Did anyone grow up in the 50's? (and 30's and 40's if you are on here!)

Just remembered that there was a girl who joined our school late 1950s. She wore callipers and we were all desperate to be friends with her. Bear in mind this was when poliomyelitis was a real threat still. I remember going to her party and we all tried on the callipers. We all wanted them.
I remember children at school covered in Gentian Violet as a treatment for impetigo.

I could usually make my Dad laugh, so it was pointless him giving me a telling off. Mind you, my two older brothers were really bad, so I was saintly in comparison!

My father had spent the whole war on active service, BEF, Dunkirk, the liberation of Sicily etc, etc. He just wanted peace and calm in his life and he could never tell my sister or I off no matter how naughty we were.

My mum had to be the strict one, but my sister and I grew up in a home filled with love. We have both tried to provide the same sort of loving childhood for our own children.

LOL Chottie!

I can remember sex education at school, I went to a convent too, and the sex education books were written by a nun. We were read the one about girls, but deemed not ready for the one about boys......

Yes, far harsher than I ever was with my DCs. I was scared of my Dad.

I'm another child of the 50s.

My mother had a long difficult hospital birth with me and the next day the doctor came to see her and said that she would probably have a prolapse in later life (!). My mum decided to have my sister at home. My aunt and young cousin and I were in the house when she went into labour. When I heard the baby cry, I was the first one in the room and saw my sister before my mother :) The midwife left the afterbirth wrapped up in newspaper for my father to burn on the bonfire when he got home from work. The midwife did her rounds on a bicycle and would pop in to see my mum when she was passing.

I agree with all the comments about dentists, I had a tooth out at about 10 too, I can remember sitting in the dentist's chair with tears of pain running down my cheeks and being told not to make a fuss.......

Yes, I had weeks off for whooping cough!

Before my periods started Mum sent off for a free booklet from (I think?) Kotex, which explained about periods. I don't recall being told about sex. Some girls at secondary school told me and I was quite shocked! Mind you , we were taught by nuns so there was no information in lessons.

I am a seventies child but think my Mum thought we should have exactly the same childhood she did because the fifties childhood you are all describing are exactly the same as mine in the early seventies. No central heating, ice on the windows, black and white TV etc, home made clothes and jumpers etc, ice cream a big treat when we having a day out at the seaside. We lived in forces married quarters accommodation that had clearly been the same for decades no modernisation. I suppose the fifties were only 12 years previously. This is a very interesting thread.

Brings back a lot of memories for me,too. I was born in the 50’s in London, and I remember the last of the awful smogs that killed people before the Clean Air Act made people switch to smokeless fuel for their coal fires.
At my primary school, at home time, we all had to put our scarves over our nose and mouth to breathe through, then form a line holding onto the coat of the kid in front.
The teacher would lead us up the street, feeling the wall, and counting the gateways of houses, then post each child down the path of their house as we reached it. You couldn’t see two inches in front of your face - the fog was thick and yellow with sulphur from the coal smoke. My father had to walk 12 miles home from work as no buses were running.
We had vaccinations for diphtheria, polio, tetanus, whooping cough and smallpox (yes, there really was still smallpox! I had to be immunised at 5, as there had been a case in London and a resultant scare about possible spread), but there was nothing for measles, mumps, rubella or chicken pox, so I suffered all of them, as did most of my friends. It was grim, and meant a couple of weeks off school for each illness as you were in quarantine.
Houses were freezing, damp and draughty, only the living room was heated. There was only hot water for a bath once a week. Clothes were boiled in a gas fired copper, put through a mangle and pegged on a line - it took all day every Monday to do the washing.
I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to it - it seems like the Dark Ages, looking back now!

I was never told the facts of life either. Big failure on my Mum's part as my knowledge came about from losing my virginity in not pleasant circs.

I wasn't told about periods either.

I remember her going all red in the face making circles on my tummy with her finger and saying 'you might have a visitor'. I didn't have a clue what she was on about. When I had my first period at 10yo, I thought I was actually dying.

Appalling really....

One of my worst memories was being in hospital frequently and never having visitors. When I was nine I was in a bed opposite an isolation ward. It had a large glass window and in the cot was a baby about a year with burns all across it back and down its legs. They were scabbed over with big yellow scabs and it was tied by the arms to the cot on its front. I had nightmares about that for years.

Bare legs in winter, and the rubbing if your socks weren't long enough to wear with wellies...

I was born in 1948. My parents were factory workers and shop workers. Unusually for that time my mother worked full time. She was able to do this because NaN lived with us. She was a bit of a dragon as she had already raised 11 kids and really did not want the bother of another 2 at 70.

When she died we were left on our own from ages 8 and 10. We did chores, lit the fire , cooked our own meals. At 8 I was cooking chips in a big saucepan of lard. We went for miles on our own. I was once sexually assaulted in a park, but I was terrified to tell my mother.

I did not know what was happening really as we were never told the facts of life. I was in late teens before I knew anything about sex. I married in 1969 and married life came as a bit of a shock. Fortunately my DH was lovely and very patient.

School teachers were absolute dragons and I hated each one of them.

Not rtfs so,apologies if some of these have been mentioned.

I remember the excitement of getting our first fridge! And no supermarkets round our way - parent and I used to go to grocer, ahe’d Order everything and then it would be delivered. The bacon was sliced on a fancy slicer.

Going to the dentist as a small child for extractions. No anaesthetic for injections but a rubbery smelling mask placed over the head. Terrifying.

