collecting pennies from the gas meter

Dad was in the Army in the early 50s and he was in charge of stores when ever he came home he brought an extra Great Coat that we four sisters would use on our bed to keep us warm,we had to use the outside toilet at the bottom of the yard half way down the yard was mums washing line and you had to be extra careful in the dark not to get strangled when you went to pay a visit.

But we are still here!

I bought my daughters dressing gowns, pyjamas and slippers - we had to sleep in our knickers and vests. I didn't want them to experience any of the privations I had suffered.
My dad worked in a factory that made fabric for book binding. He used to put a bolt of it down his trousers and pay us to 'tread it' in the bath. When the size came out, we were left with lovely soft white lawn. My mother made me a cookery apron and cap out of it and the nun who taught us Cookery remarked on it. I said my dad got it, and she asked me to get some for the school. I duly took in many yards of the stolen fabric, and she paid me and gave me a packet of cigarettes for my dad, saying God would reward him. I am sure she knew where the fabric originated.

I've been thinking about things like this since my central heating has been broken, having realised I just cranked the heat up constantly during the winter. I never remember feeling cold when I was a child, but, as we only had one coal fire in the house we must have been. Oh, we did have paraffin heaters, because I can remember going to buy the paraffin and turning the wick up and the blue [?] light when it was lit. Dad used to say coats on the bed were 'poverty', but it didn't stop me. The shared toilet caused no end of arguements. I've been wondering recently why the newspaper toilet paper didn't block the pipes? Don't remember having a meter man, but do remember going up to the local canal to buy coal off the boats.

Coats on the bed was the norm in our house - and yes, I DO remember how cold I was as a child: there were many winters when I had holes in my shoes, socks on my hands (no posh gloves or mittens) a too small coat and a scarf if I was lucky. We were four to a bed at one time (no fun when one of the four was a regular bed wetter!), two at the head and two at the foot in a 4' bed. No shampoo; we used soap to wash our hair, no toothbrush or toothpaste , no loo roll and we washed up using soap powder. My sister and I were bought our first nighties by my nana when we were probably about 9 and 11 years old - because when our mum was being battered by our step-father we had to run to the callbox to phone the police wearing only vest and knickers. However did we survive?

Chillblains! Never had them since, but as a child it used to get so cold in my bedroom I'd boil a kettle, fill a hot water bottle and put it on my feet...

I'd forgotten about using soap powder to do the washing up. Does anyone remember something called 'green soft soap'? Not sure what we used it for, just remember the name. And remember being shocked to read in my teens that Camay and Lux were quite bad for your skin, as I thought they were the height of luxury.

I remember my mother using green Puritan soap for household cleaning, and a similar one, but Fairy, before they started making Fairy toilet soap. And what was that sometimes white, and sometimes orangey coloured block that doorsteps were covered in after being washed? Housewives were judged by the state of their doorsteps, according to my grandma.

Was it donkey stone? My mum used to get it off the rag and bone man to do the front step with, and the back step was painted and polished with Cardinal Red.

Round our way women were judged by the whiteness of their washing!

On another subject - Dads taking stuff home from work. It was almost a cottage industry where I lived in the heavy woollen district of Yorkshire. Dad brought home rope and small spindles to make skipping ropes, lots of wood offcuts for firewood, leather machine belt offcuts for shoe leather (he had a cobbler's last an soled all our shoes), blanket ends to sew together to make blankets, or for Mum to shrink and dye and make dressing gowns for us all. Oh and spindle band, also known as 'touch' a sort of knitted string, to use on bonfire night to light fireworks

I remember sunlight soap,also we used to have the red lifebuoy carbolic soap to wash in,toothpaste was a powder in a round tin...used to love the little Dolly blue bags to go in the white washing.

Gibbs toothpaste. It was pink [I think].

yes that was it crimson,remember my first deodorant was body mist in a sqeezy pink bottle,not unlike the bottles of that stiff laquer you could buy.

Oh yes - I remember that deodorant! My stepmother bought it for me and it was the unperfumed one - how disappointed I was....

My father insisted on wrights carbolic! Yuk!

Crimson - I certainly remember Gibbs toothpaste as my maiden name was Gibbs and so my nickname was toothpaste for a while! Well, it made a change from Gibby.

then the tubes of toothpaste came out and ITV came into being and there was a TV jingle that went ''wonder where the yellow went,when you brush your teeth with pepsodent'' thought grin appropriate talking about teeth.

grannyactivist - your post makes me feel so sad for the child you were. My mother was warm and loving and although my dad was rather remote there was no violence in our house. We were just short of all the little 'luxuries' that most people take for granted now - toothpaste/brushes, night clothes, toilet soap, toilet paper, a cooker (just an open range, but the two ovens were wonderful for bread). My sister used to wash her one dress, knickers and socks out every night and she was complimented on her hygiene at school when she was about 12. She saved up her 6d. a week pocket money to buy her first toothbrush.
MY dad had managed to bring several grey blankets out of the RAF, and our mugs all had LNER on them - we lived opposite a shunting yard. I drank out of a jam jar during the war. All the older children in the street would climb over the 6' high wall every night and fill bags with the coal which was stock-piled for about 100 yards. It was never going to be used as they were phasing out steam-driven trains. The Railway police would flash their torches as a warning and then walk very slowly toward the coal to give people time to get away. All the houses had one fire in the kitchen/living room - there were little black grates in the bedrooms, but fires were only lit there if someone was seriously ill.

