We lived in a terraced house that was (I guess) built about 1900. I have a feeling that it didn't have cavity walls. The only form of heating was a coal fire in the living room. In winter you could stand in front of the fire and be roasting on the side facing the fire and freezing on the other side. Nobody had thought of loft insulation. In winter water heating was by means of a "back boiler" which to the uninitiated was a cast iron tank at the back of the fire. It heated the hot water tank by gravity circulation. In summer water heating was by means of an immersion heater. We had one bath a week and when I was very young us two boys had to share bath water ~ not together, but one after the other in the same water. In a cold winter the windows used to frost up completely on the inside overnight, and the frost had to be scraped off every morning. The toilet was outside at the bottom of the garden. Toilet paper was torn-up pages of railway timetables hanging on an S-shaped meat hook.
My grandparents small farmhouse had no mains services whatsoever. The toilet was effectively a hole in the ground with a plank of wood across it which had two holes in it ~ the smaller of the two for children and the larger of the two for adults. The solids were periodically removed with a sort of long-handled ladle and put on the garden. Water came from a pond at the bottom of the garden. In summer the pond dried up, and water had to be fetched in milk churns on granddads horse pulled cart/trap from a neighbouring farm. The wireless set was powered by a lead-acid accumulator and a grid-bias battery. Lighting was by means of paraffin lamps. They had candles to see the way upstairs at bedtime. Bathing was in a zinc-plated bath temporarily placed in front of the kitchen range.
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We used to live in large draughty houses that generally went with my father's work. In 1973 we move into one with new fangled storage heaters, lovely bakey smell from the heat retaining bricks they used to store the heat....frost on the inside of windows - oh yes...! When I first left home I shared a terraced house with a colleague and it was freezing, I had the mother of all hangovers on Christmas day 1981 and decided to stay put, rather than ride home, it was damnably cold - I was actually sitting in the grate to keep warm in the afternoon. A neighbour took pity on me in the end....oh happy days.
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In 1954 I lived in a two room flat, in an east end terrace that was built in about 1850. Four families shared one toilet in the back yard, ( and one scullery with cold water. The whole house shared one tin bath that hung on a hook on the backk wall, and was put in the communal hall when required.
In 1958 we moved to a newly built two bedroom detached bungalow
The only form of heating was a coal fire in the living room. In winter you could stand in front of the fire and be roasting on the side facing the fire and freezing on the other
side. Nobody had thought of loft insulation. In winter water heating was by means of
a "back boiler" which to the uninitiated was a cast iron tank at the back
of the fire. It heated the hot water tank by gravity circulation. In summer water
heating was by means of an immersion heater. In a cold winter the windows used to frost up completely on the inside overnight, and the frost had to be scraped off every morning.
We had a 100 foot garden, with no back fence and horses used to wander in and bang on the back door. The garden and field at the back was alive with nests of adders and I was bitten at least three times. I dug a wasps nest out of the back garden with a stick, and never got stung once.
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>>had to share bath water ~ not together, but one after the other
My older brother was easily wound up. I told him once I hadn't left the bath water too yellow. After that I always had to be second in!
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I was bought up in the 80's and 90's. My parents got central heating fitted when I was two years old so I don't really remember life without it. I just remember all the crappy Baird TVs which were given to us and my uncle having to come round all the time to fix it.
My parents got their first computer in 1884 (a posh Commodore C64 with a full 64k of RAM!) and their first CD player in 1987 (a Sony MIDI system).
My dad had a 1969 Mini traveler when I was very young but got rid of in 84 as he had no real need for a car. Then he bought a Lada in 1991 and these were the cars I was bought up with.
We got the internet at home in 1997 via 28kbps Modem on a 486 DX4 120 (AMD with 12MB of RAM!).
I am only 28 but even 18 years old would have hads a very different upbringing to me in terms of the technology around them. I am old enough to remember life without mobiles for example.
Edit lived in the same 1906 terrace all my life but it was very highly kitted out when new. It had running hot water, indoor bath and toilet upstairs and very unusual for 1906 electric lighting.
It did have coal fires and a coal back boiler though.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 21 Dec 10 at 18:31
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>> My parents got their first computer in 1884
Wow, I got my first computer in 1980.
