Vent - My Mother (and her generation?)

margaretclare

Oh dear, shall I jump into this discussion again, or not bother.

I was born in 1935. I was an illegitimate child who was brought up in my grandparents' family by them and my aunt, a polio survivor, and my mum, who went out to work cleaning other women's houses. I escaped being put into an orphanage because they loved me and wanted me, but I nearly didn't escape it in 1943 when conscription for single women was introduced and, of course, my mum was a 'single woman', wasn't she? How they managed to wriggle out of that one I don't know, but they did. I went on to grammar school, stayed on to 16 to do 'O' levels, now GCSEs. Even staying on that year was a struggle for my mum and aunt - grandparents had died by then. To this day I don't know what we lived on and how I was never conscious of being poor, what sacrifices they made.

One of the saddest things about growing old is remembering the people in those early days who gave you a helping hand, who did things for you out of love, who sacrificed and made do. You can't talk to them, ask them, go down on your bended knees and thank them. You just want to.

If anyone wants to know whether things are better now than in previous decades, think of the lifestyle we have that they didn't have. I sit here in the warm and, if it's cold, I turn the heating up another degree. I don't have to struggle across the yard in the snow to fetch a bucket of coal or chop some kindling to keep the fire going. I don't have to do a week's washing in the wash-house, first lighting the fire under the copper with a shovelful of burning embers from the house fire. I just set the washing machine to work, walk away and leave it.

Someone mentioned the 'poo lorry'. Yes, that too. There was a bucket in an outhouse. While my grandad was alive and reasonably active, he used to dig a hole in the garden - excellent fertiliser for his vegetables! I think the poo lorry only started once hostilities had ceased, in 1945. A lot of things started to improve after then. School services like school library, school dentist, school eye tests.

Just one example of how things are better now. My aunt had polio in 1926, when there was an epidemic. She never walked from age 21. Most of the rest of her life she sat on the floor and was endlessly busy from there. She crawled on hands and knees. My job was running to and fro, fetching what she needed. I helped my mum empty the potties under the beds. Because we didn't wee in the bucket that the poo lorry emptied - it would have got filled up too quickly. There was a drain in the middle of the yard and the potties got emptied there. I think my grandad used to wee there.

We are living longer because we've lived in better conditions for the last few decades. Even the poorest have a lifestyle that our forebears couldn't have dreamed of. Whenever I go to the GP I think they want me to live forever. They never say 'oh maybe we can't treat this any longer'. I'm in trouble with the GP if I don't go for my annual blood test, regular blood pressure check, keep an eye on my weight, you name it. DH gets the very best treatment for his Type 2 diabetes and he has survived with it since 1981. His mother went blind long before her death, with the same condition.

Can you imagine that nowadays?

missbiggles1

Another part of the bigger picture is lending practices.

In the early 70s it was common for a single female to need a male guarantor for a mortgage (no use if nobody in your family was a home owner) and for the woman's income not to be taken into account if buying as a couple.

Also we could probably have bought a small terrace for less than the £5/10k 1 bed flat I mentioned but we were told that they didn't lend on older properties to FTBs. Even when that rule was relaxed, lenders retained part of the loan if they considered work needed doing, not only structural work (which was understandable) but also if they thought that the kitchen or bathroom needed modernising.

The only friends I knew who owned property in their twenties were those who'd married someone in a professional job - it didn't become possible for most of us until rules were relaxed in the 80s.

(I appreciate that my experience is that of the south east but that's where I lived through most of my 20s.)

missbiggles1

Redlady..... wrote: »

No-one I knew had a mortgage in the 60's, and most families lived off the fathers wage for the most part.

Was that in social housing and in skilled jobs?

mumps

Redlady..... wrote: »

No-one I knew had a mortgage in the 60's, and most families lived off the fathers wage for the most part.

We bought our first house in the 70s but all my aunts and uncles had mortgages in the 60s. The aunts all worked so maybe that was why they could get a mortgage? None of them had been to university or had professional jobs but both had to work.

mumps

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Another part of the bigger picture is lending practices.

In the early 70s it was common for a single female to need a male guarantor for a mortgage (no use if nobody in your family was a home owner) and for the woman's income not to be taken into account if buying as a couple.

Also we could probably have bought a small terrace for less than the £5/10k 1 bed flat I mentioned but we were told that they didn't lend on older properties to FTBs. Even when that rule was relaxed, lenders retained part of the loan if they considered work needed doing, not only structural work (which was understandable) but also if they thought that the kitchen or bathroom needed modernising.