Before anyone says we were a thieving lot - if you saw your children cold and hungry you might quickly forget your principles.

I have said we were not hungry-poor, but humiliating-poor. My mother cleaned house for a Jewish family who had a girl a bit older than me. I got some hand-me-downs from her, but often they were out of season or totally unsuitable party dresses (we didn't attend or hold any parties) I still vividly remember going to school in July in fur boots which had been passed on to me, and being bullied by the better-off girls. I can actually remember one girl saying 'You will live and die in those boots'. It was all a powerful incentive to succeed and make sure my own daughters had all the things I had only dreamt about.

I remember when we were living in Family Quarters, the TV was coin operated. The TV would be turned off when the adverts were on so the money would last for my Mum to watch Coronation Street on a Wednesday as there was no more money until pay day.

Great nan very thought provoking I was born in the 50's,dad being 11 years older than mum who was a bride at 19 married in 1946,and although we had food on the table your words of humiliatingly poor struck a chord as other peoples cast offs where order of the day,Dad luckily was always in work,shoes with no soles that had cardboard in them that got soggy when it rained there was no violence as such in our house but mum who was used to better things was very bitter and jealous of those better off and I was the lucky recipient of all the ''clumps and slappings'' of a depressed frustrated woman to say beatings would stretch it a bit far but they were not chastisement more an outlet for mum who wanted a blonde hair blue eyed child who was slim pretty and something she could show off as an acheivment to prove her standing in life,she certainly didnt get that with me,short,fat,squints, and glasses at 8 months old and a liking for sitting on kerbs getting dirty....my brother was born after me and to her relief was the pretty child she craved...when being pointed out in a school play as the little fat girl my mum promptly disowned me and kept quiet....interestingly enough my brother never got any hand me downs or second hand bits ...

At last someone who remembers donkey stones. It was my job from my earliest years to donkey stone the step. I loved doing it and tried to persuade people to jump over the step rather than walk on it as I was always so proud of how it looked.

Did anyone have an old hat, gloves, socks and cardigan to wear in bed? We often had more clothes on to go to bed than we wore during the day. My sister and I had seperate beds but always ended up together.

We didn't have hot water until we got an Ascot water heater. The luxury of hot water. Dad would bring the tin bath in from the shed on a Friday night and we'd fill it in the kitchen. At tin bath.....the only way to have a frozen bottom and a scalded tummy at the same time lol.

vampirequeen, my aunt used to donkey stone our front step, and we were told don't tread on that until it is dry - and do you know what, we would all try to jump over it, and consequently landed with one foot just inside the forbidden area.
nelliedean, I too enjoyed sitting on the kerb getting dirty, much to my mum's despair, although now I realise that keeping things clean, which is what she liked to do, was difficult. My favourite past-time, after the road had been re-surfaced with tar, was to sit and burst the bubbles left. What a disgusting thing to do, I think now.
My mum always went to work, and I lived in a small terraced house in the 1930's with my gran, cousin, aunt and mum and dad. My dad was a bit of rogue, never actually found out what it was he did that made him the black-sheep of his family, but he didn't have a proper job until he was in his 50's, and so my mum was the only provider. She made a really good job of it.

Vampirequeen you must have lived with us at some point,that describes our house completely I ended up with carbon monoxide poisoning from a badly installed Ascot,so did mum we had to condemn it and go back to boiling water in a galvanised bucket on the stove...the outside loo had to be wrapped up warmly too the pipes lagged with dads old army blankets and a hurricane lamp hanging from the cistern...the squits used to be referred to as the ''back door trots'' One day after I had left home the outside loo decided to cave in to the ground with mum sitting on it,she was widowed by this time,and whenever we went to see her we had to pee in a bucket ...eventually we managed to borrow some money to get a toilet and bathroom built, she never used the bath she had got so used to cocking her leg up and washing her feet in the sink....must have been good exercise as I can still get my leg up to my head

Oh, yes, donkey stoned steps - my mother told me that she had learned from her mother 'More passes than comes in', so the 'brass and glass' had to be shining clean. A woman could be judged in the 1940's by the state of her step!

Thanks to my dad's constant supply of soft,white cloth we always had lovely clean sheets and pillow slips, and my mother would dye curtains in bright yellow or green, so our house always stood out as being a bit superior!
She was a professional sewer and could run up a science overall with lapels and pockets before I went to school - she would take down a curtain to make it. My dad used to make very large handkerchiefs on our old Singer, and sold them in the pub for one shilling each.

My friend and I used to tour all the phone boxes in the area, pushing Button B in case anyone had forgotten to get their 2p back. We would also take bottles back to the off-licence and get a half-penny for each.

In the long school holidays, nobody in my area ever went away, but some bossy older girl , about 14, would organise a day at Dunham Massey for those who could afford the fare, or in Peel Park. We took jam butties and a bottle of water and the older girls would organise games

I'd forgotten about Button B. We always pressed them living in hope and occassionally were lucky.

Sunday evening I would run to the offie to get my dad half an ounce of Old Friend and a packet of blue papers. There would be 3d change and that would be my treat money.