To wonder how people in ww2 paid their rent and mortgages?

[heateallthebuns]

It's not really aibu, but chat isn't working for me this morning.

If a man was conscripted and was a soldier in the war. Did he get paid? Was it enough to cover rent / mortgage?

I guess single people just gave up their rented houses? What about families?

Single people? There were no single people living alone. People lived at home until they married, unless they were wealthy and then they didn't need to worry about money as hey got a stipend from parents.

I obviously spend too much time on MN as I read this as asking how people in their 2ww paid rent/mortgage...

This is so interesting to read. I love the idea of "Make do and mend". The shops today are full of cheaply made throwaway items, poorly manufactured and relatively expensive. Nothing's meant to last! I remember my Nanna (I'm 55; my Mum born in 1940) being astonished by how many times we showered and washed our hair 😐 How many pairs of shoes we had as teenagers (my sister and I). I guess back then, bathing in the tin tub was a once a week thing and you didn't have a full set of clean clothing every day. My nanna was born in 1898 though so, as a working class child from a poor background in Manchester, she'd have had one outfit for special occasions and the rest, worn and passed down to her siblings. Many clothing items home sewn or knitted too.

"My mum was a single unmarried mother in the 1960's "

My mum's bio mother was a single unmarried mother in the 1940s. It was rare, but it happened.

user it's interesting that you mention that 'between the wars' there was abject poverty, because lots of historians believe that there was no 'inter-war period' and that WWI segued straight into into WWII.

Oh yes, definitely single mum's. My mum had two children (my sister and me 1961 and 1962) and my dad was married to someone else. Totally scandalous. They later married, in 1965.

'If you were i the merchant navy and were torpedoed and lost your ship, you didn't get paid until you were crewing on a new ship! shock'

In fact sailors in the Merchant Navy had their pay ceased as soon as they left the ship and this included when they abandoned ship. Just rubs salt into the wounds - your ship gets hit by the Hun and not only are you left bobbing around in the oggin but you're not even being paid for it

My great grandfather was the right age during the war but was deemed too short! I forget how tall he wasn't but it was near 5 foot. Instead he worked as a butcher which was a protected job anyway, he may not have been allowed to fight because of his profession.

On the topic of evacuees my Granny was a child in hospital when the order to evacuate was made. She was strapped to a bed, chucked on a train and evacuated and my great grandmother wasn't told until she was gone. Cause upset in the family until they both died. Was really sad.

One last thing, visited Chiselthurst caves this summer with the children. They were the largest air raid shelter in the country. The folks there lived underground, there was a hospital, a shop, a consecrated church and the very first CAB office to help people who had lost their homes etc in bombings.

Thank you for this thread, really, really interesting.

Just rubs salt into the wounds - your ship gets hit by the Hun and not only are you left bobbing around in the oggin but you're not even being paid for it

I can just see the AIBU now.

What if you were reported missing? Did your family get money?
Did POWs get paid - and how did that money get back home?

I know that soldiers had to get life insurance.

There were plenty of unmarried women after the First World War - the 'surplus one million' whose potential husbands had died. There would be a point at which they no longer had parents to live with, so plenty of single women living in a room in boarding houses.

If you owned a house and it got damaged or destroyed, could you claim on your insurance

I wouldn't have thought so. In fact, if you look at your household insurance policy (or car for that matter) you'll probably find that it excludes acts or war and terrorism, which is obviously very worrying.

But almost no-one from the working and probably most of the middle classes owned houses or cars in those days anyway.

Which begs the question, who owned all the houses that people rented? Councils? Rich people? Companies?

But then I remember that DMs house was built in the 1930s and when we moved in, in the 1970s, the couple next door had bought it new and they would have been a young married couple at the time. It cost £450 .

They seemed like an ordinary retired couple from what I remember, not well to do, and the old man was a scruffy and grumpy old bastard. I wonder where they got the money from? Or maybe there was a degree of home ownership?

My grandfather was veryunusual in that he bought a terraced house - they sell for about £60k nowadays in the NE ( so you can imagine it was not much of a palace) but it meant when he died my grandmother could rent the first floor and she lived on the ground floor which helped financially (it was tiny).

