Easier to be OS in the olden days?

[Deleted User]

Certainly do KITTIE we had a bomb crater at the top of the road in the village in Kent where I grew up, we were on the air route back to occupied France and if the planes hadn't dropped their bombs they jettisoned them along the Medway regardless of what was underneath. We used to play in it and had made a tin shelter from bits of old air raid shelters which was used on occasion by itinerant tramps to sleep in. I remember being sent to VYES STORES for a pound of broken biscuits and the biscuits were along the front of the counter in big tin boxes with glass centred lids so you could get what you wanted weight wise, nearest thing we had to self service. We also had an INTERNATIONAL STORES where they weighed out leaf tea, sugar, dried fruit etc and put it into those blue bags that looked like they were made from sugar paper and the bacon slicer which could cut from very thin to thick slices also great truckles of cheddar cheese with waxed linen outsides where the assistant would cut you a wedge the size you wanted with a long cheese wire and two handles, one either end. Neopolitan ice cream blocks for cutting were for birthday parties, I'm lucky that mine is in January so wrapped in newspaper there was always some frozen left by the time we ate them but summer birthdays all you got was melted frothy foam, it still tasted good though didn't it?

Does anyone else remember going to beetle drives and whist drives with their Mum? we always went as they played for money or food prizes and the best was the Fur and Feather Whist Drive on the weekend before Christmas where you might win a rabbit or a chicken or if you were really lucky a brace of pheasants and have something nice for Christmas lunch. The most coveted prize from the beetle drive was always a big basket of fruit from the greengrocer with grapes, oranges, bananas, apples and if you were really lucky a pomegranate and a box of dates and there was much envy if you won that!

dronid

I was a child of 1972 so something of a latecomer but we had power cuts, shortages etc. and not a lot of money. I remember my great grandmother sending food parcels down to us from Wales (we lived in East Sussex) mainly of packet mixes which my mother avoided generally. Despite being poor I know I had a more varied diet than those on better incomes. We wore clothes till they wore out though didn't repair much as often they would also be grown out. Had lots of second hand clothes. And an open mind. And pyjamas were changed twice a week at most.

Once my parents were divorced we had so little money that we were chopping up furniture for the fire. The house we’d moved into had (mainly broken) storage heaters and a fireplace in the living room. I went to bed with a hot water bottle and on a couple of occasions found the condensation had frozen inside my bedroom window. On one occasion while I was away there had been a gale and blizzard and my bedroom window had blown open and when I got back the snow had not melted in there. You definitely had to manage on very little. Oddly though at the time I don’t remember feeling very deprived. My mother is inventive and creative and a good cook and we kept going for quite a while. She’s not one to spend needlessly and I used to take after her in that. I've become desperately spendthrift since then which is not ideal and I need to get more of a grip on stuff but I still object to waste and try my best to keep a grip. It wasn't easier to be Old Style, but if you weren't you would be broke, tired and unsatisfied with crying children who would be hungry. :-)

Catcherupper14

I too can remember my mum's co-op divi number.


I also remember that she would shop for a slice of ham (for Dad as the breadwinner) to go with egg and chips; she would buy a quarter pound of cheese, two or three slices of bacon and everything in such small amounts (can anyone remember the small packs of washing powder, about the size of a paperback book?, sachets of shampoo?)


I wonder if the size of pre-packed items has contributed to the obesity we see now. For instance, I buy a packaged block of cheese which weighs about half a pound. I've never checked how long it takes me to eat it, but my mum would use half that (in a cheese and potato pie and probably dad's sandwiches too) to feed seven of us.


We also had puddings, including bacon and onion, pies, Yorkshire puddings and dumplings. We were never fat - there were no snacks except an occasional biscuit and as someone has said, we did not drink tea, coffee or soft drinks all day.

[Deleted User]

I think part of not being overweight was that with no central heating, no cars, no ready meals and not much by way of sweeties and snackage we all used up so much energy just being alive and trying to keep warm we didn't have the surpluses of calories to store as fat anyway!

Catcherupper14

Another thing I recall from the 60's? is how much people made of Christmas.


My parents would have at least three meats with all the trimmings, a large pudding and a large cake, several pounds of nuts in their shells, dates, figs, sugared orange and lemon slices and several boxes of chocolates. They would also buy a range of spirits and mixers, port, sherry, several packs of beer and dozens of fizzy drinks.
I almost forgot the After Eights, Matchmakers, twiglets, salted peanuts, crisps, oranges, tangerines, trifles (home made), pints of cream from the milkman, bottles of fresh orange juice (again from the milkman).


I think it was partly because they had saved with various schemes through the year and it had to be spent.

Lance_De_Boils

We didn't have central heating when I was a child. Mum used to put me and my brother together in a single bed so that we could snuggle up and keep warm.


To this day fried onion sandwiches remain my favourite. We used to love them as kids. How clever mums can be....we had no idea that the fried onion sandwiches were because she had nothing else to give us.

