Born just before the war

krisskross

hellies wrote: »

I don't usually like to get involed in such discussions but m afraid that today I have to! I recently had a conversation with my grandmother (who is now 85) and she told me about the poor quality of life her and my grandad had when raising children. Ok so they didn't have debt, but they also had to scrimp and save on everything they did, including heating their house and food shopping, and my grandad apparently earned a better than average wage! children died because homes were not heated properly, people went hungry and life revolved around 'keeping house'. She is always amazed at how much quality time (outings, holidays etc) her grandchildren get to spend with their children and no, i dont have lots of debt and i work full time. I know what life I would rather lead.

I would be about the same age as a child of your grandmother. I know there wasn't much money in our house but none of the 5 of us children died from the cold. We had housebricks heated in the oven and wrapped in cloth in our beds. We walked 2 miles to school, but always had our porridge before we went, and a cooked meal in the evenings. We went to the seaside for a week in a boarding house every year. Perhaps when your grandmother was herself a child things weren't too good but by the time I was in double figures we had the health service, immunisations etc. No doubt my parents had to budget carefully but I remember my mother, who would be nearly 90, telling me that things improved, better housing etc after the end of the war. The 'scrimping and saving' was actually living within their means, there was little choice but to do so.