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?

And YY to potatoes at every meal

And not knowing about Radio 4

I didn't actually realise 'til now that immersion heaters were a working class thing!

Frequently searching inside the sofa and other crevices for coins to put a couple of quid on the electric meter or buy some baccy, I thought every household did this! One of my favourite memories is searching for coins with my friends after school so we could top up the meter and watch deal or no deal on the tv.

I miss things like this, in my experience having money leads to much less togetherness.

Yes the pop man. Think ours was a brand called Corona 🤔 also used to get a veg man and fish mongers come round in their vans once a week to the estate. Remember my dad’s change jar used for holidays. My parents didn’t smoke, nor did any of our estate except one couple. My parents used to look down their noses at them. Chips for dinner every night made in my mums deep fat fryer which was disgusting and hardly ever got cleaned out. Being beaten and blamed for every tiny little thing, thought all kids had that.

Watered down milk
Jumble sale clothes
Going to the shop for my mum's cigarettes
Taking a bowl to the chip shop and ice cream can for them to fill
Using bath water for everyone
The pools man coming round
Pendelfrin rabbit ornaments everywhere!

50ps for the meter
Planning phone calls because we used the phone box down the road (I still remember the smell of phone boxes )
Walking everywhere becase we didn't have a car
Our holidays were a trip to see my mum's mate in London on the National Express
Kiddie discos at the Working Mens Club
My mum worked at a sweet shop and chippy and a pub, all within walking distance obvs, and I used to go to see her sometimes to see if I could cadge some sneaky 10p mixture / chips / Panda pops.

Bread and butter on the table at almost every meal to fill up on.

Going to the chop shop asking for batter bits or scraps as they were free and we couldn’t afford a bag of chips.

Having said that my best mate's dad was a miner during the worst of the strikes and we lived a life of luxury in comparison.

Same here about the neighbourhood dogs - they were rarely taken for walks (though one of us kids would occasionally ask for their lead to take them on one) but would just be let out of the house to roam around the street! They would hang out with us and one (lovely!) Rottweiler even used to sit in our hallway with our pet cats!

Front doors being left wide open in summer and sitting out on the "step" as we didn't have gardens.

Chips done in a deep-fat fryer with our dinner at least 5 nights a week.

Having a plastic shower hose attached to the bath to wash your hair (didn't have a proper shower) and having to put the Emersion heater on for an hour before you had a bath (which were once a week only - other days we just washed with a flannel)
Also having a bath in the living room in a tin bath up until the age of about 9 as it didn't need as much hot water as the big bath.

having barely any new clothes - all hand me downs.

Being freezing cold in the winter as the only fires were downstairs. We had electric bar fires in the bedrooms but were only allowed to switch them on for 10 minutes before we got out of bed! The windows were often iced up.

Black mould in the corners of rooms/condensation always on windows.

God, reading it back you'd think I was a child in the 50's but i was born in 1981!

Honestly? Green space!

Being sent to neighbours to 'borrows some spuds' because there was no food in the cupboards.

Random meal combinations of whatever food was in the cupboard.

Thinking you were posh if you ate pasta.

Making dens out of any rubbish you could find with the other estate kids.

Being left at home but locked out 'to play' during school holidays (because single mum couldn't afford child care while she worked) .. if there was an emergency had to knock on the door of a neighbour .. the old lady next door gave us a sandwich at lunch time.

All neighbours helping each other out and going in and out of each other's houses without knocking.

Raiding the 2p big whiskey bottle when mum wasn't looking to buy sweets!

Fighting with cousins over who was going to sit in the boot of the car (obvs the boot was the best place!)

Helping mum sort out her kit for the Tupperware and Princess House parties she would host in evenings to make extra money.

@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!

Do they? That's not something i've come across. I know it's been a year since we've been to anyone's house but I use spread and don't ever remember being surprised by finding everyone else uses butter and they didn't at my uni but maybe it's classed as a WC one

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

Yes! Not just clothes but all kinds of stuff.

Also buying from "the catalogue", (usually Kay's or Gus ) and the woman who ran it in our neighbourhood coming round to collect the money each week - and my mum telling us to hide as she didn't have any money on her!

Walking to the phone box on the corner to make a phone call.

Hanging out, smoking fags, in the phone box on the corner.

Drinking in pubs from the age of 14/15 cos it was the only place to go in an evening.

Keeping the grass verge in front of your house cut and neat... scruffy verges were in from it if scruffy peoples houses... it was a marker of showing self pride!

Surely these things WERE normal and didn't just seem so?

So many memories!

Yy to bread with every meal, the 2p whiskey jar and dens made out of rubbish.

Our estate was surrounded by a wall and people would chuck old doors/sofas etc over it. Us kids would nip round and promptly make a den. We'd all hope some bigger boys would come and make a fire so we could a sausage each from our mums and cook them in a bin lid. Christ that sounds bleak!

Putting a pound in the TV to get a couple of hours watch out of it
Outside toilets. Ours was in a concrete building in the backyard
Being kicked out of the house at 9am in the hols and not allowed back in until tea
Huddling round the open oven door for warmth because there wasn't enough money for the electric key
Paying board to my mum as soon as I had a weekend job at 14
Sharing bedrooms and clothes
And, the only one I miss really, all the kids and adults banding together, looking after each other, even if they weren't exactly friends

We certainly couldn’t afford butter, either. We had whatever margarine was on offer at the co-op that week. And it was the co-op or Kwik Save, they were the only two supermarket options in our town. If anyone wanted to shop at a posh supermarket like Sainsbury’s, they had to get the bus into Derby.

My grandfather was a fisherman. Mackerel, crab, soused herring, roe, lobster. All the same to me.

God yeah, hand down clothes! I used to feel really fancy when my mum let me order from the catalogue.

sharing a room.
playing 'out' with other DC - oldest ones were in charge.
Going in and out of each others houses and getting called home for dinner.
Babysitting (girls) or doing odd jobs (boys) from mid teens.
Having to turn the hot water on for a bath/shower.
Having OTT bows/ribbons put in your hair for gym/dance displays.

I had a really nice childhood, I think my DSs will miss out on a bit of independence/freedom/playing out tbh (although I'll probably let them play out on DMs road when they are a bit older).

@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 did that, exactly the same, did you grow up on my street in the late70s?

50p for the electric meter. If the electric went off we went to the window to see if it was a power cut or just us
Only 1 neighbour had a telephone and the whole street used their number for emergencies
Sharing bath water. Dad went last, manual job so the dirtiest

Coal fires. No other heating. Ice on the inside of the windows in winter