Really interesting documentary on YouTube oldstyles might like

Jackieboy

suki1964 wrote: »

It's a shame Florence that you suffered that less then a generation ago. In the 70's I walked the 3 mile to school and back, one winter in just sandals and a cardigan cos we didn't have the money for school shoes and my coat was stolen in school

Do watch the link.

It's very telling

Nothing has changed really in the 40 years that has passed

I don't really think that's true - benefits are considerably more generous these days.

suki1964

Jackieboy wrote: »

I don't really think that's true - benefits are considerably more generous these days.

Perhaps

What I was alluding to were that those living below the poverty line back then still had to justify having a TV and those that were struggling thought the ones claiming assistance were better of then themselves having to work a 50 hour week to make ends meet

Siebrie

I grew up with all the mod cons, thank goodness, but my auntie lived on a farm where they still had a bucket under a shelf for a loo.
The neighbours I have now, in this village, still have an outside loo! Attached to the house, but you have to leave the house through the kitchen and walk across to the other side of the terrace. The door is only half-height, so you can see feet and head when the person is standing. (I can't see it, but the people inside the neighbours' house can...).

When we were househunting in the Brussels suburbs (only 6 years ago....), most houses we could afford had an outside loo, no bathroom, no kitchen. Very spacious rooms, but no kitchen. Some had put a gas range and freestanding sink in one of the downstairs rooms, a few had a freestanding shower unit.

Doveling

Everything is relative to the current society in which we live.

Shelters new acceptable living standards report is now out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37655908

Everything changes but everything stays the same

[Deleted User]

It would be a facinating film to see how the families concerned have progressed since the film was made. Catherine, the housewife was 20 then and so she would now be 66 now and a pensioner, hopefully she is a darned sight better off today, even on a pension, than back then when she was struggling to make ends meet. She seemed to accept that what she had was all she was going to achieve.

culpepper

VfM4meplse wrote: »

I can't imagine venturing outside / weeing in a bucket in the middle of the night

.

I expect most people did what we did and had a chamber pot under every bed for night time use.

When we married in the mid 80's, we lived in one of a row of possibly farm workers cottages and all had their outdoor Loos in the front garden (it was at right angles to the road rather than alongside it).
Our neighbour still had no indoor facilities and was sometimes met first thing visiting the privy with her Night Soil bucket covered in a cloth .

Slowly57

maryb wrote: »

When I was 10 we moved into an Edwardian house which had had all its garden sold for development. Old houses were quite cheap then.

It had a bathroom indoors, but it also had an outside loo - for the gardener originally! Handy for us when we were playing outside

I think many folks thought having an indoor lav was a bit unhygienic so didn't have one - our first house had a bathroom but the lav was out in the yard. Our new old house has a bathroom and indoorlav - but it is in a little room on its own - not in the bathroom.

suki1964

I just had to come back and mention this

My great aunt Pat who taught me a thing or two about being thrifty lived in the royal borough of Kingston upon Thames

She had a 2 up 2 down, stairs behind a door to the first floor. A scullery with a cold tap, bath under the worktop and outside loo

Mum had an ascot installed in the kitchen so there was at least some hot water in the house

Pat died in 1994 and her house was sold for near on half a million. She left it to a war veterans charity

Many a happy day I spent there in the 70's

Fruball

Fascinating read. Thanks to all who've posted.

CapricornLass

My sister (born in 1962) used to go and play with a farmer's daughter, where the main living room was a beaten earth floor.... - so probably about the late sixties.

My husband's aunt lived in a 2 up and 2 down with a scullery for the kitchen, and an outside loo. They used to come up and use the bath in his parents' council flat once a week. Said flat had no central heating, and my husband's bedroom was so cold that in the winter his mother would use it as a fridge.

Don't think we know that we are born sometimes!