General Chat

.... and yes, it's hard :-D

But reading about the huge increases in the cost of heating in the UK (though we don't seem to be afflicted that way, yet!), and inflation, with everything costing more and more ...................

.... made me think about growing up in the 40s and 50s, with parents who had been born in the first years of last century, so grew up during WW1, the mad 20s, the Depression, WW2, the little depression after that war was over, and the cold cold winters of the 50s and 60s. My parents seemed to still follow ways and means of stretching the money, even when they didn't have to.

What could we do today to learn from our childhood and teen years?

No central heating back then, warm clothes with sweaters over jumpers, hot fire burning your front while your back was freezing ............... but hot water bottle to hug as you ran up the stairs, got undressed as quickly as possible and into bed to find the bit warmed up by the hot bottle ....... rubber filled with hot water or metal filled with sand. Then curling up and breathing under the covers to help warm up.

Lots of blankets on the bed ..... sometimes heavy winter coats added.

Heavy curtains to help keep it as warm as possible inside. and windows were smaller then.

Frost designs on the windows, outside and inside. Get dressed as fast as possible.

Making do and stretching food to make it last longer, using cheaper cuts of meats, ground beef and stews, casseroles.

Sylvia, everything you wrote applies to us too, although my parents were born in the early-twentieth century.

We had a fawn-coloured stone hot water bottle - imagine a squat submarine shape with the stopper where the hatch was. Our bedroom had a small fireplace but it was only used when someone was in bed ill.

Mum was a good cook so, as you wrote, stews, casseroles and such. Fish and chips from the fish shop was a Saturday lunchtime treat and I was usually the one who went for them.

We used to have more salads than any of our friends but that, I think was due to the fact that Dad liked them and, like Mum’s Dad, was happy to come home from work to one whereas most of my friends’ Dads wanted a hot meal when they came from work.

One other thing I noticed was that my friends did not eat as a whole family during the week. The children were fed early and differently, when they came in from school and the adults ate later. I found that strange but it seemed to be the norm where we moved to. That never happened in ours - we always sat down together to the same meal as our parents.

Really happy memories but, sadly, not the same for everyone.

I can relate to a lot of those things in my childhood.
Both my parents were born before the 1st World War and came from working class families.
Dad's mother died when he was 4, leaving a family of 6 children,aged from 7 months to 11 years old. They were looked after by various 'aunties'( no relation) in the town, while my grandfather kept going to work in the Royal Dockyard to provide for them.

My mother was born and raised in a small Welsh village. She used to say that although times were hard, living in a rural community meant that they often shared resources and if someone had a good crop of certain vegetables, the neighbours benefitted too.
I remember nothing was wasted in our home, when it came to food.
We ate good plain food, as my parents believed good food was good medicine and keeping well was better than having to treat ailments.
Stews and casseroles were firm winter favourites. Mum would cut down on the meat quantity and put a milk pudding to cook at the same time in the oven and thereby fill us up more cheaply.
Dad grew veg. in our small garden.
We ate foods in their seasons and surplus was preserved in Kilner jars, jams, marmalade and pickles.

Anything which could be used again was.
Every bit of string was saved and carefully stored in the string tin. Brown paper was smoothed and folded ready to be used again.
Knitted garments were handmade and when each child had outgrown them, the good wool was unravelled, washed in skeins and re knitted into something else.

Days out were mostly picnics or going for walks. Growing out near the coast, we did sometimes go on the bus to spend a day at the beach, but there was no expectation of lots of treats bought for us. My parents always tried to make Christmas or our birthdays special for us, but that was because of the fun and family time rather than expensive presents. We never had toys or comics bought just because Mum had been shopping, they were reserved for special days.

Now, I still reuse as much as possible and never replace household items just because a later model has become available.
Old habits die hard.

Our generation had the advantage of parents who had lived through WW2 - and some of us did too.
We were used to (or had parents who were used to) food and other rationing - which didn't completely end until 1954.

Largely unheated houses weren't comfortable - but we didn't know anything different.
Ice on the inside of the bedroom windows - oh yes! I used to put my chilly school blouse under the bedcovers to warm up while I washed (very quickly) in the morning, so that it wasn't so cold to put on.

Younger people have not had these useful experiences. Warm houses and a wide choice of readily-available food are seen as the norm. Wearing a jumper indoors is unthinkable to many of them, whereas to us it's normal.
Remember liberty bodices, with their rubber buttons?