Living_proof

I remember almost all of what has been said in previous posts but do you all recall the Bank Holiday dashes to the coast? I grew up near Southend and each BH the place would be flooded with coachloads of groups, the A127 nose to tail with lots of motorbikes and sidecars with entire families transported in this way. There were crates and crates of beer aboard the charabancs and periodically along the route we would see long lines of men relieving themselves of all the liquid lunches they had consumed. This is going back to the days when most people worked a 5 and a half day or 6 day week and only had a couple of weeks paid leave. The BHs were a major family event when everybody would have time off together. During the days the beach would be jam-packed with deck chairs and pasty-faced city dwellers asleep, to be transformed into lobsters within an hour or so. Then there were the lights, kiss me quick hats, sticks of rock, very rude postcards.... it's probably the same even now!

cuddlymarm

Hi guys

I'm really enjoying this thread It brings back loads of memories. I was born in 1961 to older parents and lived in the country. The small town nearby had a Co-op where all the walls had shelves behind big glass counters and you asked for what you wanted. I used to love looking at all the biscuits in the glass topped boxes but can't remember ever buying them. Food used to be very stretchy with a roast on Sunday which lead to meat and chips in Monday, minced up bits to make cottage pie Tuesday etc to when it ran out egg and chips or sausage and mash, no rice, curry, pasta ever. My uncle had a farm with bomb holes where the Germans has missed the shipyards which grew the most fabulous blackberries and we had an old apple tree in the garden, the apples were cookers and really ugly but we always had apple jelly, Apple crumbles etc.
We didn't have loads at xmas, but that was normal for most families. You had play clothes, good clothes that then became play clothes and so on. I can still remember my good coat for church. Bright red with black Cossack style fasteners and patent leather shoes.
When we had power cuts in the 70s mum was so organised we hardly noticed. She made sure tea was ready so we could just warm it up and clothes were all organised so we weren't searching in the dark. Heat was a paraffin stove half way up the stairs and a coal fire. I think central heating has made us soft, i don't think as many people had allergies then either.

Anyway enough of my waffling
Have a good day
Cuddles:)

fiftyeighter_2

I havnt read all this thread yet, but just wanted to say ooh the memories. I was born in 1950 and remember all the things you have mentioned Mrs LW.
I was one of 15 so you can imagine very poor. We first lived with my nan and grandad on a small holding then when I was 3 we moved 10 miles away when my dad got a job on a gas works and we lived next door. It had no bathroom and a outside loo. We had a bath in a tin bath that hung outside. We lived there until I was about 10/11 yrs. then we moved to a 3 bed roomed house WITH a bathroom. Oh joy. Some of my elder brother and sisters had moved out by then but my grandad had then come to live with us. At one point in time there were 13 living in a 3 bed roomed house. But we never knew any different. We never went hungry and my mum worked so hard to give us as much as she could.
My dad on the other hand was a cruel man who I was always petrified of as were we all. How a kind lovely lady ended up with a hard nasty man I have never understood.
Holidays.... I never knew what a holiday was until I married in 1968. We went to see my husbands family in Wales. I did however go to stay with my aunt for a week when I was 10. She lived in Basildon when it was a new town. I remember being scared it was so huge.
Sorry off track. But thanks all for the memories.
As for a clean pair of pyjamas every night how can 3 children under 7 dictate what they want. Sorry don't mean to be rude. Each to their own.
Now back to reading this lovely thread.

dronid

Catcherupper14 wrote: »

Another thing I recall from the 60's? is how much people made of Christmas.

Christmas was made a lot of till around the 21st Century. People found the shops shut for a week+ in some cases so as well as being a celebration you'd need to make the stuff last throughout the period. Even now you still get people stocking up for what is now just a day closed for the shops. I end up really overdoing it and, worse still, find that I can't stomach the full 3 course Christmas dinner and all that other excess. I remember my family really digging into it but now it just finishes me off. This year I'm going to have to have to make a more delicate meal so that the other things can be enjoyed. Mind you to give you some perspective we were supposed to be three of us for Christmas dinner last year and ended up with nine of us. And it still didn't make a dent.

I remember in the 70's there being the 3 course meal, of course served a good while after the contents of the stockings with chocolate coins and a few nuts and a satsuma (my mother still put them in despite me not liking nuts or oranges because it was traditional - I'd've been happy with an apple. Likewise the Christmas pudding despite the fact that none of us really liked it much but had it through tradition). Then there were biscuits and cheese, and After Eights. Then later if anyone wanted any there was a fresh trifle (and one with jelly for the children) nuts, chocolate gingers, chocolate Brazil nuts. I'm still astonished we lived through it. And then 2 further days of cold meats and bubble and squeak and then Turkey Curry. I still try to keep to a similar schedule though I'm not sure why - habit and good memories I suppose.

I should probably turn off the heating to share the full experience.:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: