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?

We had:

Frozen orange juice
Green shield stamps
Immersion heater on very strict timer
Shared bathwater
Hand me down clothes
French skipping at school (we called it French elastic)
Findus Crispy pancakes for nearly every meal
Rented telly
Blankets to keep us warm in the back of the car if we went anywhere at night
Vol au vents on special occasions

All part of normal life during the 1970s for many people.

@tallbirduk you have just reminded me of Bernard Matthew’s turkey roast from farm foods on special occasions with a Sarah lee chocolate gateaux for afters.

Someone up thread has reminded me of the white glas mugs with red or blue patterns of flocks of flying birds from the petrol station. Anyone remember them?

My dad was a motor mechanic so we always had an (old held together with string and blu tak) car. There were 3 levels in our council scheme. The really poor with the kids that smelt and were scruffy; I had a little friend like that he was a sweet boy. Piece on just for his dinner, the neighbours were outraged and would feed him. I remember them getting. Second hand blazer for him starting school. No idea if it was one someone had or everyone pitched in to buy one.

Then there was us, bills always paid but money tight. And the richest people - the ones with colour TVs! The ice cream van man had a colour tv, we went to his house to watch the wedding of Charles and di in colour.

Piece on jam for dinner sorry

What made someone working class in the 80’s and not just poor?
What’s the difference between working class and poor esp in cities?
What if you were a minority immigrant so no concept of working class? Were you just poor then?
I find British class stuff so interesting.

My parents were Indian immigrants in the 70’s so I grew up on a london council estate in the 80’s. We were defo poor but my dad worked in a bank and my mum a housewife. Does that make us not working class then?
For immigrants there was no class. You either were successful and had money or you did not 🤷🏽‍♀️

Our first estate was littered with needles from drugs and a concrete park with 2 tyre swings and that was about it.

The second was better but still pretty rundown. My dad had lost his job by then and we’re on benefits so times were worse but we scraped by.
Culturally a lot of this stuff won’t apply but I have similar experiences of playing out all day, all shopping being done at the market including clothes, knock off stuff, only one pair of shoes,
But no hand me downs. We had stuff made in India and it would come over with the next plane of immigrant family member!
And we always had fresh food because it was Indian food so always veggies from the market and proper meat.

There are plenty of poor upper class people who have no money but born into aristocracy etc. I think there is definitely a difference between being poor and being working class. I'd say I grew up lower middle class, but we weren't well off. Hand me downs, jumble sales and market for clothes, toys etc very often.

To be honest, it sounds like a lot of people on here are just recounting rough estates rather than working class tells.

I remember making tree dens and dens in the woods at the back of our house. Italian toilet paper. I hated going to my granny’s because she had an outdoor toilet which was dark and full of spiders. I remember being called poshknock by other kids because I had a bicycle. My friends mum used to make her own pillows by filling a pillowcase with socks. The antimacasser cloths that were draped on the back of my granny’s chairs.

Yes to many of these things.

Working class meant you worked and had an income and could cover basic necessities and a bit more but things were tight.

People were frugal because they often didn’t have much put aside and one little knock such as job loss could drive people into poverty easily. So people worked hard to stay the right side of the line.

Frugality was for the working class. The working class made up the majority of the population. The things we read here make us think that all the working class were in poverty. Most of them weren’t, it the level of frugality required was more than many of us would feel happy with today. Frugality was the norm. People who had decent jobs and owned houses were still careful not to waste or spend more than was needed. Many of our parents grew up in poverty and in post war austerity and that made them careful even when they didn’t always need to be, just in case hard times came.

Today, I think what people consider the working class has shrunk. Many more consider themselves middle class and working class has somehow become the term of derision for an underclass of people who don’t actually work. But perhaps it includes those in unstable jobs and zero hour contracts which mean their fortunes vary wildly from doing okay one week to no income the next week. Somehow being working class seems worse now and is equated with poverty. Back in the 70s working class was respectable workers in steady jobs. Some rented but many also managed to buy houses. Today’s working class who lack qualifications and have access to low paid and low skilled work aren’t in a position to buy houses or have stability, even if they are frugal.

On one level things are better. Lots of families have more ‘stuff’ and we laugh at some of our memories on here about being frugal. But we also know lots use food banks, live in insecure housing and have little prospect of regular work. More children are growing up in poverty now than in the last 25 years. Whether they are working class or an underclass or just poor I don’t know. But a similar thread to this in 30 years won’t make cheerful reading.

When I think of my childhood I think about food! I was a slim child & I think my mum tried to cook healthily looking back.

My Mum used to cook lots of mince meals!! And we had peas with every meal.
Eg mince stewed with potatoes, mince with homemade chips, mince with baked beans.
It was either from the meat section or if they had less money it was tinned mince.

Also fish fingers with homemade chip butties yum.
Hot pot (stewed beef, lentils & potatoes, served on the second day with the chips).

Fish pie was frozen cod squares mixed with bacon, & tinned tomato topped with mash.
I actually thought fish were squares swimming in the sea when I was little!!

We often had proper puddings too like apple crumble & custard or semolina.
My mum never bought cakes, I remember her making a hedgehog cake for a birthday & leaving it to cool - then the cat ate it!

My dad trained as a mechanic so our car was always very old yet maintained beautifully... we had a 1967 car in 1987 for example! Then got a 'new' car - for 1977... it could be embarrassing.

We didn't ever go away on holiday let alone go abroad but we lived near the forest & beach so that was fine. We had good fun as a family.

@mummyj12 my mum still has Eternal Beau for Christmas and New Year she just paid stupid money for replacements last year online where items were broken in the dishwasher

We had Eternal Beau. We thought it was posh but it was available in Woolworths. Think we ha d a clock, a tray and a tablecloth as well as all that octagonal China.

As a child I thought it was beautiful, especially if a paper doily was put on it before serving Mr Kipling French Fancies instead of what Incondidered boring old home made cake.

Oh remembered something else....having the same advent calendar for over 10 years. We just closed the doors to the little pics and then re-used the next year. I could recite what the pics would be. Parents are still using the same Christmas decks too including concertina crepe paper bells and baubles and twisted garlands.

Not answering the door (it would be someone wanting a bill paid)
Going to bed with a candle when the money for the meter ran out
Tin bath & outside loo (born in 1968, no inside facilities 'til late 1970s)
2nd hand everything, clothes too small, no proper coat / wellies etc
Being cold
Sometimes being hungry too & diet very monotonous
The embarrassment of having to take anything into school / no money for school trips / sponsor forms etc

Feeling very stupid when I got my first job as a PA in London.
I could type /take shorthand but had never used a cafetiere, nor used loose tea in a pot, or been to any kind of restaurant. Suddenly I had to go into Jermyn Street tailors to choose and buy a spare shirt for my boss, get on planes like my parents got on buses and talk to people at cocktail parties. I didn't know about the FT. It was really difficult.

You were dead posh if you had a fish or pie from the chippy.
Also anything from Sainsbury's was posh & m&s was for the wealthy!

I didn’t grow up working class as such, but some of these are still familiar..
Hair washed with a jug over the sink (I’m pretty sure my mum still does this, and thinks I’m weird for washing mine in the shower!)
Haircuts from a lady who came to the house, instead of going to a proper salon.
Fish paste sandwiches.
Boil in the bag fish in butter sauce.
Buying clothes on the market (and trying them on behind a few bits of cardboard!)
TV rented from radio rentals.. I think we finally bought one when I was about ten. One of my friends had the one where you had to put a £1 coin in to watch for a couple of hours.
Mum didn’t drive (hardly any women did) and dad needed the car for work anyway, so we walked everywhere, or got the bus.
I was never allowed to “play out” though.. just in the gardens with neighbours, or having a friend over for tea.
This was 80’s, so not a million years ago.