I know I eat bigger helpings now than my parents and I did when I was a child.

We're used to repairing things where possible, instead of just buying new ones.
Darning and patching were everyday skills.
Many younger people don't even know how to sew on a button or take up a hem.

Shopping wasn't a fun leisure pastime - it was only done when necessary. It certainly wasn't "retail therapy".

Far fewer wives went out to work then, and they had time to cook stews and other "slow" foods. But anyone who has a slow cooker can do the same now, even if they're not at home during the day - though it may require a bit more organisation.


I'm not belittling the difficulties faced by those who genuinely have to choose between eating and heating. There have always been people in that position, but that doesn't make it any easier for those who are.

However, many people just need to get used to a new or (old) way of doing things.

Most of the above plus suet puddings. Loved. Up’s plum suet pudding ( plums from the garden)

One of the big problems now is that many modern houses have no fireplace.

Hope Sylvia has a good nights sleep and recovers from all that thinking ;-)

Being "of a certain age" I can relate to the all of the above. We had a downstairs flat in a converted house and the lavatory was outside the back door. I developed a very strong bladder from not wanting to go outside in the cold ;-)

When did schools and workplaces start closing at the slightest hint of bad weather? Like many others, from the age of 10 I had to walk a mile to the bus stop and then go about 3 miles on the bus to get to school. That was in all weathers including the awful London pea-soupers that eventually brought in the Clean Air Act but you took it for granted that you had to go to school.

I know that many people are in genuine difficulty and I wouldn't want to make light of their experience but, where others are concerned, a little less moaning and a bit more resilience wouldn't go amiss.

When I moved to an east Kent in the early 70’s from sw London I thought my work mates were mad when they panicked at the first flake of snow. I didn’t know that the hills out of town were awful in the snow.
Nor did I know what those tatty bits of fencing were in the fields along the road You didn’t need snow fences in London.

I think we can learn from the pas5 Sylvia. I too remember the things others have been posting about.
I have been guilty of keeping the house very warm instead of putting an extra jumper on. I have treated myself to the latest fad of a hoodie blanket and it is really good as it comes down to me knees and keeps my legs warm. Using that I don't need to have the heating on during the day. It has to go on when Esme comes back from school, but at least I am saving money during the day

I'm a 60's child and do remember most of what everyone else has said. I lived in Kent and the snow was sometimes 2ft deep and I had to walk 3 miles to school as the buses didn't run but we never complained about it.

We also grew veg in our garden as did my nanna, she also kept chickens, so we never really went without. But mum had her budget of £5 for the whole week so the main shop was never over £4 10/s leaving 10/s for bread, milk and bus fares. If we bought too much, mum would put something back to reduce the bill.

We didn't have central heating until the late 70's when we moved to a more modern house. The flat had a Parkray in the kitchen which ran on coal and heated the water.
We also had hot water bottles and ice inside the bathroom window but that's how it was.

I think younger ones just want more & more and always the latest models to keep up with their friends.
My grandparents only bought what they could afford and had no credit or loans, they saved up.
Our xmas presents were always wrapped in brown parcel and string and were not expensive.
Nanna always bought me shampoo & shower gel in my teens, so I had my own. She bought knitted garments from church jumbles and unpicked and reknitted hats and scarves for xmas.

I think people need to reorganise their thinking when buying presents. Why not give a voucher to someone that's says, I'll do you 2 hours of ironing or gardening.

The schools should be educating children at this time of year about the gift of giving and not receiving as I feel this has been lost over the years.

As for heating or eating. Well during the day if you are home and busy doing chores, by moving about you feel warmer so the heating doesn't need to be on all day.
Using up leftovers reduces the food bill. I make stews, soups etc for not much money. But the money really goes when people buy, fizzy drinks, crisps, biscuits. These products rack up the bill.

Florence in the Hebrides

Like you, Linda, I bought what Argos calls a snugsie. It is huge - two could fit in!

We lived with my grandparents at first and like most Liverpool houses the loo was down the backyard. Grandad had an indoor bathroom but he thought it unhygienic to have an indoor loo!

When we moved to a village at other side of the country to a new house we had a fitted kitchen complete with a Rayburn and an electric cooker, a bathroom upstairs with a loo and a loo in the back porch. I think that house was the only thing that Mum liked about moving to a village. She never settled there but we had moved nearer to Dad’s Dad who was very ill at the time and my uncle who was caring for him, their sister was living on the south coast by then. Uncle was a keen gardener, had a huge garden and an allotment with a greenhouse so we were lucky as he had veggies to spare.