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Meant 1984. You were into that though where as my parents weren't really. My dad only got into it as he was good at maths and liked making music so he figured he could combine the two with the C64.
My parents have always tended to be early adaptors to technology rather than market testers. They tend to buy it just before they become mainstream.
e.g
1984 - computer, was common in homes by then but was certainly not the norm.
1987 - CD player - again was common but not the norm.
1993 - IBM PC, we got conned so it turned out only to be a 386 which was low tech by then but still ran Windows etc.
1997 - dialup internet - was one of only two people in my class at school with internet at home in 97.
1998 - mobile phone
2001 - broadband (512 kbps).
My dad was given a choice in 1984 to either buy a car or a computer, he choose the computer.
I do have memories on those cold 1980s winters of my dad peeking and poking to make sounds :).
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 21 Dec 10 at 19:09
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Oh yes. I remember my dad's foot coming through the ceiling when he put the recommended one inch of insulation in.
Then there were coal deliveries. If you bought in the summer it was cheaper. So late summer we'd get a ton. The coalman put what he could in the coal store and then I had to shovel the remainder in, putting up a board to hold it in. I also had to chop sticks to get the fire lit. Still got the scar on my knee to prove it!
You've left out all of the delivery men with their horse 'n carts though. Internet shopping at supermarket? We had it years ago. I got sent to the Co-op to drop off a list, and it was delivered.
John
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My Father and Mother plus me and my sister came to UK as refugees (of a sort) from Europe in 1940. My Father was a modern languages teacher and got himself a job teaching at Eton and we lived in a flat above Barclays Bank. We had a lodger who was Ballard Barclay, the actor who played The Major in Fawlty Towers.
Then we moved to a house in Hampstead, near what was the Blue Star garage at the top of what was the Hendon Way. It was very large, to me; coal was delievered down a chute in the side of the house direct into the cellar but was used in open fires, there was no central heating. United Dairies delivered milk in a horse drawn rubber tyred milk float. I was sent shopping at the local grocer, the memorably named G A Sprott & Co! A week's groceries could be had for less than £5 and there was grumbling if a white £5 note was offered in payment! I remember going to the local chippie and get a fish & chip meal for for and change from 3 shillings - can that be right?
My parents let the top floor to a couple and the husband worked at de Havillands at Hatfield; he used to give me copies of aviation magazines and this started my interest in avaition and led, indirectly, to me Joining the RAF.
I found out later on that the house had cost £5000 and some bomb damage was made good by a Goverment body called the War Damages Commission, the roof had been badly damaged. Earlier this year I checked the property and it has been split into 4 flats (gives you an idea of the size of the house), and they have recently been changing hand for £1/2 million each!
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good grief! Mr Snail, are you my long-lost brother?? Your opening paragraph suggests you may be! - your welcome back to old Devonite Hovel any time!
p.s
We like Famous Grouse! ;-)
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We were obviously dead posh - we always had an inside loo - but I always remember going to grandparents house and having to cross the back yard to go to the outside loo. It was heated by a Tilley lamp which was there to stop the pipes freezing rather than keep our bums warm I think. Every evening Nan would shout "Arthur, have you filled the Tilley lamps" and he would go to do his duty. What the heck was a Tilley Lamp - I seem to remember that it gave out neither warmth or light!!
I think the "potty" under the bed was better used than the outside loo!!
While we're about it, I remember getting £1 a week pocket money in the mid '60s and it enabled a visit to cinema (back row of stalls with girlfriend!!) a packet of fags, fish and chips on way home, a good few pints on Saturday night (and fags and a pickled egg and fish and chips) and maybe even a quiet pint on Sunday night - can that be true?
" fish & chip meal and change from 3 shillings - can that be right?"
I'm remembering 4 pen'oth chips and fish for 10d - so loads of change out of 3/- (enough for at least a pint to wash it down!)
Phil
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What the heck was a Tilley Lamp - I seem to remember that
>> it gave out neither warmth or light!!
They were great. We used them in Scouts - they were nice to use on summer camp at night near the woods when it was spooky. They did kick out some warmth and the hissing gave a sort of psychological comfort against the bogey men in the woods. Smelt nice too. We used to wrap the striking end of matches in tin foil and place them on the top. After a few seconds they would shoot off like mini rockets.
