If you were born late 60s/early 70s please could you help me...

[ChickenNugget86]

I know this is really random but I'm at a point in my life where I'd love to find out about life growing up for my mum in the late 60s early 70s.

She was born in 1967 and unfortunately she passed away suddenly aged 42 when I was still living at home age 18. My family totally broke down from it and never talk about her, which really upsets me.

When I got married I asked about her wedding got nothing back. Had my first child they wouldn't speak about my mums labour to help paint a picture etc....

I understand people grieve in different ways but it's been over 10 years now and no one will talk about her which makes me sad. I often wonder what it would have been like being a child during these times - foods, hobbies, school life, toys etc...

Her parents are still alive and refuse to acknowledge she died. I know it must be horrible to lose a child but id love some answers about her life. My dad's family don't speak to me and I no longer have a relationship with my dad. (they were married when she died)

Her friends and work colleagues have told me bits but it's mainly things I already know.

I feel silly for asking but was hoping some people could share their experiences, might help me to get a picture??

I find it interesting reading these posts, so many seem to have enjoyed a much simpler and freer childhood than their children have now. How many would prefer their children to have a simpler childhood, less technology, less social media to cause problems? Is the increase in children being diagnosed with various mental illnesses or problems related to the exposure to social media? People have always been nasty verbally but now it's far more widespread when it's all out there in cyber-space.

@bellinisurge

Women in the 90s drove. Of course we did. I guess when you are a child it's hard to see things outside your personal experience . But I drive (and drove then). So did every woman in my family. And all my female friends. And their Mums. It was 1990 not 1920

I was born in the same year as the OP's mum and most people I knew learned to drive at 17/18 and even as students quite a lot of us had cars.

@LimaFoxtrotCharlie

Parenting was not neglectful in the 60s/70s. And not all fathers spent time in the pub, and women were definitely in pubs too if they wanted. This may have been true for your family but certainly not for mine

Yes. Me too. My father rarely visited the village pub. My parents were very over protective too. I think they probably would have thought spending money on beer extremely extravagant, given how tight things were.

life in the 70s

we walked to school from age five without an adult but with a friend. we walked home alone too.

free milk. little glass milk bottles in a crate. silver foil lids, milk monitors took turns to jab straws through all the bottles. it was a really satisfying job. I was allowed to drink the milk at mums school when it was left over after being left out for a day.

the nit nurse came round regularly and checked hair.

park playgrounds: witches hat tall slides all over tarmac. they had a cage on the top to stop kids falling off but the big kids sat on the top. one park had one piece of play equipment: a large concrete drainage pipe. there were see saws, and those big metal black and red horses that you sat on and moved backwards and forwards.

school playground had the climbing frame over the concrete slabs. it was moved for my last year in infants. They were made of rectangular sections that were bolted together in different ways. different schools had different configurations. it was really good until they moved it, then it was too difficult to play on.

Tv was black and white. we had a short programme for children at lunch time: something like camberwick green, and the other two similar ones whose name I have forgotten or bagpuss or mr ben. in the afternoon there were no programmes and we had the test card. later there were some children's programmes that were on early evening. just before 6pm there was magic roundabout. I remember crying when the electricity went off and I was left in the dark. Dad shouted at me for crying. I was only about 3.

I remember lots of powercuts. we ate tea by candle light. the gas cooker used to light with the pilot light. two little flames burned all the time under a cover that had hot printed on it. my friend checked and burned her finger.

we had a coal fire to begin with. the clean air act meant that these were changed to gas with a grant from the government. I remember going outside and watching the sweeps brush come out the top of the chimney. again I was only about 3. I remember the coal lorry coming round. they delivered sacks of coal to the coal shed. They just opend the gate and went and dumped it in there.

Bin men used to open the back gate and colect the bin as well. it was a metal bin with no bin bags. they slung it obver their shoulders and tipped it into the lorry themselves before returning the bin to the back garden.

I was born in 67. We had a black and white telly and used to argue about who was going to change the channel as there was no remote in those days.

There were only 3 channels so everyone used to watch the same thing at the same time. If you missed it you missed it. No catch up!

The telly used to stop broadcasting around 11, I think... and they always used to play the national anthem. My mum used to make us stand up for the queen 🤣

Going out to play was the norm. No such thing as a play date. We just to go and knock on our friends doors. Now it seems the height of bad manners to rock up without prearranging it. (Most people on MN would never answer the door now)

We were left to play - parents were nowhere to be seen. No such thing as soft play or theme parks. I can remember going to Alton towers when it was just beautiful gardens. I can also remember going when the Corkscrew was built! We went on 17 times. There were no queues as not many people went to theme parks back then.

