A modern history lesson for today's youth

That sounds like a great idea Nfk.

They tried to teach us French at my sec mod - but none of us could see the point, after all why would we need it? We'd never be able to afford to leave Britain!

Our world really has changed so much. My DM bought a smart hard back A4 book and randomly wrote down all she could remember from her childhood. She then passed it to me with instructions to write my memories (handwritten) and pass it on. (I have made a start!) The changes from her generation to mine are large but those between myself and my children are enormous.

How I agree with all the above. It makes me angry when I hear about oldies having had easy lives and being 'lucky'. We weren't lucky, we worked b***dy hard for what we've got and also went without many of the things that our DC and DGC take for granted. As others have said, mortgages were at 15% and there was most definitely no bank of mum and dad to help out and, what's more, we wouldn't have dreamt of asking. I never dreamt either of asking for help with child care, DH and I juggled madly and managed between ourselves. The annual holiday was usually spent with relatives. We never wanted designer clothes or trainers and I made many of the children's clothes myself as well as working full time. I could go on but others have said it all really. Looking back, our parents had it harder than us, and our grandparents even harder, but I never remember any of them being less than cheerful or hankering after things they couldn't afford. I don't think my DGC even know what 'saving up' means, I'm sorry to say.

I think I must have been very lucky; we lived in a small house with a long garden so DF grew lots of vegetables, Uncle had a farm so there were always fresh eggs, carefully wrapped in newspaper and brought home in my bicycle basket - yes! I had a bicycle when I was 8 because bikes were our only mode of transport except for the bus. Because DM could sew and knit I had nice clothes (not many, so they had to be looked after), and our toilet was outside but still attached to the house so we didn't have to trek right down the garden path. Buy we had to empty the gazunder in the morning if we used it in the night!!

No car, no telephone, no heating apart from the coal fire. However, I was lucky enough to have a bed with blankets and an eiderdown and I could get dressed under the bedclothes when there was ice on the inside of the windows.

Penicillin had just been brought onto the market so when I was really ill with tonsillitis the GP came to the house and brought me some M&B tablets - impossible to swallow with a really bad throat but DM crushed them up with home-made jam, and I was so grateful that they worked.

It wasn't that far to walk home from school at the age of 7, only 2 or 3 miles and there was always the library to call in to on the way home to borrow some books.

If my sandals got too tight at the end of the summer holidays, DF was a dab hand at cutting out the ends with his Stanley knife so they lasted that bit longer. Lucky me, to have Clark's sandals and the blisters on the heel that always accompanied a new pair.

Go to France for the football?
Go off on a gap year? No such thing, leave school, and get a job to help with the family finances, although I was lucky to be able to go to Tech for two years after school.
Go to wherever for the Olympics? - never had any money for anything like that.
Go abroad for holidays? Not likely, not until I went to work in France.

I did have 2s 6d per week pocket money which I usually spent on a single record.

Get married, rent a flat, go without anything for years to save a deposit, buy a house, 15% mortgage at one point, go full circle with the home-made clothes for the DC etc - but we did have A Car and A Telephone and A Colour TV - whoopi doo!! But still no holidays abroad.

Now, of course, we are reaping the benefits of our years of make do and mend and we are worth billions.
Lucky Us.

When did the 'Bank of Mum and Dad' open?
It certainly wasn't around for myself or DH!

I do remember, tho, that it was fairly easy to find work when I left school in the 60s.
My daughter was astonished to hear that no school leaver had to take a part-time job as there was enough full-time work for everyone.

Thank you all. I was starting to believe the current opinion that I am a selfish cow for enjoying the life I now am fortunate enough to have. Yes each generation does have its own challenges, but this has largely been forgotten by the youngest. I thought a thread to show that we did have it hard, that life hasn't always been a bed of roses for most of us and still isn't for many.

Before we moved into the bungalow my parents rented a two up, two down terrace house with an outside loo - remember the spiders and the little nightlight which was supposed to keep the pipes from freezing? My grandparents lived next doo. I now wonder how on earth they managed with dodgey hops and knees to use the gusunder when taken short In the night!

The majority of young people (25-35) that I know are delightful, respectful and hard working.
Some own their houses, with hefty mortgages, albeit at 3 or 4% but they are prepared to travel for work or do unsocial hours to pay for their homes. Most also rely on their partners wages.

Life is different today to ours, but ours was equally different to our parents generation. My parents felt their lives were (blighted) changed by war, depriving them of a tertiary education. Post war they lived London for work and ( guess what?) housing was near impossible to find, unless at an extortionate rent. They started married life in a 3 roomed flat without its own front door or bathroom, despite having well paid jobs.
Every generation has different challenges.

We were offered a house for £3000, but couldn't afford it. So we rented, and had most of our furniture ( second hand) given by family and friends. But we were very happy.

I remember looking at a house when we were first married, it was £6,000 but interest rates were 16% - we lived with the in-laws instead :-( If only it had been 0.5% like today.

