How our social lives have changed

My mum had very little self confidence M0nica and OldMeg . She was a very private, (quite prudish) person who struggled in social situations . She didn’t ever drink alcohol and found comfort in her own home and surroundings. She met and married my dad aged 19 and he was everything she ever needed .She used to say that when she was at work serving customers she felt like she was putting on an act in a play, as she was desperately shy.

I think the fact that there are so many more places to go for coffee/meals now has contributed to this too. My mum & grandma went to a coffee shop once a week for a coffee & cake but it was a bus ride away. Nothing in our town like that then. Now in my very small local shopping centre we have 8 coffee shops & they are always busy.

My mother must have been ahead of her time. In the fifties all the women in our cul de sac went swimming once a week. In winter they went to the cinema. They would often pop into each others houses but i never remember tea being offered. They would just chat and go home. The women met every evening when the vegetable van came round at around 5pm. There were some lifelong friendships made in that cul de sac.

My dad played cricket every sat and sun so we spent the day playing there then a coke and a bag of crisps 2p in the slot machine and home with mum to leave the men to their evening in the bar! They only went to a steak house on very special occasions and never ate 'foreign muck'!
I was amazed to discover Chinese and curry when I met my now husband, especially to eat late at night after an evening out.

Well my Mum, born in 1912 met ‘the girls’ for lunch every Friday. She’d met this lovely group of women several years before and they would gather, sometimes 6 people, sometimes less. My earliest memories of the group was when I tagged along and we went to a Chinese restaurant, I can still recall how exotic that was. Mum, like all the others in the group was a working class woman, but Friday was their special day together. Sadly all of the group are now dead, but they certainly were the ladies that lunched. And laughed. And cried together... wonderful memories.

I remember going to Joe Lyons too
They had hot meals held in little glass compartments the plates were always really hot ! We usually had sausages,mash & gravy

I love posts like this. I suppose our memories are part of living history now. I am so glad both my parents wrote their memoirs before Dad died and Mum now has dementia.

Eating out for my brother and me in the 50s was being left in the car with a bag of crisps and a blue wrapper of salt while mum and dad had a drink in the pub. Leaving children alone in the car is certainly not the thing to do nowadays!

I really became aware of how much things have changed when I heard two of my grandchildren (aged 6 and 8) discussing whether the place where we were lunching was a cafe or a restaurant. That then led to an interesting discussion about what criteria we would apply to that question.

It made me feel very old too sodapop.
I was 4 when gillybob's mother was born.
In spite of this gillybob and I are good virtual friends.

My mum worked in a London office and got luncheon vouchers which some small restaurants took. Once or twice she took me and I can still remember the delicious stodgy food much more exciting than school dinners.
In the 70s we had dinner parties in each others houses. We had to find a babysitter who were sometimes very young. You wouldn't do that nowadays. The sitters would need sitters themselves! My DC would be horrified to think I left them with a 14yr old girl or in one case with a 12yr old boy. That was a Tupperware party!

paddyann, I most emphatically was not giving advice, but I was curious, because my only experience of life devoted to family was my grandmother's and, even as a teenager, I found the isolation of her later years, desperately sad and frightening. She didn't live alone. Her husband was alive and had a very active voluntary life, she had a daughter and SiL, and a single daughter living in the house, so she was not lonely, the rest of the family visited and wrote regularly, but she had no interests and no friends, her daughters looked after the house so she had no domestic responsibilities either and spent most of her days sat in the LR endlessly reading Mills & Boone novels.

Shortly after my parents returned to the UK and we ceased living with her, she began to show signs of dementia. I realise, as an adult, that some of her problems arose from her personality, but at the time the isolation of her life frightened me and that fear, not of being alone, I am self contained and self occupying, but of having nothing in life outside my four walls has meant that I determinedly made sure I had a life beyond the home all my life and made sure that DH even when he was travelling constantly, did the same.

Your life has clearly been very different, you have worked outside the home and you still have family responsibilities so is not comparable.

We only ate in cafe's if we didn't have a picnic during a long journey to our holiday destination. I had my first grown up meal out at 17 when my 19 year old boyfriend bought dinner for us as a birthday treat. (scampi - I thought it so sophisticated)
We had a meal out during a big family holiday recently. Orders were being taken when 2 1/2 year old grandchild suddenly said "I'd like chilli squid please and chocolate ice cream". My grannie would have fainted.

