How poor were you?

I was born in 1954 but my mother was unmarried, a great crime those days, we lived in with my granny and she looked after me while mother worked so we were not by any means well off but we got by. I too remember ice on my bedroom windows and frozen pipes. I wore my liberty bodice until I was a teenager and started wearing a bra. I had good dinners that were very basic as my gran had been in service and made such as mince and dumplings and lots of stew, we had this at lunchtime and a basic tea in the evenings such as sugar on bread or meat paste. Weekends we had a small roast that had to last until the Tuesday at least.
The garden was full of veg and I loved to pick salads in the summer and help weed the cabbages. However my gran was abusive and spoiled what would have been a reasonable childhood, my mother too would beat me if I misbehaved. I know now that this was the way in those days but it has made me find it difficult to trust people.

I have read this thread after having a strange thought earlier this evening.
When I was born it was in a private Nursing Home. I said to my DCs that I was born in a Nursing Home and they wondered why I would be born in an old folks care home!
I think I was quite privileged in that I was at private fee paying school and also at a private fee paying college.
My grandparents were born into good circumstances, I have visited their homes.
My parents had their house before I was born. I was born 5 years after they married. We and most of our relatives had cars. There was only one other car in this street. As I grew up other cars appeared but the owners and dads of families never seemed to take the household out for day trips. My dad would say they have cars but they don't have a few gallons of petrol to take the children to the coast (about 30 miles) We were always going day trips depending on dad's work patterns.
This evening yet again I watched a car use our driveway to turn rather than go to the corner 70 feet away to turn or even be really daring and drive round the block! It appears that there are even more cars in the street but now they don't even have the petrol to get to the corner.
Poverty can be relative. I had a lot as a child. I was later a working single parent but I was never so skint that I could not drive to the corner to turn my car about. In fact I did that so that I could give my parents a wave as I drive to the corner and another wave as I came back down the street.
All the children of today may have electronic things we could not even dream of but the richness of my life was in the parents who cared so much for me.
SPF

60s childhood for me, in South Wales. Were we poor? Probably, but not so poor as some. There was no central heating, no indoor toilet, a rudimentary telly. Plenty of coal though , which was placed on the pavement and had to be taken through the house to the coal cwtch at the back. We had a bathroom tacked on to the back of the kitchen.

There were loads of kids in the neighbourhood and we played out on the mountains all the time. We picked Wimberries and played in the filthy river. I had the impression that everyone was the same. Very few people had cars.

Yes to the chilblains!

I think we were quite hard up. My parents were buying their house so there wasn't much spare cash, although my mother did a bit of child minding to bring in some extra. We had a week by the sea every year but no TV, no car, only a coal fire and my mother used to take me to the station to collect coal in my old pram. Not much to spend on food but with rationing there still wasn't much to buy. We didn't have a fridge till I was about 11. By that time we had given up on coal and the whole house was heated with paraffin stoves.

When we got married in 1970 we moved into a little Edwardian cottage. No central heating, no bathroom, no hot water, outside loo, tin bath in front of the fire (lovely and warm!) and a copper in the tiny kitchen. We had a second hand washing machine that used to rip DH's shirts to bits. By the time we moved on four years later it had a bathroom, hot water and central heating!

sad to read some peoples experiences, I'm grateful we weren't so badly off,always lived in a house with a Bath at least and had good food cooked by my stay at home mother,not well off by any means but we did OK.I wonder why though when people had such hard times they want to return to those days,the "good old days" were certianly not GOOD for many,The cry during the brexit camaign was they wanted their country back....is THIS the country they mean? If so can me and mmine opt out,life is far better for the majority now than it was then....although its certainly heading back that way with this government.

I would have been perceived as 'middle class' as my dad had trained as a teacher when demobbed from RAF after the war. But mum and dad lived with her parents until they died (young). Nevertheless, make do and mend was order of the day. One coal fire to keep us warm, slacked down every night and revived every morning. No tv until I was 7. No car until I was 8 and then it was an old banger. We never went hungry but homemade soup and potatoes was a frequent dinner. As was boiled beef and carrots, macaroni cheese and the old favourite, toad in the hole. Cheap ingredients that were able to be expanded.