Yes we did pay in for our pension but what annoys Them is we are all living longer,they forget they will be old one day.

I agree with all that has been said above, so was therefore extremely disappointed to hear some MP yesterday saying that today's OAPs should be grateful for their pension continuing to be paid, plus, if applicable, other benefits (winter fuel allowance, whatever else) (don't get that any longer, live in a ';warm' country (France ....it is minus 10 in the winter !) .....I was really amazed at what she was saying ...once again blaming the over 60's for the fact that children are in poverty in the UK ....poverty ???? does that mean they go without the very latest gadget, shoes, fashions, whatever ? Like you, I was bought up in a three up three down terrace, with a loo in the backyard, no bathroom (had to get tin bath off hook in shed and fill up from copper in the kitchen ) then clean it, take it back to the shed in ice and snow .....lay a path to the loo with cinders from the fire ......but, as Catherine Cookson begins her novel 15 Streets, poverty is relative ....others were a lot worse off ! My mother paid 1/6d a week to the Co-op man, which included insurance on the house, a clothing club, etc .....and shopped at the Co op - 'divi' day was a red letter day in our house ! My mother always treated herself to new shoes (flat velvety pumps, whatever the weather ) ....we only ever had a toy, yes, A TOY, at Christmas, and that was wonderful .....nowadays children, like you say, expect a houseful of toys and gadgets, each costing in excess of probably 100 pounds each ! Where do they think the money comes from ? I watch the programmes on people on Benefits ....some are genuinely looking for work, but at over 50 they do not succeed ....whereas the younger generation , seem to spend all day watching enormous tv's, smoking, drinking and playing computer games (they all seem to have the internet, trainers, etc etc ...) and then they moan because they have to go to the job centre once a fortnight, and prove they have been looking for work or their money is stopped ! Ye Gods !!!!! what have WE, yes, WE, done to the next generation > It has to be out fault for providing so much when they were growing up ....but, instead of gratitude, we are criticised for being 'given' a pension (which is now classed as a Benefit, which is a cheek !) .....I do genuinely feel sorry for the younger people in full time work, who will never be able to buy their own property (mind you, we had to save every penny to be able to buy our first house, it cost 6,100 and meant a commute of over 100 miles there and back to London every day ...but we had to do it, and never expected parents to hand out money (they never had any in any case !) ....we had second hand furniture, and not a lot of that ....but it had to be done to get on the housing ladder ....mortgage interest rate was 15% and so we simply went without new clothes, and sometimes had just a fiver for food for the week .........

Grr ! I think we DESERVE our pension, even though it is the poorest in Europe ! we PAID for it .....who is going to pay pension for the next generation with so many not working ??

I despair for the UK and am glad I am at the end of my life and not starting out !

It also depends on personality. I had a brother who believed everything should drop into his lap. He was very intelligent but had no intention of working hard. He said in later life that he always took the easy money route. He finished up depending on the kindness of others. I worked hard ,kept my head down and managed to provide for the final year of my mother, him and in fact for some of his ex's relatives. He was the favourite child being the boy. I'm watching the same scenario taking place a generation down the line.

That's a wonderful way of not only teaching history but also promoting friendship and respect between generations.

My mother lived in a two room cottage in the west of Ireland with her parents, grandmother and seven siblings! No electricity and no mains drainage. When I visited her old home in 1964 (where the eldest daughter and her eight children and father still lived) when I needed the loo I was given two sheets of toilet paper and used a bucket in the barn.

My husband's grandparents lived in comparative luxury in a tied railway house where they actually had electricity but only downstairs. He remembers a tin bath filled with jugs of hot water and the flickering of candles upstairs.

My daughter has grown up in an age of excess unimaginable when I was a child. When 'Brexit' happened she wailed, 'But I am used to luxuries. How can I live without them?' Needless to say, two weeks on and she's still alive and the luxuries continue apace.

Hilarious. We all adjust to what we are used to whether it be the high or the low life.

About ten years ago, I bought a book about the history of the area I was born and brought up in. There were photographs of the row upon row of tiny terraced houses; the factory across the road with its huge chimney, the back to back houses with one toilet to four or five houses. The photos were black and white - it looked truly grim. I showed them to my children, who now only knew the area as a huge green space with environmentally friendly elements incorporated into it - wild flower areas, etc. Urban sculptures. Very twee. We had no wild flowers or flowers of any kind. Our pocket handkerchief sized "garden" would sustain nothing. No bathrooms, or indoor toilets. Our playground was the streets and a bomb site, until we were old enough to take ourselves off to the park, or the nearby woods. Last time I went past there in the car I was very hard pressed to remember where our house had been, except for its proximity to the only remaining, now antique, gas street light. When I pointed out my house in one of the photographs, my son thought I was joking. "I had no idea you lived in a place like that! It must have been truly awful." But I told him it wasn't awful. We were clean, well fed, my father always had work, we had community. What we didn't have was amenity. How things have changed. If my mother and father saw the house we live in now, or those of my children, they would be slack jawed with amazement. My cousin, who grew up two doors down from us, built a wonderful house in Ireland - they are filming the new Star Wars film almost in his back garden! But, as my dad always used to say, "nothing comes for nothing". He worked hard all his life, and we have worked hard all our lives. It has often not been easy. My children work hard too. Whether their children will have the same opportunities will be entirely up to them. At the moment, they seem to think it is all going to drop into their lap with the minimum of effort on their part - even the youngest!