Goodness gillybob that made me feel old. My mother was born in 1896. Hard to believe all that time has passed.

Only time we ate ‘out’ were picnics and chips after the cinema but not in the summer - light nights and eating on the street was a no no.

I can hardly remember a time when I didn't 'go out to eat'
I suppose it must have been junior school when we went to Saturday morning pictures, from there we were given the money to go and have pie and mash.
After that we would go to the pictures again in the afternoon if there was a suitable film on.
Saterday night my mum would take us with her to the working mans club ( my father was away at sea a lot) but one time he was in prison for a year but we still believed he was a sea. I thought he looked a bit pale when he came home
In the summer holidays we were more or less left to our own but went to my aunties cafe for lunch on our own.
My mother mostly worked in the mornings but often went to the pub after work with some of the other women.
When my father was on leave it was always Party time. When I was very young it was always me who had to stand on a chair and wind the gramophone.

Monica I count myself of that generation too. The life style gillybob describes her mother having would have been quite alien to me too.

thanks Monica but its been quite a hectic life and I'm enjoying not dealing with the public quite so much or being obliged to attend trade events and weekends.I'm not a recluse by any means and my OH and I do socialise with a select few.We worked 14 hour days at least 4 days a week and a normal 8 hours the other days .Thats self employment for you.Not that I didn't enjoy it ,its been a hoot most of the time ,met some amazing people and made some lovely friends .
I enjoy my own company ,my OH and I have worked and lived together for 44 years so when he goes to his Rotary or visits friends with the same hobbies I love the peace and my own space.
I have a daughter who has chronic illnesses and she takes up time ,both physically and mentally,its a constant worry .I like my life ,make my own choices and always have ,so I'm not downtrodden or put upon by any means .I do get where you're coming from ,so thank you for your advice .

gillybob I find it quite frightening that someone of my generation (I was born in 1943) should have lived such a secluded life. She, like me, was of the 60s generation with all the freedoms this brought. I have many friends of her age and none has led such a secluded life. Was there a reason why she chose it?

My parents social life was around the church and formal Dinner Dances which they seemed to go to frequently. Mum didn't have friends to the house but entertained the family a lot. Eating out as a family was very rare. I had lots of coffee mornings and tea afternoons to go to when the children were small, meeting friends some of whom I still see. We eat out when we want to. I do agree about not stopping for a drink when out shopping I also prefer to get it done and go home.

My mum ( born in 1941) never, ever went out socially without my dad. She worked in the same ladies clothes shop for over 25 years and all the assistants met regularly for nights out and coffees on their days off . My mum never once joined them. She wouldn’t let any of them visit her at home either ( not even in later years when she was very ill ) . Her social life revolved solely around my dad .

annsixty I could eat that now!!!

Actually the steaks were quite good at the Berni Inns mentioned by a poster above.
We had2 in Manchester, The Hole in the Wall and one I cant remember the name of,the Cafe something.
Prawn cocktail, steak andchips, black forest cake and a schooner of sherry. Bring it on, it was lovely.

My Mum worked for Kayser Bonder for about 30 years between the 1930's and 1950's. So had a social life with outings with the other ladies. As a small child I can remember her taking me to Lyons Corner House which I thought was very posh with the waitresses in their black dresses and white pinnies.
DH and I ate out at the Aberdeen Steak Houses in the 60's and the steaks were pretty good in those days.

Our social life was the church, mum and I went to church and dad and my brother didn't.
We had a church social evening with pie an peas supper followed by dancing about 4 times a year.
Mother was a good dancer and once danced so often and well with the handsome curate that there was 'talk' -it was not considered suitable. I think he chose Mum because she was attractive and because if he had chosen any of the spinsters of the Parish then they would get ideas.

We also had whist drives in our house and playedWhist till 10pm and then Dad played the piano till 2 in the morning and they sang along with him. That was in war time and I was too small to join in but I remeber lying in bed and listening. My mother was no shrinking violet and played cards with her friend and they invited German POWs in to make up a foursome at Whist.

Looking back I wonder if there was not more going on but I shall never know now.