Genealogy Chat

mo...

Today I visited a local history display in the area my Dad was born. The most interesting part of the day was chatting to a 93 year old Lady who remembered my Dad & Grandmother. 'Oh poor Lily (Grandma) she said, always running round that yard with a jug & all those mouths to feed. We were all poor but always helped each other'. This made me think of a few tales my Dad did share with us ; Dad & his brother had to share a pair of boots so would go to school on alternate days . All eleven children would have to wait until their father had eaten then they would divide up what was left. He wouldn't talk to much about it as he said there was nothing to tell but hunger & hardship but fun & community spirit was there. This has got me thinking as today poverty seems to be not having Sky tv ! Would love to hear anybody elses tales of poverty

My mum used to tell me a story about her family. She was one of 7 and they were on the poverty line. She would often have to take something to the pawn shop to get money for food. She used to wear cardboard on the inside of her shoes when they got holes in them. My grandad used to use the soot from the fireplace to draw lines on my aunty's legs to suggest she was wearing stockings! The best story had to be the one where my Nana had spent most of the day making a stew for the family. The baby at the time, my Uncle Alf, threw the dirty floorcloth into the stew. She had nothing else to feed the family, so took the cloth out and served it up to them, only telling them the story of the floorcloth at a later date.

When my grandmother was a child she lived with her aunts, they were as poor as the proverbial church mice. One day, not having any food in the house, and no money to buy any, the aunts suggested checking all the coat pockets and down the back of the chairs for stray cash. Luckily this trawl led to a few pence being discovered, so they managed to buy bread & jam for supper. Whilst this is not a particularly exciting story it really brings it home to me the real poverty of not knowing where your next meal was coming from, and that finding a few lost pence meant the difference between eating & starving. Thank Goodness that few people in this country have that worry anymore, makes you grateful to be living now and not then!!!

Mandy- loved the floorcloth story by the way!! It must have added a 'special' flavour!!!

It must have been the way my mum told them! I'm sure she dressed the stories up much more (or should that be less?) than they really were! She also told a story about sanitary wear...but perhaps here's not the place for that one!

Ooooh! We don't have Sky TV!! Can I get a handout from somewhere........???? Merry

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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

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.

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!

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

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

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.!!

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