Not sure why some young adults today think its their grandparents' fault that life can be struggle, particularly when you are starting out.
I think it's because some children are brought up these days with so much, more than they would ever need - not just a toy box, but a room full of toys; not just one pair of trainers, but 4 or 5; not just a holiday by the seaside, but 3 or 4 trips abroad, often to exotic destinations, every year; not just a bike, but a top of the range bike, plus scooter, skateboard, hoverboard. And all of these things are replaced if the little darling is careless and breaks them. Remote control cars - 'oh I've lost the remote' - oh well, never mind, we'll buy you another car. Expensive toys bought at random times, just because. No need to wait till birthday/Christmas.
And then they reach adulthood (often with the car bought for their 18th birthday) and have to do it themselves, and it's not fair. So it must be someone else's fault.

That made me think, I remember wanting stockings at 1/11d but I had to leave school and find a job. My parents had very little money and having a younger brother who went to grammar school didn't give me any other choice. But we survive and still can if we are honest on a shoestring. Times are very different but let's remember this gives us our strength of character.

We got a telephone installed when I was 16. We had a jar beside the phone and you were expected to put 10p in every time you used the phone. Before that, we spent a lot of time at the phone box, phoning boyfriends! At 16 I went out to work and earned £4.50 a week. Mum took half of that for my keep and I had to pay my bus fares out of what I had left. I saved up and managed to buy one item of clothing a month. My gran lived with us and paid the same about of keep as I did. I thought this wasn't fair as she was on a good pension. Mum and dad were very careful with their money but we always had a fortnights holiday in a guest house every year.

I didn't blame my grandparents for the fact that when I was a young adult I had to live in a grotty flat, no fridge, car, phone, washing machine, TV, holidays were visiting relatives. I had to work cleaning in the mornings and evenings in a pub to make ends meet. Not sure why some young adults today think its their grandparents' fault that life can be struggle, particularly when you are starting out. My parents didn't pay anything for me after the age of 16, and didn't expect to.

It'd be nice if young people heard more of lives of the older generations.
I loved listening to my Grandma and her stories of her younger days and wartime.
I like to encourage my Mum and Aunt and Uncle to talk about their lives. It's so interesting and they all had it much harder than us.
Kids today don't seem at all interested in these type of things as they have their digital friends in their hands.
Maybe as someone suggested an online book should be written sharing stories.
Or even in here a thread that we can share ☺️

When our children were very small and sharing a bath one evening, they started shivering and complaining that they were cold. (Warm bath, CH on, rad warming towels for them) I said to DH 'did you have a radiator in the bathroom when you were a little boy?' He replied 'What bathroom??' The pair of them were agog. We then went through everything we hadn't had in the way of material things; central heating (one coal fire, in the sitting room) no hot water supply, no fridge/freezer/phone/TV/music systems/car/holidays - the list went on and on. We finally assured them both that we had been warm, well fed, loved, and hadn't realised we lacked anything at all as we had never had or known these material items. Quite an eye opener though - I have heard them both (now in their thirties) quoting this appalling hardship to their own children!

So glad schools are beginning to realise the value for their pupils of contact with older people.

the Oldham initiative sounds lovely.

Yes I think we should all write our memoirs. I keep a section on my computer and as I remember something for example a Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme quoted by my father I find it on the internet and then put it in my folder along with family obituaries and lives as written up by other members of my family.

When I get round to it I am going to try to pull in family pictures we scanned when packing up my parent house. A good project to return to each winter.

In Oldham where I live Age Concern are involved in a project in a local Secondary School where Year 8 students are paired up with an older person and over 9 weeks ask them a series of questions about their lives. I took part and was able to tell my students (I had 2 because they were short of oldies) about my early childhood, going to school, jobs, relationships etc. We also had a cookery session making a dish which was typical of rationing which I remember as it lasted long after the war. I found the whole experience delightful and 'my' two girls did too. It was a great learning experience all round and on the last week I was presented with copies of my 'Life Book' compiled by each of the girls.
I would heartily recommend this if its done in your area.

And well said, nfk, from me too. Some younguns nowadays have no idea. It simply isn't true that they are worse off, in general, than previous generations of young people.

Of course there are exceptions to that general statement and of course there will be things that are not as easy for them as they were for previous generations, but overall they start out in adulthood with a lot more both in actuality and in potential/opportunity.