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>> What the heck was a Tilley Lamp -
They'd light the whole Beach up late at night.
Old Tom a neighbour, whose daughter Teresa i fancied a lot, used them when he used to take me night sea fishing around Beachy Head back in 1969 in his Mk1 Zodiac...course these days they'd investigate him just in case.
Not only were those days different they were innocent, maybe partly because there wasn't a whole army of overpaid do gooders suspicious that every adult male was a possible kiddie fiddler.
Cub/Scout camps, huge great polythene sheet laid on a steep hill with water flowing down and us lot sliding like billio downhill, good days.
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There are loads of lamps and spares on Ebay if you still need "psychological comfort against the bogey men in the woods. "
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Just back from a Lesby party two doors down, only had 2 pints and the buffet was good. Lots of big women with cropped hair dressed in men's trousers......great fun, all of them !
The bogey men in the woods didn't worry me, we had much more serious matters to scare us kids. Namely...the Loonies in the Loo !
It was a point of honour to flush the bog, get your pants back up and get downstaors to the hall before the flush stopped ! If you didn't, the LITL would get you !
Ted
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Hehe I think I know who they are - they are nice couple.
Mind you knowing the area it could be your other two doors down, they are probably lesbians too.
Half my customers are lesbians and people wonder why I am still single! I live in the wrong part of Manchester!
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Customers are customers Rattle.
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I know but it is quite an interesting demographic.
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I remember when... petrol was about 55p a litre when I passed my test. That alone makes me feel old.
My bedroom was a box room, 5 ft by 6 ft. I remember the windows had metal frames and they clanged when you shut them. You could climb out of my bedroom window and sit on the porch roof, although not recommended.
My next door neighbour, must have been mid 80s, had a Renault Traffic which he used to take us kids out in. Long before health and safety, I recall standing in the back hanging onto the front seats to avoid flying across the load bay.
There was an alotment nearby, which backed onto a garden which had an undergrown plot out the back. We all used to sneak in to explore, that was until the owner spotted us and came charging down the garden with his stick.
We used to build camps in the woods, quite large affairs really although no sooner did you build one and some oik ripped it down.
When I was 10, I was known to hop on my BMX and ride 20 miles from home with just an Ordanance Survey mapbook to guide me.
When I first moved to our home in Southwater, W Sussex, there were no less than 3 abandoned petrol stations, all of which eventually turned into housing developments,
whatever happened to derelict buidings, there used to be loads of apparently haunted houses about, now ive looked in vain for such things, they seem less than they used to.
Northants doesnt have the level of cars parked in bushes, something that you couldnt miss in Sussex when I was a lad. Opposite my nans there was a chalet house which had stacks of old outbuildings, which led to the discovery of an Austin A30, black, parked in brambles.
I do miss the spirit of adventure, so much seemed so exciting.
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What ever happened to Bomb Sites - fabulous dangerous playgrounds!
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" petrol was about 55p a litre"
Blimey, I remember having a job at a local filling station and I'm fairly sure that people used to come in for 4 gallons and get change from a pound note!!
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I can remember when petrol was half a crown a gallon, and was HORRIFIED when it went to 10 bob! A whole brown 10 bob note per gallon! It was a sad day.
I can remember petrol coupons as well, some time in the early 70's? in case of rationing during some war in the middle east.
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" petrol coupons as well, some time in the early 70's"
Yep, still got mine somewhere, not sure the date, was it '74ish?
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"I can remember when petrol was half a crown a gallon, "
You're older than I thought then - or is it early memory loss? The last time petrol was less than half a crown i.e 30d a gallon was 1949
ttp://www.theaa.com/public_affairs/reports/Petrol_Prices_1896_todate_g
allons.pdf
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Its called poetic licence, its mandatory in thread like this.
Facts are not called for thank you.
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Apologies for the facts Zero. Will try to keep to wild supposition and hysterical over-reaction in future
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I am sure you are right - we are talking ealy 60s? 2/6p a gallon does it for me and that was in a very good condition Austin 7 that four of us bought for £25!
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Good heavens, some interesting stories there and, I suspect, more to come.
My Mother, having been widowed whilst pregnant with me, lived in a rented red brick semi. Her Mother lived there with us and it had been a sort of ' pool ' house for the family since before the war.
