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MikeJXE

I was born 1940 but don't remember the war, we had nothing compared to today, no money,  no heating no toilet, tin bath to share, today my grandkids have everything but what they don't have is as much fresh air as we had. If I could be the same age as them I would go back to my days in a heartbeat. 

Rosa_Damascena

MikeJXE said:

I was born 1940 but don't remember the war, we had nothing compared to today, no money,  no heating no toilet, tin bath to share, today my grandkids have everything but what they don't have is as much fresh air as we had. If I could be the same age as them I would go back to my days in a heartbeat. 

You don't enjoy any modern comforts?

diystarter7

We played on the road, it was a side raod and we had the leisure grounds of a back factory about hlaf a mile up the road. the facilities opposite our house were tennis courts, one a clay one, bowling greens, crick, footy and their club - we used to wander in a hole we made i the fence to play on the pitch and tennis. The firm really looked after their workers and they had one of their car parks accesed via our road and on the street on the other side of the road and all were, appeared to be indigenous people - I applied for a job when i was 17 as did a mate of mine, we just knew we would not get the job and we did not -- things have changed and the company has gone under i think it was up north.
I still miss that 5 bed det house mum and dad owned

wondercollie

I didn't really know my grandparents after we emigrated.   

The maternal side were both dead by the time I was three and have absolutely no memory of them.

I do remember my Dad's side.   Lived in tenements near the the harbour of my hometown.  So no great gardening stories.  Granda was a fisherman on the trawlers until he found work with Corporation and lived ashore.   Granny, well, where do I start?  Morning job cleaning a Church of Scotland nursery school and then afternoons barmaiding in a pub near the harbour.  No shrinking violet of a woman.    I do remember that Granda did most of the cooking and looking after the flat because he was retired.   Did a lovely bit of silverside.  Granny seems to have always been knitting.  She never really retired, I don't think she had it in her to spend all day in a flat.

As a couple, they never came out to visit us, Granny came out once and made a point of telling us what great, kids our cousins were.  

Needless to say, she and my mother never got on.  Granny thought my Mum was "stuck up" and my Mum thought Granny played favourites (which she did) with her other grandchildren.

I always felt that my Granda loved me.  He remembered that Maltesers where my favourite sweetie when I was 7 and when I visited at the grand old age of 17, he head a huge box put aside for me.  He'd talk to me like an adult and did tell me a bit about his life before he married.

Always felt that they both had regrets on how their lives turned out.  He'd wanted to see the south Pacific, Fiji and Tahiti.  He was very different from Granny.   Looking back now, I'm pretty sure they "had" to get married.   That generation stuck it out and it really was for better or worse.

thriftwizard

@scarter, I'm 4-5 years older than you and born into an old house on Dartmoor, on the western edge. A big old Victorian rectory, which we couldn't afford to heat most of the time - the Rayburn kept the kitchen & scullery warm, and there was a stove in the living room that was lit on high days & holidays, & a paraffin heater in the bathroom. I can remember being fascinated by the ice "ferns" on the inside of my bedroom window, but I don't ever remember feeling cold. My "aunt"'s cob cottage down in the village had a thatched roof - I can remember the gentle hiss of the rain on the roof to this day - and the loo, complete with tin bath on a hook on the wall, was reached through an outdoor scullery - there was a blacklead range in the kitchen, but the sink was under a corrugated tin roof in the corner of the scullery, draining into a gully that the loo also drained into in the centre, then out into the cider orchard behind - probably with no further involvement with drains! Yet both were happy homes... We were surrounded by "carpet" sheep (Dartmoor Greyfaces) and dressed from head to toe in wool, which unfortunately makes my skin prickle horribly now! But probably kept us very warm. We also drank raw milk from my "uncle" (the churchwarden)'s farm, which was collected, along with that from other farms, from our driveway by the dairy lorry, as we were up on the main road - i.e. it didn't have grass down the centre! 

I know we were in many ways privileged - enough space for all the family to have their own room, the possibility of heating even if we couldn't afford to run it, a big garden so my Dad could grow veg - which he loved doing, as do I & my younger brother to this day - and keep chickens - as we do now - too. Not to mention the "two-holer" long-drop loo in the middle of the biggest, healthiest rhubarb & currant patch you can imagine... But big as the Rectory & its successors were, church houses were still "tied" accommodation, and when Dad died very young, Mum had just £11 in the bank and 6 weeks to get out, with two of us still quite young at 7 & 11, not having worked in the mainstream economy for 20 years. I don't know how she coped, but she did, with flair & panache despite many setbacks, and I just hope that some of that "can do" & "it will all work out for the best" attitude has come down through me to the next generation. 