Love this thread
Corona man
Playing out
Local flasher
The kids on the estate who got an ice cream every night
‘Jumping in the bath’ after someone else
Pippa Dee /Tupperware parties
Catalogue clothes
Stray dogs or free range dogs just doing their thing
Insurance man every Thursday night
Purple windolene

@WombatChocolate I remember every Christmas in the 80s the old paper chains, tinsel & various shiny garlands would come out... mixing it up were decorations made at school, my Mums childhood 60s Angel with an actual beehive hairdo on top on the tree (I found it recently!) & my great grans 1920s glass baubles & figurines that we didn't really appreciate.
Our cat (crazy RSPCA rescue tabby ) would then go mad & knock off several decorations, usually smashing at least one 20s bauble sadly.

(I remember going to the RSPCA aged 5 & getting our cat, the first thing she did was to sit on my lap at home. I was so excited.
My teacher Mrs Spirit gave me a pink saucer for her milk... this was back in the day when you actually gave them cows milk to drink.)

Every Christmas Eve was the same, we went to a party at my Auntie & Uncle's magical thatch cottage & my Auntie would put out all her German & Austrian mechanical miniature fairground toys for the children to look at.
My Uncle was a good Electrician so they were more well off but he had a temper (he served time in the 80s for GBH) and was quite demanding of my Auntie (especially to wind up my Mum who was into Women's Rights).
But my Uncle was genuinely good to all his family, he sadly died a year ago aged 73.

Backing your school books, you could see who had money. Poor kids used Hintons plastic carrier bag or wood chip paper. Those who were better off had nice wallpaper especially the kind that had velour pattern which I can't remember the name of. Oh and a homemade drawstring bag for your plimsolls.

90s. We weren't on the breadline but dad was made redundant and then in crap jobs. Mum was SAHM and very fugual. Looking back I was poorer than my classmates but not the worst off by any means and lived in a nice area.

House was tiny compared to friends and not decorated ever often. All the furniture expect mattresses being secondhand.

Hand me down clothes or clothes from the charity shop or jumble sale. Occasionally ones on sale or from very cheap stores (QA?) or the market. (I actually love shopping in charity shops as an adult!)

Toys from the car boot sale, charity shop or from neighbours. Did get new stuff at Xmas/birthdays.

Walking and getting the bus everywhere as only Dad could drive.

Dad collecting cigarette packet tokens from the floor to buy Xmas gifts from Argos.

Having banger cars and being embarrassed if being picked up from school.

Packed lunches for every day out, but did go on lots. Fish and chips a treat.

Very rarely went on holiday - maybe three in my entire childhood to the seaside. Biggest one being Cornwall when grandad died so we had a bit of inheritance. Lots of lovely memories but the hotel was grim.

Asking to not go to the school PGL trip so I might be able to go Spain the following year with school. I'd never been abroad and my parents didn't have passports.

Being so happy about getting a 'new' bike from a skip. There was rust.

Dad doing every, any and all household repair jobs.

We ate well, always had money for food and the house was warm. I always got good shoes (Nana had had hand my downs and her feet were in a terrible state).

I feel very lucky. Hearing as an adult how friends 'mums used to go without so they could eat as kids really shocked me. But I would see this a more poverty than simply just being WC.

Being the first in the family to go to university.

Collecting your dad from the betting shop, his tea was ready.
My fellas childhood
Loosies (one or two cigarettes) from the shop.
Newspaper on the kitchen floor, instead of linoleum.
Putting the light on before you dare step into the room ( roaches )

Constant curlers, covered with a headscarf

Keeping milk on the side and butter in the cupboard. Didn't have a fridge and it was never in the house long enough to go off.

Grew up in a village where everyone's Dad was a farm labourer. When I passed the 11+ (the first one in the family to even take it) I would ask the other girls 'Which farm does your Dad work on'? and got some very strange looks ! Our loo was a bucket job up the garden and Dad buried the contents once a week (great rhubarb!) They built 4 council houses in the village and we thought they were posh because they had bathrooms and flushing loos. Posh people used toilet rolls, not newspaper. The good old days?

Also I didn't realise bread went mouldy until I went to university because that was never in the house long enough to go off either.

Being first in family to go to uni

Single fags on sale in shop near school

Rummaging in the bashed tin box in supermarket to get a bargain

Pals mum cutting my hair as hairdresser too expensive

Never had wine until I went to uni. It just was not a thing.Unless you count Bucky...