We were posh, we had a bathroom ith a bath and hot water. Heating was by the lounge fire, lack range in the kitchen although we had a freestanding gas cooker.although the two main bedrooms had fireplaces. There was a black range in the kitchen although we had a freestanding gas cooker. We had a pantry, accessed from the kitchen and under the pantry ' slab ' was where the coal was kept, with a small door to the back porch. A further door off the porch was a laundry with a gas copper and a mangle.
The back garden was fairly long, ending at the fence of the LNE Railway. Steam trains passed all day long. We were lucky to have the end house in the cul-de-sac with a field next door housing Highland cattle.
Gran died in 1951 and we stayed 'til '61, moving to a flat owned by some gay freinds.
I'm sure my earliest memory is sitting up in my pram trying to remove the big chrome wing nuts off the side !...about 1948/9, I guess. I remember going on a tram, they finished in '48.
Other memories include sliding down the roof and bonnet of my uncle's Austin 7, Putting my head through the greenhouse and having a trip in an ambulance and thye London express, on the line across the field, stopped due to a local woman throwing herself off the bridge into it's path..I still remember her name !
Just opposite the house was a WW2 anti-aircraft gun emplacement with the chassis of a lorry in a bomb crater...a mecca for us lads to play in.
The Summers seemed longer then, so did the Winters !
The happy highways where we went...and cannot come again !
Ted
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My upbringing was very comfortable and far superior to my parents' childhoods which was far more spartan. I arrived at a time when my father was starting to make money in the heating oil industry and I grew up with central heating in a good sized house. Otherwise, money was spent wisely apart from dad changing his car every year, so it was not until 1973 that we got colour TV. There was no home computer until about 1995.
However increasing wealth was indicated by interesting holidays, with several trips to the USA when I was a teenager.
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Life as we knew it ended when the 5 bob pint arrived which I estimate came roundabout 1976. In 1974 my golf club sold bitter, mild and lager for 16p per pint. This was well below pub prices as was the norm at golf clubs in those days. The going rate in pubs was about 19p for bitter and 20p for lager. Prices started to go north as a result of the appalling inflation that was rife at the time and when they approached 25p many drinkers vowed to give it up once the price hit the dreaded 5/- (25p). The watershed duly arrived - and we all just carried on as usual!
And many golf clubs now charge more than the local pub.
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This us my childhood home as it is today....
tinyurl.com/2abp3xk
The semi on the left was ours, a nice house. I would seriously liked to have bought it, but now I'm glad i didn't get the chance. The field next door, to the left, became Broughton Park Rugby Union Club. Scroll round and look at it now...acres of cheap housing .
Next door was an older couple, Arthur and May Mitton. Their only boy was a flight sergeant on Lancasters and had been shot down. he's buried in the Friesan islands.
There was a room under the sloping roof with a door off the landing. No window or light fitting. I was scared to go in it as a kid. mum kept stuff like cases in there. If I'd bought it, I'd have stuck a dormer window in.
I'd like to see in the house again...I go past sometimes, it's anly 1/4 mile down the road, but I've yet to see anyone in the garden or getting a car out. I think I would stop and talk, they might be interested in some of it's history.
Ted
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I remember when all that was built. Also those houses are not really that cheap either, but probabably cheaper than average for the area.
Seems to be mainly professional types that live there though.
I can't post my childhood house on here because I still live there! My grandma also still lives in the house my mum was bought up. It was a council house as the time but my grand parents bought it in the 1980s under right to buy.
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I meaqnt cheaply built.....they're certainly not cheap to buy !
Ted
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Not so much about when I was young, but Ted got me to lookup the house I lived in as a student in 1990/91. The landlord was private but via the University so it was at an excellent rate - very cheap for four of us but the attic rooms could not be used. I think it was £21pw. And we didn't pay for the summer holiday either.
Rightmove shows it sold for £220k in 1999.... and then for £480k in 2005! It was a big house with cellars. But not much bigger with the extra floor that we sold ourselves last year and we didn't get that much. I remember we had to be without a bath for a bit when it got an electric shower too. Just before we moved out.
