Birthdays not recognised

I had forgotten until Mrs Eggy's post reminded me, I got £1 for my bank on my birthdays from my parents. For some years I was too polite to let on I was disappointed with this present. Then on one birthday I told them I would rather have a real present. They were quite taken aback. The money for my bank was supposed to get me into the habit of being thrifty. Maybe it did. My two little friends gave me story books and I still treasure those books.

I don’t remember particular birthdays but I seem a lot luckier than many of you as I can remember some of the toys other posters mentioned. The Rosebud doll, the John Bull Printing set, a sweet shop, a tiny sewing machine that didn’t really work very well. The chocolate machine, where you put in a penny and one of those mini bars of chocolate cake out. This was over the years of course, not all at once. Clothes featured too. At Christmas, winter clothes and with an April birthday, some summer clothes. One dress I remember was the gingham style, full skirt. Belted waist and matching little boater type hat. Memories.

Like some other posters I grew up in the War. Presents were few and far between, but I always felt loved. I do remember getting birthday cards containing savings stamps, sold by National Savings - these were always put in my Municipal Savings account - a bit of a disappointment for a 7 year old!

Oh yes, the “party dress” with sticky out net skirt and the silver sandals and the obligatory angora bolero!

I have a vivid memory of a yellow dress and the gold sandals. I have looked this pic out, my big sister Fiona is on the left and it was clearly Christmas!

I feel very privileged after reading some of these posts. I too was a late baby and an only child. I always had a party with around 10 guests. The girls always wore pretty party dresses, angora boleros and shiny silver shoes and the sun always seemed to shine in May so we played games in the garden. Mum made my birthday cakes; usually a pudding basin one which was decorated like a crinoline lady and had the top half of a small doll shoved in the top suitably attired. It was her 'piece de resistance'. There were sandwiches, fairy cakes and jelly served in crinkly wax bowls. One year a boy called Martin Embling over ate and was sick. I wasn't over indulged with big presents. Usually a book or a doll although I did have a 2nd hand dolls pram one year. Gosh, the memories are flooding back as I write.
I did have a big bash in a hotel for my 21st which was excruciatingly embarrassing. I had to make a speech. I received a cigarette lighter and case, a beauty bag, a tennis racquet and a cumbersome tape recorder so I suppose I was very spoilt but very loved and cherished too

Unfortunately the only present I remember getting was destroyed by my father on my 7th birthday because my older brother wanted a go(it was a large bouncy ball) dad was fed up of the shouting and laughing he got a screwdriver burst it and put it in the bin.

Don't remember any other presents over the years, I'm sure I did but that scared me and even now I hate receiving gifts.

Violett. Your post is so sad to read. I hope you get reunited with your daughter. It would be a good thing if she read what you had to say about your life.

As my birthday is November 5th, I had firework parties when such things became available after the war. We used to sit on the big window sill in the front room and watched as my Dad and uncle lit the fireworks with their cigarettes. Once we were older, we 'helped' and I remember being miffed when a spark laddered my precious nylons. Of course we had sandwiches and cake and presents. Remember those boxes of dainty hankies? I was happiest with books and book tokens. Best ever birthday present was a bike when I was 9. It was a black Hercules without a gear change but it served me well throughout school and university. I wonder what happened to it after that!

I too am very sad and rather surprised at so many posters who felt unloved and had no cards presents or parties for their childhood birthdays. I was a late 'surprise' for my parents but always felt loved. I did have cards and presents and parties and so did most of my friends. We always had sandwiches, jelly and blancmange and cake. (I remember the blancmange rabbit surrounded by chopped green jelly 'grass' someone else mentioned. We played traditional games like passing the parcel , oranges and lemons etc. For some reason all the girls wore sbgora boleros for parties. None of us was particularly well off and the presents were modest.
At Christmas all my presents were put in a pillow case overnight by Father Christmas. there was nothing later under ther tree. We then went to church and sang carols. As others have said we had chicken fo lunch and a bought Christmas pudding. Then played with my toys and played family games. Happy days!

How sad it is reading some of these... I always got a card, present and a small tea party -parents were not well off but always tried at birthdays and Xmas. Always tried to give my three children a good day on their birthdays/Christmas - even if sometimes had to buy charity items or make presents for them. DD & I still like making presents for each other to this day.

