TV reconstructions

[MKG]

Watching the latest crop of "how we did it in the distant past" TV proggies suddenly made me think that it's not all so distant. We didn't have a bathroom until I was six. Nor an inside loo until I was over 18. Central heating never warmed me until I was in my thirties. When I went to school, it was desk, face front, be quiet, talk and chalk methods. We got clipped round the ear by the local bobby and caned by teachers. Supermarkets hadn't been thought of before I was 12. We could play football on the street with very little risk of being run over by a car.

(... and we worked 36 hours a day darn t'pit. Tell that ter yooth o' today ...)

Admittedly, this was in the grimy and undeveloped north of England. But would I go back to all this charming simplicity? No chance

Mike

[Green Aura]

I certainly wouldn't want to go back to the outside loo! Sticking to the seat in winter because it was so cold Dad wouldn't entertain the notion of an inside toilet, unhygienic - the arrival of my stepmother (aka my mother ) soon put paid to that!

It never occurred to me that we didn't have central heating just a coal fire in the living room and a big 5 bar electric fire (which must have cost a fortune to run!) in the sitting room. Hot water bottles were replaced by electric blankets when I was quite small. You didn't hang about round the hall and stairs though - it was a bit parky there - no heating at all. Oh and a tiny one bar wall heater in the bathroom - baths were not leisurely soaks. But as we didn't know any different it wasn't a problem - I don't remember ever being really cold.

The only thing I would wish for is that every games console in the world would evaporate into the ether and allow kids to play using their imagination. If they're still capable of that. I know it's not all children but I fear it's far too high a percentage!

[spider8]

I remember being about 4 years old and living in a cottage in Lancashire that only had a fire to cook on AND it was the only source of heat AND we had our weekly bath in front of the fire in a tin bath AND the 'water closet' was across the yard........can you imagine some of the kids of today living like that no, I wouldn't want to go back to that either, I'm way too soft! For those of you who do have little in the way of creature comforts I you.

[oldfella]

I lived in Dorset, but your description, of your ealy years are a mirrow image of my childhood, except that I was 4 in 1939, and our WC was about 25 metres up the garden and a two seater,no less.

[Green Aura]

We must have been quite posh - our outside toilet was part of the house!

[pelmetman]

I too lived in Dorset Eddy. We lived in a huge Old Rectory with high ceilings and draughty windows but can never actually remember being cold. There was no central heating but we had a fire in the lounge and I recall an old wall mounted electric fire in my room, can't imagine health & safety would allow that these days We had lovely shutters that were closed in the evenings to help keep warm. I think perhaps we were lucky in that we always had indoor bathrooms (I was born early 50's). I can see my Mum now on wash day with an old boiler she had, the whole kitchen would fill with steam, it seemed to take all day.

We walked to school winter and summer across fields and I had to walk through the graveyard which used to terrify me when it was dark.

I can remember only too well getting the cane at school on my hand for sniffing, (not using my hankie).

How times have changed some for the better some not.

Sue

[Millymollymandy]

I've never had to use an outside loo thank goodness, what on earth did you do when you needed to get up in the night? Or did you use a potty?

But I well remember getting dressed for school inside my bed and having a weekly bath at my grandparents' house. Thankfully that was only for a few years before we moved into a house with a proper bathroom! Except I had lino on my bedroom floor and was always really embarassed because all my friends had carpet (and colour TV) whereas we couldn't afford all that modern stuff.

I wanted to watch all this Edwardian stuff on the telly at the moment because I thought it would be interesting to see something from my grandparents time - people who I actually KNEW who lived through this era.

[oldjerry]

But we were 'appy even though we were poor........Gordon Bennet , anybody live up a tree ??

[Big Al]

Watching the latest crop of "how we did it in the distant past" TV proggies suddenly made me think that it's not all so distant. We didn't have a bathroom until I was six. Nor an inside loo until I was over 18. Central heating never warmed me until I was in my thirties. When I went to school, it was desk, face front, be quiet, talk and chalk methods. We got clipped round the ear by the local bobby and caned by teachers. Supermarkets hadn't been thought of before I was 12. We could play football on the street with very little risk of being run over by a car.

(... and we worked 36 hours a day darn t'pit. Tell that ter yooth o' today ...)

Admittedly, this was in the grimy and undeveloped north of England. But would I go back to all this charming simplicity? No chance

Mike

1984.... all of that above for me except I'd been working for 6 years by then and thinknig about it now I would go back to that more simplistic way of life without hesitation.

[Odsox]

Watching the latest crop of "how we did it in the distant past" TV proggies suddenly made me think that it's not all so distant. We didn't have a bathroom until I was six. Nor an inside loo until I was over 18. Central heating never warmed me until I was in my thirties. When I went to school, it was desk, face front, be quiet, talk and chalk methods. We got clipped round the ear by the local bobby and caned by teachers. Supermarkets hadn't been thought of before I was 12. We could play football on the street with very little risk of being run over by a car.

Yep, me too.
Except we didn't have electricity until I was 11, we had a battery radio with an accumulator and a man came round once a week to swap it for a charged up one. A Kitchener range always alight in the kitchen and a large Aladdin oil lamp hanging in the living room that had to be lit half an hour before you needed it, otherwise it sooted up the mantle.
Our outside loo was the door next to the back door, so only a step away, but it was far enough on a dark windy winter night when it blew the candle out.
School desks with inkwells and scratchy nibbed pens, with inkblots everywhere and inky fingers, and inky pigtails on the girl at the desk in front of you.
Frost ferns on the windows in winter and long hot summers (selective memory)

Nice to look back on with rose tinted nostalgia.

[oldjerry]

We must have been quite posh - our outside toilet was part of the house!

Oh Yeah?...........Well OUR house was part of an outside toilet!

[Millymollymandy]

Frost ferns on the windows in winter and long hot summers (selective memory)

I remember that too! Maybe it was just school hols but when I was a kid/teenager (a few years after you Tony ) summers were always great and we were always out riding or swimming or just OUT.

[Green Aura]

[quote="oldjerry"]OUR house was part of an outside toilet![/quote

Did you lick t'streets clean?

[grahamhobbs]

Us kids always spent our hoildays with our gran. The toilet was a bucket in an outside loo, this was emptied once a week by the council, so by the end of the week with all us kids it had filled up periuosly close to the top. Oddfella, we would have loved one with two seats/buckets.

They had no electricity, washed in rainwater, cooked in coal fired cast iron range, boiled clothes in a copper, saved pennies in different jam jars to pay bills and peoples birthday presents. Front door always unlocked with money inside for the milkman to take. Candles to go to bed with, potty under the bed.

It was like this until the end of the sixties and I loved that house, so quiet (just the ticking of the clock and hiss of the gas lamp) and peaceful.

[oldjerry]

OUR house was part of an outside toilet![/quote

Did you lick t'streets clean?

Aye, Obediah!