Edit: it was close ish to where he shows. Parallel to the road he shows was where (A) my landlord live and (B) I believe the BeeGee's used to live.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Tue 21 Dec 10 at 23:57
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Crumbs, Ted, I was gonig to ask whether you knew my father... until I realised you didn't live where the postcode you'd entered was. My grandfather bought a house on Ellesmere Rd South when it was built, c1925/6 in the days when Chorlton cum Hardy was in the country and a desireable part of Manchester. By 1970 when the house was sold, it was a dump.
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>> By 1970 when the house was sold, it was a dump.
Chorlton cum Hardy (home of Chorlton and the Wheelies) or the house? I lived there in 1990/91 and it was not a dump. And higher up I pointed out the student house we lived in sold 5 years ago for £480,000!
Friend living at the same house once had mail addressed to him with just name, street and 'chorlton and the wheelies' and he got it... suppose the PO knew Cosgrove Hall were based there.
Not to confuse with Chorlton on Medlock which essentially does not exist because that is where the original Manchester University buildings are.
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Indeed Chorlton isn't a dump. It did have a dark side in the late 90's but that was just a legacy of the downfall of Manchester in the 80's and 90's.
I was walking down Beech Road before and was amazed how thriving it still is, I normally only drive down there so don't take much in.
I enjoy walking down the meadows too, nice to feel a bit of country in the city. I think the worst part of Chorlton is the fact it is quite near the Merseybank estate (which is in Chorlton) and Old Trafford.
There are a lot of people with money which moved here from the mid to 90's till the current day and that has really changed the place a lot.
Personaly I find it a little bit too boho these days but I've noticed a return of some more normal people lately :p.
It is a real shame that Cosgrove Hall has gone, it looks like it is about to be turned into retirement flats. I remember it as a young todler as Robin and Rosies house as we used to walk past it when coming from the newly opened Safeway (Now Morrisons).
We are about to get the first railway station since 1968 too which for me will be brilliant even if it is trams and not steam trains!
My parents paid £15k for the house in 1980 but sadly had to remortage but it would be worth over £200k now but my parents wish they had sold in the mid naughties when houses like this were being sold for full asking price over night. One terrace went for £250k at the end of my block. It would not worth that much today.
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Chorlton does still have a country feel if you go away from the main centre. Beech Road and Chorlton Green still retains that lovely village feel, carol singers etc by the inn.
The main centre does feel far too much like being in the middle of the city though, they should never have built the small shopping area in the late 60's as it destroyed too much of the town/village/suburb what ever it is.
I don't really get involved in any of it though I am too poor to be a Chortonite despite this being my home town.
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>> Chorlton Green still retains that lovely village feel, carol singers etc by the inn.
I lived just opposite Chortlon Green on Cross Street. Used to bump into the actor who played Curly in Corrie at the Horse and Jockey.
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Yeah he used to live down there, remember seeing Kevin Kennedy a lot in the Bowling Green which is my parents used to go sometimes.
The Horse and Jockey as had a complete refurb and is very different to what it was, but they sell so much different types of beer it is always a great experience.
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>> I lived just opposite Chortlon Green on Cross Street. Used to bump into the actor who played Curly in Corrie at the Horse and Jockey.
>>
I bet you did.
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Well it was his local so he would have done :). Ian Brown would have lived in the green round about that time too. He was a regular at the Beech.
It is Cross Road too rather than Street, for some reason Ted will probably know Chorlton dosn't have a single street due to some local ruling.
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Kevin had a house on East Meade in the garden village, Chorltonville. Quite exclusive there. He was married to a singer called Dawn Chorus at the time.
I don't know why there are no ' streets ' , there never have been.
Just behind Rat's hovel there used to be a brickworks, Abandoned for many years, it was anideal place for war games in thye 50s. Now all gone and site of a primary school.
Ted
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Do you know when it closed down? There is some debate about that, the entrance was Cardiff Road wasn't it? The kerbs are still visible on Longford Road.
My entire area of Chorlton was known as Martledge due to the marshy land. The problem is a look under the foundations revals the truth - a stream runs under our house!.
I also never really understood the reason why all those terrace houses near me were pulled down I can only guess because they were of a poor standard? I don't remember them but I do remember them building the newer houses in the mid 80's.