I remember someone from the grocery shop visiting every Tuesday afternoon to take an order from Mum for a Friday delivery. Anything she’d forgotten would be picked up by me on Saturday mornings. I’d simply hand over the list to the assistant who would pack the bag for me. I did this from around the age of seven.

We still lived in that village when I started work at a castle out in the woolly wilds about four miles away. Luckily the council always cleared the main roads and there was a staff bus so I never missed work because of snow even though we had to walk down the longish drive to the castle when the driver thought he’d get stuck if he attempted the drive.

I was the youngest there for a long time and the older ones set a fine example - although at Xmas we’d traipse across frosty or snow-laden fields to the nearest pub where we’d eat, drink, be merry and still turn up able to sing (in a fashion) for the afternoon Carol service. No one worked those afternoons.

Such happy memories but I was happy for Mum when, after I’d left home, she moved from the village to a nearby town which suited her better.

Edit: jam roll poly (suet of course) with custard, yum. I just had to tell you this tale. About a month ago a pal and I decided to go for lunch in a recommended pub in a village a few miles away. This time, we decided to have a dessert and I opted for jam roll poly with custard, she for chocolate pudding and custard. We were stunned when the waitress said there was no custard as Frank (can’t remember his name) is the one who makes the custard and it’s his day off !!! If I were the owner, I’d have at least a few cartons as standby but I have to say we were both stunned at the thought of no one working in the kitchen being able to set to and make custard or even white sauce. This village pub has a good rep - I don’t know how.

JoyLouise, I hate to say this, but I've got 2 of those stone water bottles as bathroom decorations! :-D :-D :-D

Martin Lewis said a similar thing - about Christmas NOT being a time to waste money on useless gifts.

My eldest grandchild (aged 20) loves Denby pottery. I saw some in a charity shop, and asked her if she'd like it - it was, after all, second hand.
Well! YES she'd love it. So, I bought it - it's her Christmas present.
Her younger brothers (15 and 13) will get money, and my other grandchildren - (7 and 5), I've asked their mum to buy the presents, and I'll reimburse her.
I'd much rather they got what they want, also, it saves on post!

My mum only put central heating into the family home a few years back with a Government grant! I grew up with ice in the windows too and seeing your breath in the bathroom. We had a gas fire in the front room (previously coal) and an overnight storage heater in the hallway. Christmas morning we'd take turns whether the presents in the pillowcases were opened in the boys room or the girls room, you could stay in bed if it was your room :-D
Now I need heating on all the time but it's not boiling hot in the house.
I see on social media everyone seems to always be eating out in cafes and yet moaning they have no money!!
My "kids" are getting clothes for Christmas as much as anything one because I don't know what else they need and two they can't always afford to buy good ones that will last more than 2 mins. :-D :-D Now whether they fit or are fashionable who knows....

I did sleep, thank you names ;-)

I'd almost forgotten those Liberty bodices, I also had to wear a vest underneath it.

Funny, Mum always had the warm underclothes for me to put on, plus sweaters over blouses, but the grammar school I went to only allowed either white ankle socks or LISLE stockings. Only people as old as my grandmother (in her 60s) still wore those even in the early 50s :-D :-D So we all only wore white ankle socks all year round, even though I had to climb quite a steep hill to get to school, there were houses and pavements for about one-third of the way, but then it was an unpaved path over rough ground and past a small quarry. We were allowed to wear boots only if there was snow ......... always deep in those days. I did that from age 11 to 19, and could climb that hill in 10 minutes or less most of the time. 2 years after leaving school, I had to go back, and it took me nearly 25!

I still, all these years later, have a slight demarcation line where the white socks ended and my weather-beaten skin began.

Until I was 11, we had only a coal fire in the front room, toilet at the end of the back yard, boiler behind the front room fire, no bath. We went across the street to my mum's parents who did have a full bathroom in the house, but still only used the tippler toilet at the end of their backyard. We all had guzz'unders for night time.

We moved when I was 11 to a bigger house, coal fire in 2 downstairs rooms, one of which had been the cooking fire originally before a kitchen extension was built on, gas fires in 2 bedrooms but not in mine, and a huge indoor bathroom over the kitchen. I moved into my brother's room after he married and left home, one that had the gas fire. I wasn't allowed to have it on at any time except on exceptionally cold mornings when Dad MIGHT slip in and light it just before he left for work .......he didn't do it all the time. That house had a boiler behind the fire to heat water, but also an immersion heater in a large cupboard in what was first my brother's room and then mine.