I was talking to some customers today - I run a market stall of affordable, reclaimed craft supplies & tools, so that people can get started in, or continue, making stuff without having to fork out a fortune for supplies - and we were saying that although there have been many horrendous tales of life in the 70s, and there's much that really wasn't good to look back at for the less-fortunate (financially or otherwise) for those of us with a creative bent - with or without any actual talent! - it was pretty much a good time, when we often got together to do things & try new things out, usually for free. I remember making latch-hook rugs by candlelight, during power cuts, with friends & copious amounts of red wine, and trying out enamelling with a friend's little kiln. Stitching little hexagons together on long train journeys for my sister-in-law's quilt, and her teaching me to crochet as my mother despaired of ever getting me to knit properly. Evenings spent around campfires with guitars, harmonicas & recorders, & stars in our eyes... life with less money doesn't have to be about deprivation. Not being brilliant at something doesn't mean you can't have a go, and enjoy it, and at the end of the day it's practice that makes perfect, not talent. And you don't have to fork out a fortune & buy everything new, or go on expensive courses, to expand your range of things you can do, any more than than you have to buy all-new for your wardrobe.

Just hoping that the current crisis can also be, for some and in some ways, an opportunity...

MikeJXE

Rosa_Damascena said:

MikeJXE said:

I was born 1940 but don't remember the war, we had nothing compared to today, no money,  no heating no toilet, tin bath to share, today my grandkids have everything but what they don't have is as much fresh air as we had. If I could be the same age as them I would go back to my days in a heartbeat. 

You don't enjoy any modern comforts?

I don't see my grandkids happier than we were, the young ones can't even go out in the dark and it's not always safe for the older ones. Yes modern comforts are good but they come with a cost. 

turnitround

Been having a similar chat with an old friend just this afternoon and we were reminiscing about Christmas presents when we were young in the late 50s. My highlight was getting a paper 'dressing doll'. A cardboard cutout of a doll with paper dresses, bags, shoes etc  which had a paper tab you bent round the figure of the doll. Spent many happy hours changing the outfits on one of those. Imaging today's children doing that.

Loved Christmas when everyone, aunts, uncle and cousins all went to grandmas on Boxing Day and it was like Christmas Day all over again getting presents, but the real joy was seeing everyone together. As years go by and the older generation leave us families follow their own traditions and more people move away whereas I think families used to stay closer to each other. 

Those childhood days cant be re created. All the mod cons in the world can't replace the support of a close family.

sillyvixen

Ah grandparents, a great influence in my life both grandmother's baked, my maternal grandmother taught me make cakes, jam tarts and mince  pies, while my paternal grandmother taught me how to make bread and how to grow salad in pots. My maternal grandad would take us over the fields occasionally (they were quite rural) foraging for mushrooms and blackberries - but was a shift worker and was often working or sleeping when we visited as kids. My paternal grandfather, was retired but was a fine instrument maker by profession and as a child we would spend hours with his tools making things in his shed (he taught me to use a drill starting off with a hand drill and working my way up to a electric drill). Neither grandparents had central heating, in the winter we would have electric blankets and hot water bottles staying over at one house or materess in the front room, with sleeping bags in front of the fire in the other. We spent a lot of time staying over with my grandparents as my mum was a nurse and was often working nights and my dad did 24 hours on call every other week.

In the 70's when I was a child my paternal grandmother was making and knitting alot of my clothes, and using left over fabric and wool to make miniature versions for my doll as a Christmas present (I still have a box of many of those dolls clothes today - the me size versions were passed on to others). My paternal grandfather made me a toy oven out of a discarded piece of furniture someone was getting rid of. Dad's pay was cut due to 4 day week so reconditioned toys other children of his work mates had grown out of (he was also an electrical engineer so rigged up car batteries to give us light during power cuts - he has done the same now anticipating power cuts). On the other hand my maternal grandfather (who's company had invested heavily in generators to keep production ongoing was working lots of overtime to provide the grandchildren with commercial gifts. 

My grandparents were very different in social class (paternal were middle class where maternal were working class) but both did everything in there power to make Christmas work to the best of their ability - given the circumstances. And I respect them both and thank them for all I have learned from them.

bouicca21

Given all the younger generation stuff, I feel compelled to add that although I couldn’t know my grandparents personally I learned an awful lot about them.  Both my parents grew up in abject poverty - and in both their cases the level of poverty that would have been ‘normal’ for their class and background was made far worse because their own parents were feckless.  

It’s nice to hear about loving grandparents who possessed amazing life skills, but I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone in having grandparents who were useless with money, ignorant of family planning and sparing with their love for a brood of children that they really didn’t want. And I know plenty of younger people with families who are far from being entitled.

kittieviolet

I miss my welsh Nan everyday. A kind loving lady who taught me so much. Both my Nan and Grandad had come from wealthy families that had fallen on hard times in the generation above and lost everything through bad investments and drink so I was taught to be resourceful, practical and problem solve. When I got a University place in the 1990s they both cried their eyes out with my Mum and its still one of the happiest memories I have.
I respect their wisdom and love and miss them so much