I remember the silver jubilee and the IRA bombing the pubs in Birmingham.

I remember power cuts and drought.

All out food was meat and two veg. Is never had rice or pasta until I left home at 8.

Everything was very simple. It's hard to believe how much it's all changed in such a short time.

We didn't have car seats. The baby just sat in the front in mums lap. No one wire seatbelts. We didn't have stair gates or anything to stop you opening drawers or cupboards either. Falling downstairs was seen as a rite of passage and if you trapped your fingers in a draw it was just a kiss and 'ah well, you won't do that again will you'

Terry Wogan would be on the radio and we'd listen to ABBA, the Bay City Rollers and the Osmonds.

We got new clothes at Christmas and Easter. The rest of the time it was home made knits and hand-me-downs (which could be from any family on the street)

A lot of mums didn't work. Some kids were latchkey kids. We all looked out for each other.

All the fuss about rear facing cr seats and how how you have to have stair gates and

Sorry for all the typos and random text! I left home at 18 not 8!

we went to alton towers before the corkscrew. there was a lovely play park which ws demolished when they built the corkscrew. they had a barrel that you could stand on and run, holding the handles at the side. I loved that.

there were rides but you paid for each one separately.

we had two cars. one we owned and one that came with my dads job. he could have three different cars in one day if one of the ones he drove got sold.

mum had a ford cortina that got nicked. we had to go and get it back from a police station across the country.

one of the boys on our street collected football cards. they went in an album and lots of the boys swapped cards at break.

we also had the corona lorry come round delivering pop. we had to fetch ours from the top shops. you took the glass bottle back to get ten pence deposit back. I loved the limeade, dandelion and burdock and orangeade.

friends had a tv that you had to put fifty pence in the slot to watch.

they also ate finefare yellow pack food. it was a bit grim.

we had a milkman that came round really early in an electric float that whined. we had silver top milk. gold top was from jersey cows, more creamy and more expensive., there was also red top milk, (skimmed)

in some places the bluetits had learned to peck the tops of the mik to get at the cream.

I loved opening the milk and having a little taste of the cream. we were supposed to shake the bottle to mix the cream back with the milk.

we had a roast on Sunday, then cold meat on monday. clod meat again on tuesday with grated carrot, cabbage friday was chips. Sometimes we had minced meat, which was made from the roast. meat had to last the week like the mumsnet magic chicken. we had beef, pork and lamb as I think they were comparatively less expensive then but not sure. it was really exciting to have a vesta curry forma box at the weekend. (food the rest of the week was boring) summer was runner beans for dinner nearly everyday. we had salad on a wednesday sunday and saturday. salad was a tomato, four slices of cucumber, a piece of ham and some limp lettuce. breakfasts were better. I had cooked breakfast. bacon and egg on a monday wednesday and friday. bacon and beans or bacon and tinned tomatoes the other tow days.

school lunch was grim. I hated it so was swapped to packed lunch. some of my friends had saladcream sandwiches, or sandwich spread. I think I had cheese. we had a drink of squash from a tupperware container. I think I had an apple as well. friends were luckier in that they got cake. Mum was snooty about the salad cream or jam sandwiches.

@BlackeyedSusan

we went to alton towers before the corkscrew. there was a lovely play park which ws demolished when they built the corkscrew. they had a barrel that you could stand on and run, holding the handles at the side. I loved that.

there were rides but you paid for each one separately.

we had two cars. one we owned and one that came with my dads job. he could have three different cars in one day if one of the ones he drove got sold.

mum had a ford cortina that got nicked. we had to go and get it back from a police station across the country.

one of the boys on our street collected football cards. they went in an album and lots of the boys swapped cards at break.

we also had the corona lorry come round delivering pop. we had to fetch ours from the top shops. you took the glass bottle back to get ten pence deposit back. I loved the limeade, dandelion and burdock and orangeade.

friends had a tv that you had to put fifty pence in the slot to watch.

they also ate finefare yellow pack food. it was a bit grim.

we had a milkman that came round really early in an electric float that whined. we had silver top milk. gold top was from jersey cows, more creamy and more expensive., there was also red top milk, (skimmed)

in some places the bluetits had learned to peck the tops of the mik to get at the cream.

