To wonder if it was as bad as people say in the 70s?

[juicee2]

I am quite curious about it.

What caused the poverty? I thought the 80s were a poor decade - am I wrong?

'@EnthusiasmIsDisturbed

My mu was also a single parent weith no qualifications - she started night school in 1971 doing needlework - by 1986 she was an NQT

it was hard work but education was accessible to lone parents and free to those in receipt of benefits

ignore the typos - my laptop is being an ass

White dog poo and litter everywhere.

spam fritters

My teenage years were during the 1970s. I don’t think we lived in poverty but there was generally just less money about.
We would go out and make one drink last a long time. We would walk to save the bus fare. Meals out were rarer.

I went to college first then university

We didn’t know anyone who went to university (I was the first in my family) it just wouldn’t have been a consideration my mum couldn’t get any childcare support and the only work was cleaning cash in hand or working Sunday and in the evening at the local shop was all there was

Power cuts.
My dad losing his job and suffering from terrible depression as he could not keep his family.
Moving to a shitty damp council house.
Kids in my road not getting fed.
Getting smacked at school for pointing out a spelling mistake by the teacher on the board.
Our head master being a creepy old perve that everyone knew about but accepted it (he liked us girls to sit on his knee and tickled us)
Having an old chair tied in to the back of a van as my my car seat
Being loved by my parents

The main difference for me was there wasn't so much stuff. We're having to hugely cut back at the moment but if this was the 70s we wouldn't miss foreign holidays, frequent meals out, takeaway coffees, regular new clothes, posh wine, new phones etc as no-one had them.

It was simpler. People didn't feel they had to know and have an opinion on everything, so we were all more involved in what was going on around us....look how local news has pretty much disappeared...not enough people are interested (include myself in that..lazy)

I do wish my kids were growing up without so much technology and most things being available instantly. So much instant gratification and expectation now.

But agree with pp Sundays were bloody boring.

A

@Gwenhwyfar I was born in late 75 and spent all of the hot summer of 76 outside in my pram...... probably without sun cream and the fear of being stolen.

in winter one could make it snow inside by gently pulling the net curtains off the ice frozen on the inside of the windows. the frost made lovely patterns too.

bin men used to come into your back garden to fetch the bin, carried on their back and tipped in the lorry by hand.

we had freedom to roam even quite young.

what was shit was no seatbelts incar back seats, the seatbelts not being compulsary. the smoking, the powercuts which were scary if you were little. the water shortage in 76, but at least no standpipes where we were.

one did not miss what we did not have. no mobiles, no computers holidays a week at the english seaside was luxurious.

I was born in 1960. Some of the kids I went to school with used to pick potatoes before school for cash, and that was from the age of 10 or 11. I can remember one kid was killed on his way to work, he was run over by a lorry on a dark morning, he was 13. That's what I think of as poverty.
As a family, we were poorer in the 60's, we really lived hand to mouth, but my Mum went out to work full time in the 70's and things started to improve for us. Life was still pretty basic though, compared to today.

Also, benefit rates were pretty low (I think there's another thread on this subject) , and having to go on the dole was seen as a real tragedy. Sadly, we seem to be returning to this state.

I think there was a bigger divide between rich and poor in the 80s so it seemed more noticeable/obvious than the 70s.

I consider myself to have come from an ordinary/average family (in the 70s).

We had:
Camping holidays. Didn't go abroad until the 80s.
Basic ordinary food that was available from the local greengrocer/fishmonger/butcher with the small supermarket for things like frozen lollies/fish fingers/cat food.

Hand me down coats/bikes/clothes. Clothes were there to clothe you not fashion you except for very special occasion (Christmas and birthday). It was jumpers and jeans and nothing particularly nice coloured either, just season appropriate. So if it was cold you'd put on a (basic, knitted usually hand knitted) cardigan on top.