Mum washed with a boiler and mangle, dried clothes on lines that she (and all our neighbours) set up across the back lane as all the backyards were very small. They had to remember which day the dust bin men came :-D If it was not weather for drying outside, she put all the wet clothes on a horse rack in front of the fire, and then could put almost dry clothes in the immersion heater cupboard to dry thoroughly, or iron them dry.

Talk about the "good old days"!!

Sylvia, your mention of the 'tippler' toilet took me back to the days when I was training to be a Public Health Inspector with the then Middleton Borough Council.

One local plumber made a fortune from converting the old waste water closets (tipplers) to fresh water closets, an extremely revolting business at the best of times but more so when the tippler mechanism failed with the resultant accumulation of the proverbial having to be dug out by hand...well a hand driven shovel anyway :-D

I always had my suspicions that he paid the local youth to drop a half brick down the functioning closets to render them inoperative!

Allan :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

Those tipplers could be pretty rotten.

I know Mum in the first house used to deliberately leave water running into the kitchen sink so that it would cause the tippler to activate.

That house was in a row of those Victorian houses so common in Lancashire mill towns, front door opening right onto the street, 2 up and 2 down, and a paved back yard with brick wall. They bought the house when they got married in 1928, we moved in 1951, and the house is still there! We saw it back in 2001, it looked identical from outside to when we left in 1951. Hope that the inside had been altered and that "tippler" had gone. :-D My grandparents house, literally across the street from ours but the corner house on another street, and a little larger, also looked the same from outside.

I didn't have the nerve to knock on either front door.

Both houses also had the enclosed staircase inside, which led up from the kitche just inside the back door.

Come to think of it, I don't know how my grandmother's outside toilet worked ............. it was at the end of the back yard, but that was higher than the house, so it couldn't have been a "tippler"


Another memory .................. Mum white stoning the step to the front door as well as the paving stone immediately before it, at least once every week.

The house we moved to had a long front garden, with a wide step up to the front door then another step up into the hall. She used to white or yellow stone both those steps.

A clean white stoned step or steps was de rigueur, showing you were a good housekeeper.

The stones were got from the rag and bone man who came round regularly, sometimes with a horse pulling his cart, sometimes pulling a smaller cart himself, and regularly calling out "Rag and Bone man:.

We also had the "knocker-upper" at the first house. He didn't knock on the be4droom window of our house, but I would sometimes hear his clogs on the cobbles of the road way

I, too, wore a liberty bodice on top of a vest, Sylvia.

In our Liverpool backyard, the bin was fitted into the wall that divided the yard from the entry (the name given to the cobbled back lane between two terraces). We tipped the bin forward to put items into it and the bin man would tip it toward the entry and lift it out to empty it. I’ve never heard anyone else speak or write of this system, but it worked fine.

When the rag-and-bone and scrap collectors came they would walk along the back entry shouting ‘Entry Iron’. For years I thought the words of Beatles’ song were, ‘Thank you very much for the entry iron, thank you very much, thank you ….’

My OH remembers the knocker-uppers in the village he moved to when he was a boy but I’m afraid I don’t.

We weren’t encouraged to play in the front street we lived in at Liverpool - we children played at one end of the street at the T-junction and I think this was because there were very few children in our street and many more older people, some older than my grandparents, Only as we got older were we allowed to cross the very busy main road at the zebra crossing to get to the park across the way. In later years, after we moved, the street we had lived in became a designated ‘Play Street’ and no cars were allowed in it during daylight hours so there must have been an influx of families after the forties, fifties and sixties. (Now, the majority of houses there have been converted to student accommodation as they were less than a mile from the city centre. Before lockdown, my granddaughter, my cousin and I went to see our old house and it was being converted to a six-bed student home. The builders allowed us to look inside so we were delighted.

I recall, too, using the bomb sites as short-cuts - at one side to my uncle’s home and at the other to the local dairy where we were allowed to go from a very young age for extra milk etc.

Thinking about it further, we were allowed a fair bit of leeway in town as well as in the village we moved to compared to other children and I’m not sure whether it was ‘the times’ or a laid-back attitude within the family but I do recall that my Dad was much easier-going than my friends’ fathers in the village we moved to.

You’ve certainly jogged happy memories, Sylvia, thank you. . :-D