Stockings with suspenders belts nd seams that were never straight.

Walking 2 miles home from school at the age of 5.

Tiny television set.

No car radios so when Dad,drove me home from school I listened to a clunky tape recorder. Oh, and gramophones with shiny black records. friend’s house had one where you had to keep replacing the needle.

Typewriters.

Ladybird clothes

Dad, a senior local government officer, working on Saturday mornings.

Yes, I was a Brownie, a sixer of the Gnomes! On bob-a-job week we would knock on the doors of strangers and go in to do jobs for them...no one would dream of sending small boys and girls to do that now.

I remember too to this day the smell of the rubber dentists mask when a tooth was pulled using gas, awful.

People often had allotments growing all sorts and most gardens had a fruit tree and bushes...apples, gooseberries, plums, blackcurrants. They would be bottled for the winter and apples stored under the bed where it was certain to be cold.

A meat safe was in the pantry. A box with a metal mesh door to keep flies away, on a marble base. Fresh milk was kept in a bucket of cold water in the summer to stop it going off...hopefully.

Our class at school had 50 pupils in it. Our teacher was great, such interesting lessons and school trips. We all had to write in italic writing with Osmiroid fountain pens. We took the 11 plus without any panic or preparation...and all of us [bar one] passed for grammar schools! It was an amazing achievement for our teacher and school. The one who 'failed' actually didn't fail at all...he went on to become a widely respected teacher at a secondary school.

I was caned a couple of times, but didn't stress about it. At home I got 'clips round the ear' but again it seemed normal at the time as I was maybe a bit cheeky and got into scrapes trying to be like one of the boys.

I used to get 2-4 books a day from the library and read them in a day sometimes. The librarians knew me well. Famous Five, Secret Seven, Jennings and Darbyshire, Billy Bunter, Topsy Twins, Bobby Brewster, and all of the William books. There were also piles of comics to read too...Beano, Dandy, Bunty... Happy days.

Oh this has brought back memories!
Fruit salad sweets, 4 for a penny (one old pence).
Walking to and from school on my own from age 5.
No central heating, ice inside the windows in the winter. Wearing bedsocks and mittens in bed, it was so cold. Chilblains every winter.
Food was what was in season. No frozen stuff - few people had a refrigerator let alone a proper freezer.
The nearest we got to having a takeaway was fish and chips maybe twice a year.
Using public phone boxes and having to put more money in when the pips went or you were cut off.
Our primary school had outside toilets with the high cisterns. Anyone who didn't pay attention in class would have the blackboard rubber thrown at them. We had no prior warning of the 11 plus or practice for it and were just told one day we were sitting it that day.
In the holidays, we left home in the morning and roamed, returning for meals/bedtime.
No-one dared say they were bored as they'd quickly be found a task to do!
We were thin, fit, and self sufficient.

Yep!

Indeed! My e-reader is my friend!

Roussette now it's So many books, so little time!

place marking as i love these threads

I was also traumatised by the dentist! Only taken if in pain. but also aesthetics weren't of concern in our family. I had an accident and bashed my front teeth out of place, but it never occurred to my Mum to take me to a dentist to have them braced. There was quite a fatalistic attitude, it was oh, what a shame your teeth are chipped and crooked now. DH living in a nearby but different world had braces as a matter of course. And a daily bath! Posh ;-)

We always had a phone too. And I do remember that when you picked it up an operator would come on and say 'Number Please?' and the phone numbers were just the name of the Exchange and 3 digits.

I remember when it went up to 4 digits, but still just the name of the place you lived.

I find that mind blowing. So few people had phones the places could cope with 3 digits.

We had a party line we shared with a neighbour. You could listen in to their conversations and if you wanted to make a phone call you just kept tapping the receiver rest.
You also got a lot of crossed lines.

I spent a lot of time listening in to people's conversations. I was a peculiar child.

I also remember the boredom and watching flies crawling on the window for something to do, when I'd run out of books. I swear that's why I'm happy in my own company, I learnt to be self sufficient!

I'm with you Roussette about dentists! I was taken regularly as a child, but have had all sorts of dental issues, probably because I was so scared I stopped going in my teens then paid for it as a grown up.

I was born soon after WWII in Scotland, we lived in a privately rented flat, with an indoor bathroom, just me and my parents. I can remember children at school having to share toilets on the landings outside their flats, and having to wash at the kitchen sink. I was the only child in the block, several 'old' ladies would give me treats at Christmas and Easter. (They were probably younger than I am now!) My mother sewed and knitted all the time! School could be harsh, some teachers loved corporal punishment, the belt (or tawse) was used regularly by at least one sadist I came across. My granny and other family members lived nearby, and my mum didn't work until my dad died when I was a teenager. He'd been in the army all through WWII, and his health wasn't great afterwards. Trying to find work in her fifties was difficult for my mother but she went cleaning, and then became a housekeeper. She was an excellent cook and baker.

My experience was a bit different from the majority who have posted - we always had a phone! However, it was rarely used, as hardly anyone else did. It was installed so my dad's employers could get hold of him if there was an emergency. He came home at dinner time (lunch time now) every day, and I did most days - staying for school dinners was a treat for me. We didn't get a TV til 1960, but I loved the radio back then. I played out in the streets round about, or in the local park from a fairly young age. I'd walk to school and my gran's from about 6 on my own.

We had two weeks holiday every year, all the mills and factories closed for the same two weeks. We went to a hotel in a small town in the North of Scotland, and met up with the same people every year. We never had a car.