My Nana used to buy us a nice Christmas presents until we were in our teens. When I was nine (1962) she brought Bridal dolls for me and my sister, but we were never allowed to touch them as they went straight into the display cabinet. The following year she bought us Cinderella watches with a pottery figurine that also went on display. Mum used to give us a selection box, orange, nuts and a small gift in a pillowcase at the end of the bed. On Christmas eve she would go to the market in Manchester and wait until the end of the day, then haggle for whatever bird hadn't yet been sold. As a child I sometimes dreaded Christmas Day; my stepfather would have been drinking since finishing work at lunchtime the day before and the atmosphere was usually horrible at home with rows going on for up to three days.
I feel quite detached when writing about my childhood and often think of the little girl I was as if she were someone else.

My dad was orphaned when he was eight so he made sure we had things. I remember, when we lived with my Nan and I was 5, getting a Silver Cross Dolls pram. It was second hand. This was 1945 after my dad had been demobbed from the Navy. I believe it cost £5. I was the envy of everyone because, after the war the prams were all shabby tin ones.

Strangely enough I was quite willing to swap mine for the utility ones.

I suppose it is obvious why, when families were large and money scarce, birthdays were not much celebrated. I think some families had a wish that they might be, and passed that on to the luckier generations. Others maybe didn't quite see what the fuss was about.
I am also aware that many cultures don't make a deal out of birthdays.
I was lucky to have lovely presents, and usually a party. But it may amuse some to know that in the 50s there were a few grumblers who reckoned that the birthday fuss had ' come over from America'!!!!!

I remember small presents for Christmas in a pillowcase together with an orange and some nuts and a few bits of new underwear. My much younger, much wanted brother got lots of toys and seemed to want for nothing. I don't remember birthday presents or cards and always felt an outcast in the family. When I got married and had my own family my parents seemed surprised that we showered them with gifts and had parties and days out. I plucked up the courage a few years ago and asked my mother things about my dad, she said "Well he didn't love you if that's what you mean but he was quite fond of you"

We always had birthday presents, something small or maybe second hand. Can remember birthday parties at home with party games and jelly and ice cream. Christmas we had a few toys in a stocking and then a pillow case with toys (usually one 'big' present) and other small ones. Some were second hand as there was not. a lot of money. I received (on different occasions) a second hand bike, a record player, a dolls pram. I was very excited and it never mattered that they weren't new. Children get so much today. Huge parties, cakes costing the earth, i pads etc for presents. Also, we did not get 'presents' throughout the year. Some children seem to get new toys every week. My own grandchildren have more toys than Smyths toyshop.

Remember having a spectacular birthday cake and getting into serious trouble because I didn't want it to be cut up.
Think my Mother was hugely embarrassed at my behaviour. It was absolutely nothing to do with sharing. I simply didn't want the beauty spoiled. Happy days......

I have memories of simple presents like a handkerchief holder. I remember being given a watch for my 11th birthday just before I started senior school over 50 years ago. I still have it and it still works. It followed me through work in a hospital, pinned upside down on my uniform. I had a battery transistor radio on one of my teen birthdays that still works despite the many re-solders. I consider that I was very lucky to have such amazing presents. We appreciated what we were given and looked after it.
For the reasons everyone has given about feeling loved I make up as many presents for the shoe box appeal as I can every Christmas. I always make sure they include nice toys and pretty sparkly things for the girls as well as the basics like toiletries. There’s a lot of fuss made about the religious connotations of this with the Samaritans but I’ve had difficulty finding another organisation that does it in my area and I do it for the kids not the Samaritans.

My brother and I didn't get much in the way of presents, my mother spent every penny on herself. I do remember getting a lovely present when I passed the 11 plus exam. It was a set of books called The Childrens Encyclopedia, and my mothers family had clubbed together to buy it. It was like a child's version of the Brittanica, I read parts of it every night, and learned so much from it. However it suddenly disappeared, like everything else in the house that had value my mother had pawned it, and it was never redeemed.