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Small world and all that MM. SWMBO lived in Ellesmere Road Southh from the age of 10 until we married in 1969. We can see her old family home from our house now.
She may well have known your G'pa...what was his surname ?
Ted
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I thought my old (student) house was on Cross Road.... then it sounded all wrong. I guess because of Crossroads on ITV? I am starting to wonder if it was as much as £21pw. I think it was a lot less than that even. It was a bit of a bargain and an excellent house in very good condition.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Thu 23 Dec 10 at 00:10
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Further to my original post ............ We didn't have carpets ~ all our floor coverings were lino (linoleum). We had pegged rugs in front of the fire in the living room and one side each bed. The pegged rugs were (laboriously) made by my mother using strips of old cloth pegged through canvas. There was riising damp in the living room so my dad had a dado rail fitted so that the lower part of the walls could be repapered more often than the upper part.
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Dinner jacketed helicopter ....... Affects a yorkshire accent
LUXURY !
...............leans back in club chair puffing huge cigar , takes sip of brandy..............
( anybody else get the same thought about this thread?)
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...all our floor coverings were lino (linoleum)...
I was once in company with a group of guys, one of whom they referred to as: "Lino".
When he was out of earshot, I asked one of the others why.
"He often gets into bother," I was told. "But he's no good at fighting so usually ends up on the floor."
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>>all our floor coverings were lino (linoleum)...
Linoleum was for the more affluent - lesser mortals made do with congroleon. At least, I think that's what it was called.
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I was chopping sticks to light the fire this morning. Something went awry somewhere but she doesn't agree...
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I can remember eating winkles on a Sunday evening and digging them out with a pin (yuk!)
We lived on the top floor of a block of pre-war council flats with no lift and my ole mum used to walk or get the bus everywhere, when she came back from shopping for 6 kids she would have to carry all the shopping up the stairs, then come back down for the prams.
I remember hearing next doors Westminster chiming clock through the wall.
I remember having to put all the household waste 'down the chute'
I remember the coal in the coal cupboard in the scullery, and I also rememeber there was a built in cupboard in my bedroom full of coal, I shared that bedroom with my older Sister and my much older Brother, who wet the bed right up until he left home.
No fitted carpets, double glazing, central heating in those days, but my folks did their best for us and we didn't turn out too bad really, compared to some neighbs and childhood friends.
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 23 Dec 10 at 00:24
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In rural Northern Ireland in the early 1970's we lived in a cottage without electricity or running water.
We had parafin lamps for lighting and used to get water from a well.
A few years ago the same cottage sold for over £250,000! Needless to say it had a few mod cons by then.
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This is where we lived until I was nine, the pub was called The Golden Fleece, then.
tinyurl.com/3x33to9
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My father's work meant that we lived in at least seven addresses, one abroad, before I was 19, plus a few temporary ones in between. He was fairly senior but the civil service wasn't noted for princely salaries, so we weren't rich at all. Some of the official houses were quite good though.
It is easy to forget how austere everything was in the fifties, let alone the forties when there was so much bad stuff going on. All the things others have said about primitive heating and few mod cons applied to all classes really. And in fact a lot of what passes for luxury and comfort these days is ephemeral, consumerist, gimcrack and impermanent. It's a bit worrying actually if you take the long view.
Where we lived in Bath during the war, a small Georgian square, the iron railings round the long green in the middle had been removed either for the metal or to make people realise there was a war on (old cast iron takes a lot of purifying before you can make gun barrels out of it). Two big static water tanks had been put there to help firefighters if necessary. Believe it or not my sister and I captured sticklebacks by fishing for them with a net there. When the Germans bombed Bath we went into the cellar of the house next door with neighbours. I can just remember that.
I used to feel that my peripatetic upbringing made me rootless and lacking in some way. But there are advantages too to broad and varied experience. Being a new boy in eight schools for example was a bit wearing at the time but prepared me for aspects of the real world. Only very stupid people are misled by my accent and demeanour into thinking I am just a faffing middle-class idiot after a minute or two of conversation.
Of course I may be one of those too, but among other things so to speak.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Wed 22 Dec 10 at 13:52
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I recall cold bedrooms with lino floors and a one bar electric heater. Then we moved to a large draughty house where you went to bed with hot water bottles bottles - china and aluminium. A Rayburn to cook with kept the kitchen warm. The only room that was.
