Genealogy Chat

I read A RAGGED SCHOOLING by Robert Roberts this weekend, about a lad who grew up in Salford Manchester during the early 1900's. Although his family were considered poor he didn't go without anywhere near as much as some of your (and my) family members did, and it still brought me to tears. A good read though. I am looking for the book by Maud Pember Reeves titled ROUND ABOUT A POUND A WEEK, has anyone read it? I don't seem able to get it through Amazon or the publisher at the moment. It sounds as if it would give a very clear image of what it was like to try to feed and clothe a large family on very little money.

Thanks Ang, will check it out in Sept. I know what you mean about the Heritage weekend - wish it was longer. Last year I only went to St Augustines Church, but this year have a whole list of churches I want to visit plus many other of the venues. Will have to start planning my route, and tell the family I am not available that weekend. Frances

Hi Frances, Yes that was at the St Augustines Heritage day. They are repeating it during the heritage week at the beginning of September. If you are anything like me then I just don't know what to look at that week, so many great historical buildings to see !

Hi Ang, Was that the display at St. Augustines? I really wanted to go there but had family committments so couldn`t make it. It sounds like it was really interesting, can you tell me more? Frances

It's a different world isn't it? My Mum (b.1923) grew up in Southampton and didn't see her Dad until she was about 3 as he was a merchant seaman. They were poor, but Mum says she never remembers 'going hungry', though they were all lean as whippets in photos. Nan took in washing and Mum used to earn some pennies by taking a huge tray of tea to the lorry drivers from the depot over the road in her school lunch hour. Winkles, dabs and sprats were common fare, as was bread and dripping - Nan was a fab cook who could make most things taste good!

I too remember being sent to the chemist with a note and returning with a brown paper bag :) and that was in the mid 60s. I also remember playing a 'game' with mum. It involved hiding behind the sofa and being very quiet when there was a knock on the door.....Strange how we only seemed to play it on a friday,..... Rent day :)))))) Chris

I am going to make my children read this! Although I am only 44 we had a tough start to life. All four kids in one bedroom, the boys were privilaged with a bed each me & my sister had to top & tail. Outside loo, Tin bath in front of the fire on Sunday evening. Half the panes of glass missing from the windows.I don't remember a larder or store cupboard, you bought the food for that day. I was often sent to the shop with a note, put on tick until Friday. My mother actually got a part time job, which was real 'girl power' in the sixties, none of my friends Mums went to work. I'm sure that was a vast improvement on the generations before. I suppose our kids will be telling there grandchildren how they never had sky TV , only one car for the whole family etc etc

if I may so so very sensible Mavis much more enjoyment to be had from certs than Sky

The black lines up the legs for stockings was done a lot during the war, due to the shortage of them. Don't forget the welfare state giving 'sick pay' didn't come in several years until after the war. My Dad came back from the war with TB and I remember having dinner which was steamed suet pudding with gravy for the first course and with jam for afters. Have been reseacrhing my father-in-law's family tree here is an extract: In 1849 four of the children died; Alice (11yrs); Elizabeth (8yrs); & William (5yrs), were buried on 24th August 1849 and Samuel (18 mths) was buried on the 29th August. The cause of death is not stated in the parish register, but according to Mr Bert Starkey, who has written a very recent history of Runcorn: In this period diphtheria and smallpox were regular epidemics in this area. There were no sewers and no running water and the toilets were just open-air ash filled holes in the ground. Mortality rates among children were very high. especially in the summer months. St Johns Street and Penketh Street were both in this poorer area of town although even the better areas were not much better!. There will be no records because there was no medical officer of health at that time and the local newspaper did not start publishing until 1853. Mavis PS Sky!!!!! Am trading in my TV licence for more money to buy certs.!!

Me too, me too !!! - I did that! Weren't things strange, and it's not so long ago ! Dea x

Oh dear, the mention of the unmentionables makes me recall when mum used to send me and my sisters to the corner shop with a folded scrap of paper, with strict instructions not to read it but to give it the the shopkeeper. When he read it, he used to go into the back of the shop and come out with a brown paper parcel with again strict instructions not to open it but to hand it to mum. This was only in the early 1960's, how times have changed I still call them 'piece of paper over the counter' Ellen

It just goes to show...never work with children, animals...or family! What a really sad story. I think if my sister had been so mean when she could obviously afford it, then I'd have stopped talking to her too. It's the principal!

my Nan had at least 13 children probably 15 the other two I have not found yet. they did not have Shoes to wear and very poor clothing ,and the boys had to go early in the morning about 4am to The Fish Market to get Fish Heads so they could stew them up for Tea, the boys were often so tired they fell asleep in class.And years later all had some kind of mental problem like depression , including my Dad who was so spiteful you would not believe.Probably due to a bad diet and living conditions.I dont think you ever get over a start like that.

My grandparents didn't have two ha'pennies to rub together, but gran's sister married 'rich' (richer anyway. While gran, grandad and 6 kids were crammed into a tiny terraced house, her sister lived in a 5-bedroom detached house a mile away). Anyway, in the 1950's, gran used to char for her sister (couldn't afford to be proud!) She'd clean the whole house twice a week for sixpence a time! When illness meant she and grandad couldn't work, she sent one of the kids round to her sisters to ask if she could spare some food as they had none, and no money with which to buy any. Apparently, gran's sister gave the kids 3 potatoes and half a loaf of bread and said she'd dock it out of gran's wages when she was back at work!!! Needless to say, gran never went back to work there and she and her sister had no further contact for the rest of their lives. Bev x

Well Dea, my mum was born in 1938 in Leeds. If she were alive then now she'd be 68, so that sort of thing must have been going on for a while! She always used to tell me about the size of the safety pins she used to attach the unmentionable to her vest with!

Mandy, I hadn't realised I must have been poor when I was growing up - how strange !!! - I used to have cardboard in my shoes, and draw the lines on my mum's legs - AND I remember what we had to use as our unmentionables'!! I am only 55 - Makes you think doesn't it ? Dea x

That's a poverty story and very sad though Carole:( It just shows that there were different degrees of poverty, even on the poverty line...if you understand me!

I can't add any stories (I should be grateful for that) but I was quite shocked when I received the death certificates for a couple of my 3xgreat-grandparents this week - they both were both in the workhouse when they died. Carole

Mandy know what you mean they used to wash them !!!

My mother was born into dire poverty in 1926 - Aberdeen. She was the oldest of 8 children and rarely went to school - her mother took in washing and my mum was required to help with this and to look after her younger brothers. My Grandfather was drunk, rarely worked and when he did he drank it. They lived only a few hundred yards from the beach and it was an almost daily chore to go to the beach and collect a bucket of winkles for their meal. One of the boys worked for a greengrocer in the market and brought home a bag of mouldy veg on a Saturday - he used to get a clout if there was too much fruit, because you couldnt put fruit in a stew! Often the only food in the day was a pile of potatoes boiled in their skins and dumped in the midle of the table on a newspaper - no plates. My mother was so severely malnourished that she developed severe rickets. An unknown benefactor (oh, who, who? I would give my eye teeth to know) paid for my mother to have an operation to have her bandy legs straightened and she spent a year in some sort of convalescent home, being fed bread soaked in black treacle and milk. All this poverty had a lifelong effect on my Mum - she couldn't throw a scrap of food away, no matter how mouldy it was, and she became very fat in later life because of this - no-one else would eat it! My Grandmother said the best years of her life were during WW2 - GF was called up and Granny got a half-pay note - the first regular income she had had in her life. OC