AIBU to wonder how some people coped in former times?

[Flyingfish2019]

When they had 12 children, husband was working down the mines 16 hours a day, no transportation, no frozen/canned food, no fridge, constantly pregnant. No help if somebody suffered a disability (and I think this was likely working down the mines those days).

I just wondered because I have far less then 12 children and dh does not work down the mines and still we are often soooooo tired. Children keeping us awake play a role in this... how would we cope if there was 12 of them and we had to live under the conditions described above?

When you think that more people died of Spanish flu than in WW1 - and that most of those who died were the young and fit, so that many very old and very young probably died from lack of anyone to take care of them, it's just mind-boggling. The documentary mentioned was 'The Flu that Killed 50 Million' and was on BBC2 - it was fascinating and horrifying…!

I recommend Margaret Powell's autobiographies "Below Stairs" and "Climbing The Stairs" - her life as a kitchen maid then cook in domestic service. Out of print but readily available second hand via the internet.
Fascinating social history

Oo I have those books BMW6, got them from book depository. Very interesting.

My mum grew up in rural Lapland and the older kids took care of the younger ones and worked on the farm, and part of the year the school age ones would be away from home anyway boarding at the village school (the times of the year it was too dangerous to go between home and school - my uncle almost drowned rowing across the lake in bad weather). They lived a good 30 minute drive from healthcare (well 30 minutes with today's cars so I guess longer back then) and mum was born in a taxi on the way to the hospital, a sister was born prematurely in the sauna (and died a few hours later - not much hope for premature babies then). Living on a farm they were better off than many others but even though food was often quite poor, fat cubes and blood pancakes but one memorable time there was ice cream for a wedding but the day was too hot and it wouldn't last until the party so my mum and her siblings were instructed to eat it up before it melted!

Where I live now there's still houses on my street that don't have indoor bathrooms (they have indoor toilets but showers are in an outbuilding with the sauna)

showerpower*

Wonder if I’m the only one thinking “Poltergeist” 😱

This thread is fascinating, the breadth of family experiences and depth of knowledge.

There was loads of fuss when the estate was being built. It looks odd because there's lots of houses all crammed together and then a big expanse of land that's not been touched.

Finished reading through the thread - social history is fascinating, got some more books to put on my 'to read' list.
I've been looking into my family history lately, some relatives have researched back about 20 generations and one of my GGG (10 or 11 Gs) grandfathers was a Shaman who was sentenced to death for witchcraft - one of the most famous witchcraft trials in Finland

Not read the thread, but basically they didn't cope, did they? Expectations were low, and life, as Hobbes said, was nasty, brutish and short.

@showerpower
There is no way I would want to live near a plague pit . Ugh.

You might do already, they're all over the place

Well we discovered we were living next to a graveyard for animals killed during the foot and mouth crisis. They were literally buried all around us in a rented house we lived in for a year. A bit creepy, and the land had a sad and sinister vibe.

People have been living in Britain for thousands of years. There’s probably ancient burial sites all over the place.

I remember reading an article in a local newspaper a few years back - some people were getting a house extension built, and work had been halted because the builders had found a human skeleton when they were digging out the foundations. It turned out to be several hundred years old when investigated.

I don't know my extended family well at all but I know that my father was born in a one roomed cottage in Tuar mhic eadigh (think that's how you spell it) in Ireland. He was one of 5 siblings, his mother had been one of 11 and his father one of 15. I've visited the place where they lived- it's half way up a mountain in the middle of nowhere. My father only attended school until age 10, before going to work on the farm.

Of course all of this is why lots of people regard claims that today's children are living in poverty as bollocks. No children today live in the conditions described in this thread, probably as recently as 60 years ago.

4.1 million children in the UK today live in poverty.

@EwItsAHooman

"4.1 million children in the UK today live in poverty."

They don't. They just don't. If you read this thread you will realise that they don't, unless they have bad parents.

My great grandad died of TB in 1908. Within a year his son and the son's son (aged 37 and 3 respectively) had died too. I wonder if they had TB too. They all lived in the same area and it was crowded and run down by modern standards, a lot of it was demolished during the 1960's and 70's slum clearances. My poor great grandma losing her husband, son and grandson, so quickly too. She had previously lost a daughter aged 11 possibly due to another disease outbreak? Life was very hard for her I imagine. She'd been a teen mum and forced to marry as well. I don't know that her marriage was unhappy, possibly things were good between them but it's all just so grim.

Poverty on the scale of pre NHS times and prior to the welfare state was real poverty. If you can be housed and claim benefits, that is not poverty. It's living on the basics, but it isn't destitution and starvation. It is not watching your family die in front of you in one room or having to go into the workhouse.

They don't. They just don't. If you read this thread you will realise that they don't, unless they have bad parents.

They really do. There are children in the UK today who live in households where there isn't enough money to feed everyone three meals a day, where there isn't enough money to have the heating on, where their parents can't afford clothes or school uniform, where they can't afford sanitary products. 60% of those 4.1 million live in a household with at least one working adult.

Comparing life now to life 60 years ago doesn't mean that poverty no longer exists, the world now is completely different to the world back then. We now have a vaccination programme, healthcare that is free at point of service, an education system, and welfare benefits but these things do not cancel out the fact that there are 4.1 million children living in poverty.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/sep/16/new-study-finds-45-million-uk-children-living-in-poverty

Why is that though with all the benefits available to families and free housing? If there isn’t enough money to feed the children, what is it being spent on?

Austerity, the benefit cap, sanctions where you lose all money for anything from four weeks to six months, Universal Credit roll out, zero hour contracts with variable/precarious income, and so on.

And "free housing" doesn't exist.

There is social housing but it still has to be paid for by the tenant. Some tenants qualify for housing benefit, some only get partial housing benefit, some get no housing benefit. If you are sanctioned or your hours/income change (e.g., zero hours contract) then they stop the housing benefit while they reassess how much should be paid to you, the rent still needs to be paid in the meantime. Same for council tax.

My paternal grandmother brought up 6 children as a widow pre welfare state (and only the youngest 2 kids born once the NHS existed) after my grandfather died of mining related lung disease. They lived in absolute poverty, she took in laundry and earned a pittance, all the kids were crammed into 2 beds and dressed in rags.

4 of the 6 kids did well, one committed suicide and one became an alcoholic who abandoned his own kids.

I don't envy her life at all.

Before the welfare state in 1946 approximately 15 to 20% of the population lived in absolute poverty. That means they did not have enough food or clothes.

My Nan said that when she moved into her flat there was a room at the top of the tower block called the bunny room and you disposed all of your sanitary cloths up there this was in the 1950s-60s. She also said a lot was covered up regarding peados, and many people turned a blind eye to criminals etc fascinating shes 77 this year

Poverty by today’s standards are different to poverty years ago, doesn’t stop it being poverty, or that we shouldn’t strive to improve standards. It’s like comparing good health now with good health years ago, we rightly have better expectations of health standards now than we did then. Poverty is not sadly a word that can be consigned to the history books.