The only friends I knew who owned property in their twenties were those who'd married someone in a professional job - it didn't become possible for most of us until rules were relaxed in the 80s.

(I appreciate that my experience is that of the south east but that's where I lived through most of my 20s.)

We struggled in the 70s as we didn't earn enough for a new build but needed a bigger deposit for our old 2 up 2 down. Our building society didn't retain any money but we had to agree to do certain things, rewire, new windows, treat damp etc and the building society manager arrived to inspect the work, I think we had been in the house between 6 and 9 months. He approved of what we had done but I don't know what he would have done if the work wasn't complete. We were lucky as a friend who was an electrician did the work and we just paid for materials and another friend was a carpenter and repaired/replaced all the windows, not double glazed though.

NewShadow

missbiggles1 wrote: »

But who votes in the politicians and their policies?

Not my generation

Thank you to everyone for your remarkable interest in my fit of pique.

I do love my mother. I will miss her when she's gone (assuming she doesn't out live me).

In some ways we are very alike, and in others completely different.

(*Yorkshire violins*)

The fact is, I didn't get sent to an academy then grammar school; I didn't have my uni accommodation and food paid for; I didn't have my driving lessons paid for; I wasn't bought a car, I wasn't bought a house; I didn't have jobs 'found' for me when I was struggling to find work; I didn't inherit anything from my grand parents; and I'm not going to inherit anything from my parents.

She was well off - as the only child of an accountant, and was fortunate to have financially secure and generous parents that chose to pay the majority of her bills until she married. I understand this is not representative of everyone's experiences.

My mother, quite simply, did have it easier than me. My grandparents worked their socks off, never took holidays, and bent over backwards to make sure my mum had a much better quality of life than they had.

Truthfully this thread has made me realise how lucky she was, but how dependent/selfish it made her - I did for myself - no one to blame but myself if I screwed it up. No one to bail me out or make it all go away.

I can't say if it's easier or tougher now, but I'm fairly confident I could manage and make do wherever I might get plonked down. Take my mum's friends and family away - not so sure...

Primrose

Well each generation has its own difficulties to live with. I was born during the war. When I started work women were not allowed to contribute to a pension scheme and when I got married, i had to get my husband's written permission for Inland Revenue to send the tax rebate I was entitled to on marriage made out to me in a cheque in my name rather than his!

And don't let's mention the freezing houses without central heating and mortgage interest rates which hovered around the 15% mark!

margaretclare

Primrose wrote: »

Well each generation has its own difficulties to live with. I was born during the war. When I started work women were not allowed to contribute to a pension scheme and when I got married, i had to get my husband's written permission for Inland Revenue to send the tax rebate I was entitled to on marriage made out to me in a cheque in my name rather than his!

And don't let's mention the freezing houses without central heating and mortgage interest rates which hovered around the 15% mark!

Yes, when I bought this bungalow in 1990 the mortgage rate was 15%.

Tax affairs written to husband rather than to earning wife. That was one of the major battles I was involved in during the 60s/70s/80s. I had a tiny part to play in the change to independent personal taxation, which came in following an election in 1989/90. I actually spoke to the former Chancellor on BBC Election Call and he agreed with me.

Apparently the reason for treating a working woman's tax affairs as her husband's, went back to the Married Women's Property Acts of the 1880s. Those acts dealt solely with inherited wealth or property, to get over some of the abuses then - once the ring was on the finger a woman owned nothing, any inherited money or property immediately passed to her husband. But at the time of that legislation it was never envisaged that a woman would have her own career and earn taxable income in the same way as a man. Of course women worked - they always have. But their earnings weren't taken into account because they were too small. Once we were in careers like teaching, nursing, office work etc and were allowed to continue after marriage, it became an issue which was dealt with at the time of more 'equal opportunities' in the 70s/80s.

Person_one

margaretclare wrote: »

I was born in 1935.

Then you aren't part of the 'baby boomer' generation that is generally the one considered/argued/claimed to have been luckier than their both their parents' and their children' generations.

I don't absolutely agree with that, as I've said before I think some things were better and some things are better now, but there is an idea that with the introduction of the NHS, the welfare state, building of social housing, improvements in women' rights etc etc. that those born from 1945-1960 were living in a bit of a 'golden age' that we'll never see again. Its not about it being perfect or not, its about it being a time of fundamental social changes and great leaps forward in standards of living.

Person_one

Primrose wrote: »

And don't let's mention the freezing houses without central heating

I have to say, the focus on central heating here surprises me. Its not that uncommon to find older houses these days still without central heating, I looked at a few when I was house hunting recently, and most modern purpose built flats still don't have it and just have electric heaters.