Presents were things like board games and felt tips and Girls World stylers and a Sindy doll (not a Sindy house, that was for more moneyed people).

Expectations were totally different. Whereas in the 80s with the advent of Yuppies (remember them?! Young Urban Professionals or something?!) that's when this glamorous, business suited and booted type look came in to play and it was more about being seen. Video recorders became more available in homes and home rental movie market meant you could see more of the world than what films were selected to be shown on BBC 1, 2, and ITV.

So I guess there might have been less disposable income but there was less to spend it on and far less expectation to have this, that and the other. And less knowing it was out there in the first place so there wasn't as much aspirational acquisition as there is now.

I'll let you into a secret. My Mam heard about the possible sugar shortage so went and filled our cupboards with it "Just in case". I was one of 5 kids and 4 of us and mum are now type 2 diabetic. Mmmm 🤔

Power cuts .... candles on saucers 😁

Smash potato and a Berni Inn

I do remember those of us who had free school meals had to queue up together from
The posh kids who didn’t. We had blue dinner tickets and the posh kids had green. Never teased though it was just the vile dinner ladies.

I remember I had a very posh friend whose dad was a hospital consultant and I went for tea. She had a massive 4 story house and a play room I was totally amazed. Her house was big enough to walk round and not to bump into any furniture, unlike ours

From that day I yearned for a big house. Mine isn’t bad now. Louise are you out there?

Paperdolly I remember being sent to the shop to buy a sneaky bag of sugar during the shortage. My Mum used to buy 3 2 pound bags of sugar every week for a family of 7. That means we were eating nearly a pound of sugar each per week . I never buy sugar now.

2 sugars in a small cup of tea the norm.

Cannot stand sugar in tea now

We used to use the neighbours phone if we needed to ring someone (rare) - my auntie used to ring us, so the ndn would come and say 'Nita is on the phone for you'. We never felt like we were intruding. When we eventually got a phone, my mum put one of those locks on it to stop us using it. We never had a freezer, just a fridge. Meals would be egg and chips and on a Sunday a roast. Never chopped the leaves off cauliflower, that all used to get eaten. Cod war left dad unemployed, times were hard when they couldn't afford to get me a pair of shoes even from KwikSave.

We played out until it was dark, had a bath once a week, and had newspaper not toilet roll. We never had toothbrushes either, hence the bad teeth and lots of problems.

Recall power cuts, but not really the sugar shortages. I remember the drought of 76.

We never had holidays never mind one abroad!

turnip there was no before school care either, so on the days my parents had to start work early I'd be dropped at school long before the doors opened under instructions to sit in the playground to wait for doors to open and not speak to anyone strange (primary school this was).

My sibling and I walked ourselves home aged probably 8 & 10 and had a front door key. I was making cups of tea from about age 7 with boiling kettles. (no way would I allow my 9yo to boil and carry a kettle of water around!) Also we were washing and drying up and putting away, even the sharp knives, from around 7. There was not this expectation to have "stuff" and a lot of families made do, not just with material goods but with the children expected to fit in with whatever the family needed and not moan about it.

If as kids we were taken shopping there'd be no such thing as treats thrown in for us. and we'd be expected to help with shopping, pack, put away, not as a twee game like I find myself doing with my DCs but as a extra working pair of hands. Most Saturdays were spent either entertaining ourselves, playing out with friends (unsupervised), biking around the adjoining few roads or trailing Dad around the DIY or home-brew shop. (Home brew was big news then).

There was less money but just less things to have or if you knew about them, you wouldn't dream you'd get them. You knew they were for someone else but not you in your life. So you didn't feel hard done to as such because you knew you weren't in that kind of bracket. Kids are more perceptive than we realise, sometimes.

Marking spot to read through tomorrow

There was a lot of heroin.

This is fascinating -

Although sad in a way some of the stories have made me laugh out loud.

OP watch the monty Python sketch of 2 Yorkshire men arguing about who is the poorest. Classic