Things you thought were normal if you grew up working class

[Anycrispsleft]

Inspired by that "thought it was posh, turns out it wasn't" thread, I wondered if anyone else remembers stuff from a working class childhood that you thought everyone did and actually no it was just us?

Mine is playing with stray dogs. I was an adult before I realised that approaching strange dogs is meant to be dangerous. In my estate there were two strays (and one owned dog that would escape his garden) and they would chum along with us when we were out playing. We'd feed them crisps. (Luckily for the dogs I think we figured that crisps were more appropriate food for dogs than chocolate, as they were more salty and a bit like meat.) It would never have occurred to us not to befriend any other creature of the street. There was precious little else to do, why wouldn't we add a dog or two into the pack?

I remember drinking wine out of mugs in the back garden and thinking it was posh because we had wine not just beer. Knee length skirts were posh because all the chavs wore micro mini skirts, even for school. Flowers came from the garden, you were posh if you could afford to buy them from the shop. If you went on a weeks holiday to Tenerife you were posh because most people went to Blackpool. Although to me it seemed posh if you went to Blackpool because we had no holiday at all!

Oh Lordy no, I was terrified of the stray dogs!

They weren't stray as such, they lived nearby but would be chucked out to roam for the day. That in the 70s/80s though so probably more usual then I guess.

Tinned salmon 🙂

That is, I thought tinned salmon was posh

Bread and sugar (though it was butter not marge)

Spam

Margarine. I thought butter was only for cakes (not that we ever made any) and couldn't fathom why there was so much of it in the shops. It was only when I went to university that I realised most people use butter all the time!

Sharing a room
Playing outside in the street with other kids from the estate
Sharing bath water
Having a shower that was a rubber tube connected to a tap

@MarisPiper92

Margarine. I thought butter was only for cakes (not that we ever made any) and couldn't fathom why there was so much of it in the shops. It was only when I went to university that I realised most people use butter all the time!

We never had butter! The very rare baking was even done with margarine. My Nan always had butter and I remember thinking it must have been something from the war 🤔 (I was a confused child).

We had a version of potato with every evening meal (called tea obviously). Such an unvaried diet.

I thought everyone's dad went to the pub straight from work and came home pished every night.

Sharing a room with siblings.

Getting sent to the shop with a note for 10 Benson + Hedges for your mum.

Getting one present at Christmas

Getting up in the morning and emptying the water from your hot water bottle into the sink and having a wash with it. My Nan taught us how to do this, no idea why.

Bread and dripping.

Having to put 50p coins into the electric meter and the TV.

Keeping 50p’s to put in the meter.
Sharing a bedroom with my brother. I never had my own room until I left home.
Black & white TV because we couldn’t afford colour.
Putting on the Immersion heater if you wanted a bath.
Using the phone box at the top of the street because we didn’t have one.
Everybody smoked.
Not having a car, and thinking anyone who did have one was posh.
Drinking wine once a year, on Christmas Day.
Meals were breakfast, dinner & tea. Supper meant a snack before bed.
Radio was strictly pop music only. We didn’t know R3 or R4 existed.

Having jam with Yorkshire puddings for afters.

Saving up change in a jar, tipping it all out and counting it, to pay for holidays (week in a caravan in Cornwall, on a camping site)

Having potatoes of some form.at every meal. And buying a big sack of potatoes, for the week for the family of 6.

Everyone smoking, across all generations. I remember being told off when I was 11 for not having started yet. Classy lot, my family!

God yes
Maybe not working class
BIut, the FAGS. And ashtrays, we used to play with the ash 😬 and used to Iove cleaning the glass trays.

We used to play a game of Hide Behind The Couch (couch/ settee, definitely not sofa) if the doorbell rang on a Thursday night.
It was because my mum didn't have enough money to pay the milkman or the Co-op insurance man, so we had to hide behind the settee in case they looked through the front window and saw that we were in.

It was only when I was asking DH if his family did this too, and he looked incredulous, that I realised it wasn't normal.

I have photos of me and my siblings I was about 2 sitting on my dads knee and he has a fag in his mouth. My dad let us light a fag for him. It was all normal.🙈🙈

Social workers
Guvvie jobs
Sitting in with the kids from the year below because you couldn't afford to go on the school trip
Being able to see your breath when you woke up (until we got double glazing, that was a happy day!)
Knowing or being related to every kind of tradesman under the sun and never having to pay more than mates rates
Mum working the twilight shift at Tesco then being up at 6am with my disabled sister
All the parents sitting out on the street with us kids during the long summers, them often having a few beers, whilst we played and all of us having a bloody great laugh

I don't really remember my paternal grandmother as she died when I was young but she grew up very poor and thought because her son and his wife (my parents) had office jobs they must be incredibly posh. If there was a buffet for any family event Nana always asked my dad to buy her a tin of pink salmon for sandwiches, she thought was terribly posh and dad was the one who could afford it.

Story pops into my head whenever I see it in the shops

Pop man, thought everybody had a pop man!

@ParkheadParadise

I have photos of me and my siblings I was about 2 sitting on my dads knee and he has a fag in his mouth. My dad let us light a fag for him. It was all normal.🙈🙈

Yep! And my dad blowing smoke rings to entertain us!

Going round all the houses on our estate asking for empty ginger bottles to take back to the shop.

Being told to come home when the street lights came on. We wandered everywhere my mum didn't have a clue where we were, or what we were up to.

An inside toilet ...

We didn't have one - we didn't have a bath either. We lived in a two up two down terraced house in Manchester. My best mate lived round the corner in a council house and they had TWO toilets and a bathroom ... and a drive... and a garden!!!!!!

Buying clothes off the shop lifters who would knock on to sell it.