work). The 3 kids will share and hubby and I will just about fit a bed and not much else in our room. We hope to save over 5 years to extend the loft so there will be much scrimping and saving. Some of my friends are a bit horrified that we will have 3 kids sharing, they need their space etc but 50 years or less ago I'm guessing nobody would have batted an eyelid. Our standards have changed so much, that children "need" their own room these days. I don't buy into that at all but still worry that peer pressure will make the kids ashamed of it in the future.

We do have a games console at home, and an iPad but the kids won't have their own device, no matter how much they might want it, they have to share. No TV in their bedroom either, they have to share the TV in the front room. I've got rid of Sky this year, and am so much happier that there are no kids channels on after 7pm! Highlight of my kids week is Friday movie night, we fit on the sofa with a family movie (from our DVDs, or recorded off the TV) popcorn and a few sweets. Doesn't sound particularly OS but compared to my more middle classed friends it is!

I can't fathom the attitudes of some people, one of my colleagues (who is horrified at my kids having to share) has one child, they are in very serious mortgage arrears and she is always "broke" but nearly always buys a sandwich for lunch from the cafe, shops daily for dinner, spending about £20 at a time got a family of 3, feels guilty that she can't afford to take her child on holiday but what she means is abroad and won't countenance a little caravan break by the coast as her son "wouldn't be interested".

We have been lucky enough to be able to take the kids on a cheap uk holiday the last three years, mine are obviously easily pleased as they have a whale of a time, even just being in a caravan is part of the fun.

I do think that the main thing pushing people into poverty these days is housing costs, if we had been in a position to buy even a few years earlier than we did, we could have bought pretty much twice the house for half the price! Most people I know who are 10-15 years older than me wouldn't be able to buy their house if they were buying now, and a lot of them got onto the housing ladder by buying their council flat.

As for clean pjs every day, one of mine has gone to bed in pj trousers and a normal t-shirt! Being on the autistic spectrum and having learning difficulties, the twins are not dry at night and often wet through, and I hate this time of year god trying to get clothes dry. How on earth did they get clothes dry in winter years ago?!

I really try to bring I get the children up to appreciate the small things, they are really pleased on the odd occasion I get them a comic, and don't whinge when they can't (which is most of the time) for example. I think if they didn't gave their difficulties and had more of a dovish group though, that I would find it more of a struggle to "deprive" them of the things others have and I dint know where that ridiculous sense of guilt comes from.

Thanks to those that posted titles of books, I will have. Look out for them!

englishrose89

shortypie please don't worry about your 3 sharing. All my parents could ever afford was a 3 bed with 5 children. Lucky for them they had me and my sister and then my 3 brothers. I always shared with my sister and then the 3 boys shared. They were never ashamed. I don't think its something we ever thought of, just use to fight and I remember marking of 'areas' that were mine and hers hahaha. Gosh my parents even used a foldout sofa bed in the living room to give me my eldest brother the box room at one point then my and my sister could have more space in one of the doubles as you could only get a single bed in the box (or bunk beds in our case).

I also agree that children don't need their own room but have friends that are trying for baby number 2 and 'need' to move because the children can't possibly share. I even have one friend who brought a massive 4 bed as she had her second baby but wanted a spare room. Oh how the other half live.

Good luck to you, I'm sure it will all work out.

mardatha

I had my 3 in a 2 bedroom high rise flat.. at one point we got a nice big comfy bed settee and gave the kids the rooms. That worked out well and my daughter does that too, the new ones have a space underneath to stash the downie.

parsniphead

Erm, what's a downie mardatha?

Don't think I could ever get bored of this thread. It' s bringing back some lovely memories.