Coal fires yes: but the draughts meant only one side of you was warm.
The sash windows were left open in the summer and bats came in and flew round.. in those days I could hear their twittering..
One room has a leaky roof above and one windy night the laths gave way and covered the entire room in plaster and muck...
Great fun as a kid as in the country...
Last edited by: madf on Wed 22 Dec 10 at 15:21
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I cannot resist it any more........
........One room has a leaky roof above and one windy night the laths gave way and covered the entire room in plaster and muck.........
You have watched this haven't you madf......
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
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Watched it?! We all saw it first time round and know it by heart. Even those of us who didn't appear in it :-)
John
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>> This is where we lived until I was nine, the pub was called The Golden
>> Fleece, then.
>>
>> tinyurl.com/3x33to9
>>
>>
I had cause to stay in the Wishing Well in Peckham last year during a work away jaunt. Nice!!
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>>I had cause to stay in the Wishing Well in Peckham last year during a work away jaunt. Nice!!<<
Super! ... There was a program 'on the box' this Summer about Peckham, I often used to hang around there when I lived in Camberwell - I wouldn't recognise the place now, I'll stay in Cornwall thanks :)
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>> >>I had cause to stay in the Wishing Well in Peckham last year during a
>> work away jaunt. Nice!!<<
>>
>> Super! ... There was a program 'on the box' this Summer about Peckham, I often
>> used to hang around there when I lived in Camberwell - I wouldn't recognise the
>> place now, I'll stay in Cornwall thanks :)
>>
Ditto Devon.
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...This is where we lived until I was nine...
Was that a Peabody Trust building?
There are a lot around there now, if not then.
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Aye, Heli, your'e right there. There were 28 of us living in one room with half the floor missing. We all had to huddle in one corner for fear of falling !
If you tell that to kids today, they'll not believe you !
Ted
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When I was young Starsky and Hutch, Frank Canon, the Sweeney, the Professionals and all the rest would drive around on traffic free roads and park outside wherever they were going.
They'd spend half the programme looking for a parking space these days.
Aye ! Folks had it easy in them days...
Last edited by: gmac on Wed 22 Dec 10 at 15:48
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Right then, this was where my parents lived when I was a lad..........
www.geograph.org.uk/photo/315728
and this is the grid reference....
www.streetmap.co.uk/place/Yearning_Hall_in_Northumberland_492611_723611.htm
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Luxury! This is where we lived when I were a lad (he said with fingers crossed).
www.flickr.com/photos/ministry/3812675456/
John
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Strangely enough I have just found the house where I I was brought up .. for sale.
The celing was repaired..
www.churchofscotland.org.uk/properties/documents/propmacduffmansegellymillroad.pdf
Not much has changed outside... but gutted inside..
Last edited by: madf on Wed 22 Dec 10 at 16:52
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Another childhood memory is of Sunday nights - the family gathered around the box for Upstairs Downstairs me reading inherited back copies of Motor Sport - who were somewhat fixated by the Lotus 7 - not bad though.
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I had to have a bath every Sunday.
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Whether you needed it or not? :-)
John
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.... bath and the Top Twenty I still have some of the tapes !
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>> Another childhood memory is of Sunday nights - the family gathered around the box for
>> Upstairs Downstairs
Some time over xmas, there is a new Upstairs Downstairs... not sure if its a one off or a series... BBC I think.
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Four episodes I believe - set in 1938
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A memory list...some may be familiar....
Feather matress and white sheets. You could dig yourself in with a HWBottle.
Smell of smoke/steam from the loco at the bottom of the garden.
Uncle Wilf's geraniums and tomatoes in the greenhouse ( repaired after my headbutt ! )
The odd coal wagen passing with it's brake left on and the side lever clanging up and down.
The dustbin cart with it's curved sliding roof covers...no compactor.
Beer at home means Davenport's....lorry with wooden crates and glass bottles.
Funerals passing the end of the road after Munich. Old Rolls hearses.
Hurtling down the railway bridge of home made ' bogies '...old pram wheels..H & S..Pah !
Grenny lying in a box on trestles in the front room.
Ted
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>> Feather matress ...........