Clothes were usually hand me downs from older cousins in England, who were comfortably off. But we did always have shoes bought in Clarks, after having our feet x-rayed!

I had a happy childhood because unlike so many of you in the sad stories posted above, I was lucky to be very much loved. All of the above was just normal life.

Our expectations of life changed dramatically after we lived in Canada for a year. My dad did a teaching exchange. The standard of living was so much higher. We got used to multi channel TV, central heating and a large car. And the wonderful but scary invention of the 'supermarket' which didn't exist here.

When we returned home in 1960 my mum went out to work and we had central heating installed. What a dramatic change!

My memories of real austerity were when we had our first babies: twins! I left work and we had to struggle on DH salary of £1000 a year. Inflation was at 25%. I remember the humiliation of having to leave food out of my basket at the checkout because there wasn't enough to pay for it. The washing machine ( essential with all those terry nappies to be washed every day) was third hand and broke down on a regular basis to be fixed for another few washes by the wonderful Mr P.

Oh yes! Happy days! Again I query our title of the 'privileged generation'.

I lived with my mother and grandparents in a rented terraced house. There was no bathroom, only an outside toilet and no heating except a coal fire in the living room. In the early days there was no electricity upstairs. That was put in when the house had to be rewired and having light upstairs seemed like a miracle. Looking back I suppose we must have just managed to make ends meet. We were certainly not as poor as some of the people on here. Most of my friends lived on the new council estate and their houses were luxurious by comparison. I never thought of them as being better off than us. Just different. I think I envied them more for being allowed to play in the street. We lived on a main road so that was out of the question.

Chilblains itched like mad!

I did not realise it at the time but in some ways I was lucky. When tiny we had a chemical toilet but by the time I remeber we had an indoor one with proper toilet paper.Our street was a mixture of well to do people , pretty poor people and we were in the middle . I was sent to a fee paying primary school while our neighbour's children were 50 to a class in their school. The large family next door to us had lots of children and I remember some of them coming to listen to " Dick Barton Special Agent " on our radio . We were the first to get a TV but my father hated to show off so we had an ariel on a large pole in our garden . By that time the people in the poorer houses had been rehired into council houses , it must have been bliss for them because I remember was he houses outside with big coppers to boil the washing and gas lights. We were lucky enough to go on holiday which was an unknow luxury for our neighbours . I really did not realise at the time how lucky were were but I might have swopped lives with some of them if I could have had a father who wanted and loved me .

We worked very hard to not get them but if we unfortunately did then we used Snowfire for chilblains. It is also useful for cracks in the skin etc and I understand it is still available.

Being cold seems to be a theme running through these threads. Even though I was brought up in a comfortable home we were always encouraged to put on extra Pullovers rather than turn up the heating. No running about in a t shirt indoors in January ! I remember my mother buying something called Melrose (I think) for an elderly lady who had chilblains, I can still remember the smell.

They are /were my benchmark for "poor"

I often think about the Arnold family who lived round the corner from us. They were really, really poor. There were loads of them and the mother was a toothless, ragged, haggard woman after bearing all these kids. They were all semi feral and with hideous teeth. We were all scared of them. anyway, everybody used to give them their children's cat offs. I made friends with the youngest girl and she was really sweet. She used to flinch if you raised your arm too quickly. My mum was horrified that I'd made friends with her and was worried about fleas!! Who were we to be prejudiced?? My dad was a German and lots of people didn't love like that! Anyway, when I went into Linda's house, it was practically bare, with bare floorboards. When we creepy into her front room, it was full of army memorabilia and furnished really well by her dad. No one was allowed in their except him. I found that incredible!!!! What a selfish, horrible man! We only had toys at Christmas and birthdays, but we were rich compared to them. I often wondered what happened to them all the boys were named after royalty, like Edward etc. At least being friends with Linda, I was spared their beatings but my brother got badly beaten and his precious Pringle jumper ripped.

My family was working class, with my grandfather working as a postman, and my father a Linotype operator.

