Keep warm in the winter by wearing five or six layers of clothes indoors

Sicard

deano2099 said:

Sicard said:

I grew up in a house with no central heating. On cold evenings we'd have a coke fire, sometimes toasting crumpets. When we went to bed there was a parafin heater on the landing. None of the six of us perished. I think people were built a lot hardier then.

Statistically, more of them died, especially the older ones, which would suggest they weren't built as hardy...

Well, my family certainly was and extended family and friends.

BTW where did you get the stats for this and did they take into account other factors like illnesses, age etc, or was it only due to cold? This is the 50s we're talking about and in those days even people's diets weren't as good as modern times.

I recall when Edwina Curry was a  Junior Health Minister saying: "Old people who can’t afford their heating bills should “wear woolly hats”. Boom, boom.

Apodemus

Sicard said:

deano2099 said:

Sicard said:

I grew up in a house with no central heating. On cold evenings we'd have a coke fire, sometimes toasting crumpets. When we went to bed there was a parafin heater on the landing. None of the six of us perished. I think people were built a lot hardier then.

Statistically, more of them died, especially the older ones, which would suggest they weren't built as hardy...

This is the 50s we're talking about and in those days even people's diets weren't as good as modern times.

Sadly, I'm not sure that is true.

Mistral001

Apodemus said:

Sicard said:

deano2099 said:

Sicard said:

I grew up in a house with no central heating. On cold evenings we'd have a coke fire, sometimes toasting crumpets. When we went to bed there was a parafin heater on the landing. None of the six of us perished. I think people were built a lot hardier then.

Statistically, more of them died, especially the older ones, which would suggest they weren't built as hardy...

This is the 50s we're talking about and in those days even people's diets weren't as good as modern times.

Sadly, I'm not sure that is true.

I agree.  I grew up in the 50's and 60's and the diet was very much better than today in my experience.  Practically no processed food was available except maybe bacon and tins of corned beef.  Many people grew vegetables in their gardens as a hangover to the war effort.  A lot of people kept hens for their eggs as well.  School meals were meat and two veg and a pudding with no chips or any other deep fried food.  Kids did not drink fizzy drinks with their meals as those were regarded as an expensive treat.  It was either water or milk. 

PS.  There was poverty and many people had less food, but I lived through the times when free school meals were introduced and that helped a lot.  But the diet regarding the type of foods available was much better than today.  

Bigphil1474

I'm a child of the 70s, and I don't like having the heating on unnecessarily - we wear suitable clothes in the winter and snuggle under a blanket on an evening to watch tv or whatever when we can. However, if i start seeing ice inside my windows, or see my breath coming out of my mouth, then it's certainly too cold for not having the heating on. It's alright telling people to wear loads of layers but that will only suit some, probably not most families with kids, the elderly, people with some illnesses, or people who work at home, or can't get up and move around. 

The 70's were no great shakes IMO, and I hated the cold in the winter with no CH - especially on a morning when you had to get dressed quick, run downstairs and turn the gas fire on to try and get some heat on. Having a reasonably comfortable home to live in is a sign of improving standards of living since last century, not people going soft. I agree people moaning it's cold while flouncing around in a t-shirt is daft, but only equally as daft as suggesting wearing 6 layers to get you through the day. Presumably you don't wash your 6 layers very often otherwise you might lose some of the savings from not having the heating on. It's the 21st Century and we should expect to be able to live to a reasonable affordable standard where heating is used based on need and not on cost (IMO).

B0bbyEwing

Bigphil1474 said:

 Presumably you don't wash your 6 layers very often 

How dirty would 4 of the layers really be?

bris

We're not living in the 70's anymore, its a sad state of affairs when we can no longer afford to heat our homes.

The Government need to take back what Thatcher sold off so we don't have to worry about shareholders making fat profits on our misery.
 

onomatopoeia99

B0bbyEwing said:

Sicard said:

I grew up in a house with no central heating. On cold evenings we'd have a coke fire, sometimes toasting crumpets. When we went to bed there was a parafin heater on the landing. None of the six of us perished. I think people were built a lot hardier then.

Agreed. Softly softly approach just makes for softy softy people.

Not as old or as young as some of you but I'm approaching 40 so I am what I am. Grew up in a single glazed house by water. 
Calor gas fire in the morning IF we could afford & then it was only a quick blast. 
Ice thick as you like on the inside of the windows.

You just sort of accepted it for what it was (flipping cold) and did the best you could do & that was that. You may or may have not been comfortable but you were what you were & if you'd done your best to keep warm then that's as good as it was going to get, the end.

The 16-25 ish year olds I work with are incredible. 12c outside and it's "freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeezing".

Did wonder about the OPs mention of 15c. If that's cold it makes me wonder what some people set theirs at. I think I'm going a bit high when I set mine to 18. 15 is fine.

Though I do wonder about not putting the heating on at all. Is that so good for the CH system long term?

Bet you had to walk to school each day, 20 miles, uphill both ways too and get up so early it was before you went to bed.

RobM99

Aye, Obidiah. And to think 14 of us lived in t' shed. Well I say 'shed', t'ad no roof or walls....

elsien

Before or after you had to go up the chimneys/down the mines? 

greensalad

I'm in my early 30s, so the 70s are obviously not within my memory (and my Mum was only a young teen then), even so we only had single glazing growing up and I remember several winters where the boiler broke and we had to light the old fireplace instead and all huddle around it. But I don't get why people somehow think suffering 50 years ago means we should suffer now? Don't you want things to have progressed? I'm sure the Victorians would've said the same about people in the 70s, how lucky they are! Yes, people wandering around in t-shirts and shorts are being silly but even in our old Victorian house I used to resist putting the heating on as late as possible. Problem isn't the warmth of your main body it's the extremities. I work from home and found my face (particularly nose) and my fingers would hurt and go blue if cold. You can't type in wooly gloves. Also my grandma used to lament about how bad her chilblains were when growing up in the Brixton slums as a child in the 40s... I wouldn't imagine her sitting around now saying we shouldn't grumble cos she had it worse. It's been 80 years since then... I'm sure she'd want it to be better for us now.