My bed had a horsehair mattress. It became permanently compressed and very hard and was sent away at one point to be re-manufactured.
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The co-op milk horse, the coalman and his horse.......................
Deposits in the street, bucket & shovel and my Grandpa would give me 1 shilling (5p) for a full bucket - great rhubarb!
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We put custard on ours. ;>)
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No one's mentioned going to school in clogs yet, or keeping coal in the bath.
10 points though for the catalogue on a nail in the privy.
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I was going to mention coal-in-the-bath, but I wondered if my mind was playing tricks (again!)
I'll have to confirm it wiv my elder Sister.
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In the workshop, I wore clogs until the late 1980s. As they had effectively died out, it became really difficult getting hold of replacement irons and nails. As the new nail holes always line up with the old, you had to fill the old holes with matchsticks before fitting the new irons.
Those of us in our family who worked on cars and trucks wore them, and we eventually found a place near Leyburn where we could get "supplies". Long since lapsed into boots, and I'm fairly sure there are no cloggers within a large radius of the East Midlands.
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Recently there was a BBC4 prog on clog dancing (culminating in a flashmob dance in Newcastle) in which clog making was shown. I think the maker is now based in Wales having relocated from the Midlands in the 80s when industrial demand dropped dramatically but although still producing industrial clogs most of the output is for dancing. Iplayer would give more details if required.
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Criccieth.....Ask Pug to have a ride over and get you some !
Ted
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The house that I grew up in didn't have central heating. However, by way of compensation, it did have a view over the Mediterranean - at least if you went up on the roof. It could get pretty cold in the winter - at least it felt cold to me. I remember looking at the thermometer on the bedroom wall one winter day and seeing that it was down to 13 (Celsius). For heat we had a SuperSer style gas heater, and a couple of paraffin heaters. We had a few rugs on the tiled floors, but not carpets.
The house (OK, apartment) (which was probably built around 1960) had two indoor bathrooms. One had a tub, sink, WC, and bidet. I never figured out what the purpose of the latter was. The other had a WC, a water heater, and a shower-head fixed in the ceiling in the middle of the room. It also had a drain hole in the floor - i.e. it was basically a wet room. It had a light switch in the corner (not a cord) which gave me my earliest experience of electric shocks.
It had two bedrooms - a very good ratio of bathrooms to bedrooms - which, in the end meant one for my sisters, and one for my parents, with me sleeping in the dining room. Mind you, it wasn't unknown for us to sleep on the roof in summer.
Then we moved to a cloudy, cold, and wet archipelago off the west coast of Europe, and I've more or less been there ever since.
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My grandfather grew up in a large house with a dozen bedrooms and servants to do all the work.
My father grew up in a smaller version with only one live-in cook/housekeeper.
I grew up in a 30s detached house with a coal boiler in the kitchen, and open fires in the dining and sitting rooms. No heating upstairs. No servants.
Now I live in a farmhouse with a kitchen range and open fires downstairs. This morning the stove had gone out and it was 49 degrees in the kitchen. After lighting it we soon got the temperature up to a toasty 55. There are fantastic fern patterns in the ice inside the bathroom windows.
The hill outside is still a lethal sheet of ice, so no point in chancing it to work even in the LandRover.
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...servants...one servant...no servants...
The decline in the availability of cheap domestic labour between the wars was the beginning of the end for this country.
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That's what my father used to say. Although he had a good life with a good job and plenty of money, he always said all the better things in life stopped with the war.
We all groaned when he began a sentence "In 1938 ..."
Mostly he measured progress in terms of the decline in comfort of the railways. His grandfather ordered a special carriage for his household when he went on holiday, hooked onto a scheduled train. His father took them on continental holidays beginning with the pullman wagon-lit at Victoria, and then by boat train to anywhere in Europe.
Now you have to fight for standing room in a cattle truck full of vomiting yobs.
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I'm assuming that you work in Fahrenheit, Cliff.
;-)
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Fahrenheit indoors - 50s = b cold, 60s = reasonable, 70s = hot
Centigrade outdoors, max and min thermometer. Two nights ago down to -12, this morning a comfortable -8.
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It doesn't look good for your children Cliff. :-)
John
Last edited by: Tooslow on Fri 24 Dec 10 at 10:51
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Life when I was young - R.P.