We lived altogether in a 3 bedroomed 1930s house bought by my grandparents. We had a bathroom and living room with a largish kitchen. I was born in aNursing home -pre NHS -. However I did not experience the poverty some of the grans have described. My childhood was relatively happy, although my father was never enamoured of me and I inexperienced some unpleasant times (which I am not willing to share) -but I have some happy memories with friends and in particular an Aunt in Cornwall.

Food was basic compared to today, but there was a lot of fresh vegetables and fruit which was grown in the garden. I know that shopping was done every day and the weekend shop was brought back in one basket. It seems we could learn a bit from then!

In the living room we had a large square rug, on top of linoleum, and the same in the bedrooms. Mum used a mop to gather the dust. In the winter we spent all our time around the fire. Boiling hot in our fronts chilly on our backs. Going to the loo in the middle of the night was quite an experience in the winter.

I thought it was just me but DaphneBroon I am so glad to have read your post as most of the things people speak of in this thread seem very much the standard of the day.
My parents scrimped and saved for everything and there was not any spare money but that was because it was 'spoken for' and being saved for a purpose. There were no credit cards in those days thankfully! If we didn't have the money for something then we didn't have it and because that was normal nobody made a fuss.
We also did most of the things mentioned above that almost everyone else did but it was certainly never spoken about outside the family. My mother would pull out jumpers and reknit them for growing children, clothes were unpicked and reworked into other 'new' garments. We grew vegetables and had many other 'careful' habits drilled into is. I still think that all those were perfectly normal and of the time.
If you were not hungry and had something on your feet you were managing alright.

The standards of today are much better than they were and so it has always been as each generation follows another.
To think that you are poor nowadays just because you cannot afford a holiday is still amazing to me!

My childhood was similar to others above, but not real poverty - we were the poor relations and rented a house at £1 a week from our gran on mum's side, in return for which mum had to help gran out with things and she slept overnight with us, going back to her cottage during the day. This meant us three sisters shared a bedroom, two of us in one bed. It was icy cold in winter with only a coal fire in the 'back' room downstairs, which we all huddled around, and I put off going to the (outside) loo until I could wait no longer. (Chamber pots at night). Dad got up early to light the fire before going to work and we brought our clothes down and dressed in front of it in winter - the clothes themselves having been under the quilt all night otherwise they would be damp. No hot water, washing in the kitchen sink, bath once a week in tin bath filled by a copper, five people using the same water, and emptying it with a bowl at the end. We grew lots of veg and fruit and probably had a better diet than people have today. When we got to secondary school it was a 3 mile walk each way, no school bus or taxi service as they have today. Homemade school uniforms that stood out from the school shop bought ones. ,Dad had bronchitis every winter (his chest was affected by the London smogs) and sometimes got pneumonia and was hospitalized and I remember a scary fearful atmosphere in the house until he got better. I left school to help the family finances rather than stay on to do A levels because dad had to retire (he had worked to 70). Mum saved sixpences in old cocoa tins and we had occasional coach trips to the seaside (we lived in Surrey so were not far from the coast) and, during the whole length of my childhood until I left home, on three occasions actually went on holiday (to the south coast) for a whole week which I think was due to us being helped out by our gran or a childless uncle. Entertainment was the radio and card games, or shove ha'penny, going for walks in the summer on Sunday evenings. All our friends were in the same circumstances. We knew no alternative, and were happy.

Who remained there got years so knew exactly who you were! That will teach me not be in a rush and not check it!

Interesting post Katy. We used to go to the clinic to have vaccinations etc and the nurses there were the District nurses who remained girl tears so Jew exactly who you were. I remember some children needing to go to the clinic for various things and everyone knew they had been as they came back to school often with shaven heads and covered with gentian violet!
I had not seen gentian violet for years and then in 1976 my mother had breast cancer and after the mastectomy had strong radiotherapy which caused her skin to look as if she had been burnt and it lifted off in large pieces. A nurse at the hospital painted the worst part with gentian violet. A few weeks later she developed dreadful shingles on the treated area but they stopped at the line of the gentian violet.