Christmas, my siblings and I got a tin of boiled sweets, an apple and an orange and if we were lucky, a annual of some sort. Birthdays weren't celebrated at all, not ours at any rate. I don't even have a photo of myself as a baby which doesn't really make you feel as if you were wanted, more the result of a New Years Eve romp. My dad passed away many years ago, my mother is still hanging in there but I don't see her any more, I'm very angry with her. She "doesn't do birthdays or Christmas" unless it's her own! She only lives about a mile away but she never visits and when DH and I used to go round to hers she couldn't even be bothered to get out of bed, just expected us to sit on her bed in a bedroom full of cigarette smoke. I'm asthmatic and my hubby has COPD, we just couldn't do it any more. She doesn't even text but she can manage to keep in touch with all her cronies who she goes to her centre with! She likes to boast about what a great mother she was but neglects to tell them how she used to hide her bottles of Gin & Orange under my mattress so my dad couldn't pour it down the sink among other things. Yes, I'm angry, it was my birthday last week, I didn't get anything, didn't expect anything but it still hurts.

We always had very small gifts and cards as children. I remember having a little party when I was 9 but can,t remember any others, not sure if that was a one off and why I remember it. I really loved Christmastime. We never had a lot of money and our family lived hand to mouth, but it was special. In those days in the 1950s people made little gifts for each other in secret and kept them hidden as a surprise. There was a lot of homemade gifts which people appreciated the thought of, as well as the effort put into them. I was married and pregnant by my 21st birthday, and got a small keepsake present from my husband and parents/in-laws. I never expected extravagant gifts and think people expectations now have changed too much and the emphasis is more materialistic.

Always cards and presents at Christmas and birthdays and a lovely Christmas dinner. I am eight years younger than my brother so was probably spoiled. Never had a party and I think I felt a bit miffed at that but my mother wasn't the party giving type so that's how it was.

I remember birthdays...some with a party some without. I expect money was not always available.Always a gift though even though my birthday is close to Christmas, maybe just a bumper book for girls... as I loved to read and books were scarce in our house it was quite acceptable. Always a couple nice pressies at Xmas . I felt my parents always did their best. Felt a bit sorry for my two brothers as their birthdays were in August and part of their pressie included a bit of new school uniform. for start of new sept term.Bit of moaning but not for long! I've now been married for 45 years and EVERY one of my birthdays ...even the big ones.... have been ignored by my husband. His of course never are. Give me the old days back please even though we had little money...at least we were never forgotten!

My late husband never knew the dates of birthdays of his four siblings. Judging by the number of cards he received on his birthday they didn't know his either. Even his birth certificate was altered because his dad got wrong when registering his birth.

I only had one birthday party with all my brothers and sisters in attendance having a ball when the little girl next door came up the path carrying a parcel with a bow. In the excitement in opening the front door for her my mother came through the back and the hall door slammed smashing the pane of glass. The party was cancelled there and then, but I still got the present and the food and lemonade for tea and of course got to open my fabby dabby present.

Some of the above posts are terribly sad.

My early experiences of birthdays before my parents divorced and my mother had to keep my sister and myself on her own were good.

Though we did not have too much spare cash I had a card every year and a present. I had a party and an ice cream cake on my fifth birthday and another party in the garden after school when I was nine. I had, over the years, two second hand bikes, a doll's house dad made, clothes I needed and so on.

For Christmas I had one proper present and a few little somethings like sweets in a pillowcase, about which I was wildly excited. I had, variously, a Spirograph, a post office set, a giant doll and, again, clothes I needed.

When you were poor in the old days, birthdays and Christmases were when you got things your parents had to buy you like coats.

I don't remember feeling left out or that I got significantly less than everyone else as no one had the sort of cash or credit which is common today. Only rich children got as much as poor children do now.

With my own children I have been very generous with their presents though not as extravagent as some of their richer friends' parents. Neither of them got an iPhone!

We also adopted a birthday habit from my OH's family which was to buy the non-birthday child a 'little something' as well to sweeten the pill of being left out. My own kids always had a present, a card and a party or treat and we all look forward to each other's birthdays.

Thinking about today, I have, this weekend, along with my OH and DS, done a 200 mile round trip to my mother's residential home for her birthday laden with presents, cards, a cake and I took her out to lunch with my sister.

In a couple of weeks I have my own birthday and my lovely family have 'crowd funded' a fantastic present and my DD and her BF are joining us for the weekend. I really appreciate the time they are giving up as they are both busy young people.

In our family we are very big on birthdays and Christmas. My DD is spending her first Christmas away from home with her fiance's family and I am dreading it.