The Victorians who took a census every 10 years left some fascinating information. I hope we always keep the every 10 year UK census as it will be so useful in the future. There was talk of abolishing it.

That shows in my family it was common to rent and also to have 2 lodgers as well as your family at home and adult children not yet married. One ancestor whose mother was born in in 1781 with him when he left Ireland for England and she lived with him and his wife until she died and presumably helped with the children.

In the 1901 census my grandfather (who had my father at age 49 by the way which is why the generations go back quite far) was living in a boarding house with 26 other young men in bunk beds in Newcastle.

'I love the idea of "Make do and mend".'

Remember women back then made their sanitary protection from old sheets, cut up and folded then pinned in place, then rinsed and boiled clean afterwards for next time.

My Mum was born to a single mum in 1933. Her mum managed to keep her and got married to another man a year later.
Someone mentioned only having 7 outfits. My mum said we had 3 outfits when we were little - one for wearing, one in the wash, and one for drying.
My mum lived in the countryside, her dad was away in the army and her mum travelled to work in the nearest munitions factory. I think my mum lived with her nan for a while.
Those were her memories of the war, that and being very frugal, skills which she passed down to me. I can still make very cheap meals and mend clothes.

My father was born in 1933 and lived in London, they lived on the top floor of a small terrace with no inside toilet and a time bath. They used to go to the communal baths once a week too.
Grandad was killed in the war and dad said that grandma had to marry almost straight away, to a pal of grandads. I guess as a woman with 2 kids, not working you had to marry for security. I don't think she loved him though and was heartbroken having lost her true love.

Dad also got evacuated and said it was horrific, he soiled himself and they made him stand outside in the yard with his dirty clothes on till they were dry and wouldn't wash them for him as a punishment. He was only 7 😢

Grandma came and took them back, said she would rather have them in London in danger than be unhappy.

They rented their flat...and my uncle still rents it! Since 1943!! it just didn't enter her head to buy it. No one in her family owned a house.
And my dad lived in lodgings too, shared a bedsit with another couple when he was engaged and then bought a small cottage when he got married in the 60s!

I wish he would write all these stories down, there are so many and they're so fascinating

It really was a different world.

Tin bath!

If your house was bombed you did get compensation from the Government via the War Damage Commission. Usually they just arranged repairs/rebuilt the houses (these were often what we now refer to as Pre Fabs).

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Damage_Commission

This Article talks about crime in WWII and describes one man who claimed to have been bombed out of his home 19 times in a 3 month period, getting £500 compensation each time!

Sorry, forgot the link! Here: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-33566789

Have you been bombed out of your house and it wasn't your fault?
Was your ship sunk and you weren't paid?

Contact warclaimsRus and we'll get you the money you deserve!

I remember saying this on another thread, but to those of us who are older, the memory of the 'war' seemed very real, and not just part of history. I was born in 1960 and all the adults remembered living through it and referred to it frequently. I suppose their parents talked about the first world war in the same way.
Looking back on it, it must have been very traumatic and stressful for the nation as a whole, and obviously even more so for Europeans.

Very traumatic time.
It shaped my fathers whole life and not for the better.
When he lost his father he starting behaving very badly and was expelled from school. Had a scholarship to go to one of the best schools in the country, which he lost.

He was abused by several people, because there was no such thing as safeguarding

He was an extremely clever child from an extremely poor working class background and there just wasn't any support

Finally did a degree in his 50s!! Became a world specialist in his field!

Imagine if they'd have had counselling, life would have been very different for him.

I grew up in middle class 1970s NZ when make do and mend was still popular. Clothes, toys, cars, plastic bags and everything else were all used carefully and until they were absolutely knackered. Cars were repaired endlessly and driven until they rusted apart. Food was consumed carefully: plenty of the cheap carbs, much less of the more expensive stuff.

Nice to look back on but it didn't feel quite so quaint at the time, and it didn't make people any nicer either.

Weren't there strict penalties for looting?

All that bomb damage. You can see people taking advantage of that.