I used to think we were poor but reading some of the posts her I realize that we were comparatively lucky. When I met up with an old schoolfriend a few years ago,she reminded me that we had the first telephone in our street. ( I had long forgotten that). Christmas was always a bit of a let down though. I alwaus wanted a bicycle and never got one! I remember we had a lovely neighbour who came up trumps one year with some fabulously scented bath cubes by Helena Rubenstein. That was total luxury. But when I think of the number of toys, games and electronics that my DGC have now, it makes me wonder; was our generation deprived or is the current one spoilt?

I was born in a nursing home in 1943 so that must have cost money which my parents certainly did not have. They rented a small one bedroom flat in the centre of a small town in Scotland. We then moved to the country, 2 miles away to a "tied" house, 2 bedrooms and a bathroom but they could not afford to heat the water for a bath so I was washed each evening at the kitchen sink, the water being heated using kettles and pots of water. I had my own freezing cold bedroom.

My father was promoted so we moved to a 3 bedroom house- we always had food but used to huddle around the coal fire each evening. I had chilblains for many years. There was ice on the inside of my bedroom windows and the only time a fire was lit in my bedroom was for a couple of days when I was very ill (cannot remember what was wrong) but the GP carried out a lumbar puncture at the local hospital. I do not know if the heating was for me or him!

I always had smart clothes for Sunday church but outgrew them before there was any sign of wear. I was a latch key kid and caught the bus with my friends from an early age. My Dad popped home to light the gas lamp- I cannot remember when we had electricity installed.

My parents grew their own vegetables so that must have helped the budget. I was fed but rarely warm.

Oh Katyk. What a horrible experience for a little girl.
I do agree with previous comments about thrift. This ingrained hangover from the war certainly cast a long shadow. Its been reinvented these days and is now called recycling!

ga I was once taken to be deloused too. Aged 7, called out of the classroom, put in a large van (alone), taken out of the van not knowing where I was, taken into a clinic that smelled of methylated spirit, treated and then put back in the van, back to school and deposited back into the classroom without a word being spoken to me. I, like you, never wanted anything for my daughter other than to be fed, clean, go on school trips if we could possibly afford it and just be a 'normal' child. I had no ambitions fo her to do well academically, I just wanted herto be like the other children.

By the way, Dad's philosophy is very much ingrained in me now. My children knew that if they wanted to wind me up, they only had to leave some food on their plates!

Some of the wastage nowadays is very hard to reconcile and sticks in my throat: disposable items in hospital (mountains of the stuff), plastic cups/plates, masses of wrapping on items you purchase, disposable nappies (I know they are great, but....) etc. It is all Dad's doing!

Yes - there was austerity after the war - rationing and so on. I remember thinking that if my Dad said "Waste not, want not" once more I might just leave home!

Despite luckygirl's comments and others with whom I totally agree, I am finding this thread depressing, too much of a "misery memoir" and the Yorkshiremen sketch was a refreshing breath of fresh air.
So often what is being harked back to was not necessarily poverty in the terms of the day. Even in the 50's given that everyday life was hard, living conditions which we would regard as unacceptable now, were the norm for the majority of working people. Yes the doctors etc lived in nice houses and had cars, in fact I was regarded as "posh" at my primary school as we had a phone. My best schoolfriend lived with her sister and parents in a 2 roomed rented flat in the semi-basement of a house. Her father worked nights in the local Gas Works (I think) so he had the bedroom during the day, the 2 girls had it at night and mum slept on a sofa bed thing inthe living room. Theyhad a wee kitchenette and an outside loo by the back door but no bathroom. Did I regard her as poor? No way and she and her family would have been mortified to be classed as such. "Poor" people were much worse off. "Poor" was undernourished children, nits, dirty clothing, gentian violet for skin conditions, hand me down shoes and clothes which were the wrong size, dads who either drank their wages, had been wounded in the war and were unable to work or "malingered" while their wives went out scrubbing -all of which I saw or heard of at my primary school.
Not having money to spare and being canny didn't equal poverty, did it? Our parents didn't waste money and thrift was a virtue not a sign of failure as it seems to be today.
I realise not all the posts are negative and certainly not seeking sympathy, but if my family were to go back in time to our wee Scottish town in the 50's they would be horrified by "acceptable" living conditions and no doubt assume we were poor. But we didn't necessarily see it in the same way.