General Chat

Long ago, when I was young, adults had a job. They got to their place of work on a tram or a trolley bus.You'd to go upstairs if you wanted to smoke. At the end of the week people were paid in cash. This cash they gave to their wives to pay the rent buy the food, buy clothing, pay the insurance and so much more. Few people owned a car. Holidays were wishful thinking. Maybe a week end at the sea side.
Now, several years later, seems everyone has a car, mabe two. Yet so many appear to be unemployed. Many are on benefits that can only be funded by taxes. What happened ?

Entitlement happened!

Public services were slowly reduced. Bus services cut, fares increased, the same with trains.
People had to get cars to go to work.
Now, many jobs expect a person to work in multiple offices, a car is needed.
Don't forget, nowadays, many people live on credit - something the wasn't possible years ago.

The past cannot be reversed.

oh the good times then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlMjSESoz9A

Oh to go back to those days! Rickets, polio, corporal and capital punishment, rationing.... anyone want to add to this list?

School milk, Janet and John books :-| :-| :-| :-| :-| just to start with :-D

Diphtheria, nits, worm cake

Still get nits, David :-(

..and most young people have a job!

The black death.

An American dollar (inside a colourful Christmas Card) was worth 7s & 6d.

Pick n shovel work

The binmen collecting your bin from where you kept it and carrying it on their backs and then returning it to the same spot.

Walking to school whatever the weather and mum and dad cycling to their jobs as the bus service didn't go to any.

Jumpers hand knitted from wool from unpicked rummage sale finds and a skirt made from one of mum's old ones.

No TV before age 7 and then it was so tiny.

Those horrid black bath chairs.

No street lights.......oops that's come back so the past has slightly reversed Dermot. :-)

The coal lorry coming, and the coalman carrying the coal from the lorry to the bunker.
Didn't they wear some sort of leather back protection?

Coal bunkers!!

Public phone boxes - we were lucky to have one two miles away.

The mysterious operator did all the dialling & we made sure we had a pocket-full of small change.

'Twas cheaper to make the call after 6pm & God help anyone if they extended their allotted time. The mass queue waiting outside in the rain made their intentions clear by banging on the door or gesticulating rude signs.

Smashing times! ;-)

Milkman with horse and cart with measures.Gill Half pint and pint .

How fresh and creamy was the milk .

Rubber buttons...who thought that one up :-)

We had a phone in the house - both parents jobs required it (NHS, police).
I used to like the London dialing codes such BARnet nnnn. My GGF had one of the first biz phone lines in Essex and the number (at least the last 2 digits) is still serving the same business after just short of 100 years.

My mother always had a housekeeper who did most of the chores but mum liked to cook whenever she could. Great lemon meringue pie made from a US boyfrend mum's recipe. Sunday Roast and the Navy Lark.

RT buses with a platform at the back with a bit of luck you could jump on and off without paying. Conductors with Ultimate ticket machines whirring and pinging.

Playing in the street.
Fierce barbers.
Aunts and uncles and cousins not far away on the tube. Nobody gave a thought to safety London was a safe city unless you wanted to be involved in crime and even they had their rules.

Petticoat Lane market on Sundays all the capital's Fagins in one spot.
Pies, peas pudding, jellied eels.

My earliest car memory is of a venerable pre war Singer. It was replaced by an Austin Somerset which was very fond of going to Cornwall :-) once or twice a year. It was strange seeing my old man for several days at a stretch. We just got used to each other and then it was back to the smoke. When I was a bit older he and his cousin taught me how to play brag and poker and all sorts of stuff only Londoners know. My GGF bought a new bullnose Morris in 1921.

London was always very foggy in the winter. The chimney smoke rasped your throat. 1962 though was really bad and led to the Clean Air Act. At least then you could see the stuff that was killing you now you can't.

My mother was very expert in making clothes. She used to like to get the latest patterns and make them up with upmarket fabrics saving a fortune. She did the same for my sisters. I thought it v unfair as my father was v mean and I had no end of trouble getting stuff such as jeans. Good old Singer with a power pedal. I still have it.

We were not rich. Neither were we poor. Millions of families were the same.

Clean Air Act 1956

https://www.google.com/search?q=london+smog+1962&client=firefox-b&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi_8qbiifLbAhXFcsAKHRAoBaEQsAQIYw&biw=1280&bih=818

Apparently there was a Great Smog in 1952 as well but I have no memory of it.

Mum and dad's first phone number was Narborough 3269, which was one digit different from that of the local Mental Asylum as they were called then. (now demolished and gone) We used to get misdialled calls for them in the middle of the night.

Women would go out shopping with their hair curlers peeping out of their headscarves at the front and babies' prams had lovely tassell fringed canopies on sunny days.