My grandmother was born just before the end of WWI and a third of her siblings died at some point in childhood/as babies. They had to work from the moment they were able, and as the oldest, my GM was in charge of getting the little ones up and out of the way before starting the many tasks of the day. They did any and everything for money or food. In some scenarios they were paid in some way by what they did, so not always cash. Eg. Helped out at the dairy, shovelling shit for hours and sweeping, and you’d get some milk. My GM was the least squeamish person imaginable and once she told me it was because she started one of her many jobs, this one as a butchers helper, at around 8yo. She had to handle the meat and guts and bag up offal etc for hours, and would be rewarded with a bag of tripe for the family, if they were feeling generous there would be liver, and one Christmas they were given what she thought was maybe pigeon or partridge but she couldn’t remember. Her clothes had to be boiled at the end of the day. She would shovel coal for coal, and picked fruit and veg for a punnet of fruit and/or veg. They had chickens, but because they didn’t have any scraps really to give them, they would grow stuff specifically for them, I’m guessing corn? My GM didn’t just accept it as her lot and tried anything and everything to scrape out of poverty, and away from the drudgery of it all. She hated every stinking minute of her childhood and will tell anyone who listens how abysmally shit it was. Once WWII rolled around, she was an adult and got involved in the war effort as expected. She says this ‘blitz spirit’ was all propaganda, and everyone she came across was desperate, suspicious, greedy, and selfish. This assessment of it wasn’t intended, I don’t think, to be mean. More that it was realistic in a sense of it being human nature to hoard the little food, not wanting the neighbours to ask for some of your few carrots you’d managed to grow, and shelters etc were few and far between, so people who had enough money to buy or build them didn’t shout about it. Basically, everything was shit for her until the late 50s when she and my grandfather bought and completely renovated a ramshackle house (with their probably bulging biceps!), and their jobs were considered highly skilled and sought after. My grandmother never gave anything cheap and crappy a backwards glance once they got into the sort of middle class wage bracket. Everything was high quality, they went on holiday, had cars and homes that they kept spotless. I remember starting my period and my mum almost ignoring the whole thing. My GM sat me down, told me how crap it was, and what it was all about, then took me to boots and bought me a sackful of sanitary towels, telling me about how they’d had to wash out their rags as teens and dry them out for all to see, so I was damn lucky. This was then followed by a trip to wimpy and about a kilo of sweets from Woolworths, natch. I love history, but always feel myself saying PAH!! When people hark back to the good old days, particularly in relation to wartime and those propaganda posters. Poppycock!, as my grandmother would say.