I loved opening the milk and having a little taste of the cream. we were supposed to shake the bottle to mix the cream back with the milk.

we had a roast on Sunday, then cold meat on monday. clod meat again on tuesday with grated carrot, cabbage friday was chips. Sometimes we had minced meat, which was made from the roast. meat had to last the week like the mumsnet magic chicken. we had beef, pork and lamb as I think they were comparatively less expensive then but not sure. it was really exciting to have a vesta curry forma box at the weekend. (food the rest of the week was boring) summer was runner beans for dinner nearly everyday. we had salad on a wednesday sunday and saturday. salad was a tomato, four slices of cucumber, a piece of ham and some limp lettuce. breakfasts were better. I had cooked breakfast. bacon and egg on a monday wednesday and friday. bacon and beans or bacon and tinned tomatoes the other tow days.

school lunch was grim. I hated it so was swapped to packed lunch. some of my friends had saladcream sandwiches, or sandwich spread. I think I had cheese. we had a drink of squash from a tupperware container. I think I had an apple as well. friends were luckier in that they got cake. Mum was snooty about the salad cream or jam sandwiches.

Lots of this I relate to. My better off neighbors had 12 bottles of corona pop a week, just about one of every different variety and all the local kids would pile into their house. My mum refused to buy any pop, or if she did it was just one bottle a week. We had rows and rows of runner beans growing in our garden and we would all help strim off the edges then they were frozen in little plastic bags to be eaten frequently all year round !! There was always a race to get the cream off the top of the milk to put on our rice krispies, it was a real treat. Any yes we all collected stickers to put in a book, I had a girly one and my brother had a football one but I ended up collecting the football ones as they were much better, the prize shiny emblem card for each team was a really good find.

I was born '72 and grew up on a farm, so I don't really remember things like going to the corner shop, as Mum had to drive us into town for that. If we wanted to play with friends after school, then it all had to be organised in advance with lifts and so on. I did Brownies and swimming club and other activities, so Mum spent half her life as a taxi driver for us.

We didn't have a TV till I was 14, so I remember going round to someone else's house to watch the Royal Wedding (Charles & Diana in 1981.)

I spent a lot of time in my own and read loads of stuff, especially Blyton. We always had holidays in the UK, which I usually loved, even if it was pouring all the time. No central heating. No double glazing. We were tough back then. :-)

I'm still the weird one who spends a lot of time by herself, just like when I was a child.

we had a twin tub but when the spinning bit died, we got a second hand spin drier that my mum would get me to sit on to stop it flayling about...

Ha! This is exactly what we had. A twin tub which got replaced by a spin drier which would travel across the floor! I think we even had a mangle when we had the twin tub. I have vague memories of it. Now that is old! I remember I loved the twin tub so much that when it got dumped down the cellar i would feed it old socks!

@bellinisurge

Women in the 90s drove. Of course we did. I guess when you are a child it's hard to see things outside your personal experience . But I drive (and drove then). So did every woman in my family. And all my female friends. And their Mums. It was 1990 not 1920

Agree with this. I learned to drive in 1994, I was 22 and was quite late compared to my peers. My Mum and Nan were already driving. The only people I've ever heard express a negative opinion about women driving are my pil who were born in the 1930's.

Never played out here ( London)and my parents never went to the pub either. Holidays in the uk or ferry - some people went to Spain. No school uniform, teachers quite free and easy but boys still getting corporal punishment in the early 70s. Parents never went into schools really, no special assemblies or dressing up. We all walked to school from 8 or so. Kids’ world was quite secret from parents. Lots of books, school and public libraries, we were always reading. Tv once a day, there wasn’t much on.

but I just want to bang people's heads together and let them open up to me. They are the people who have the answers and it's very upsetting that they won't tell me so I have to imagine what it would have been like

OP - I say this kindly but you are putting too much pressure on people who knew your mum. We generally only remember snippets of our own early years let alone other peoples. I have a teenage daughter and much of her childhood is a blur And people other than your mum might not have known anything about her labour.

I'm not surprised your grandparents didn't want a meal to 'celebrate' her 50th - their daughter never got to be 50 and that must be a continuous source of pain for them. People deal with loss in their own way and we need to respect that.

I don't mean to de-rail this lovely thread which, as a child of 60s/70s, I'm really enjoying but I fear your search will only frustrate and hurt you. My mum died when I was a teenager and I miss her still, 40 years later. Your mum lives on in you and your son and I would urge you to enjoy the present and look to your shared future

Born 1968. Working class. Seaside town in Kent (now trendy!)
I remember:
Power strikes / running out of money for the meter. Miners strike.
Baths in front of a coal fire and an outside loo. Unemployment.
Not enough money for wellies or dinners sometimes. Fear.
Dad had a car, Mum walked everywhere - to the shops, the launderette. The Pools (we collected the money :( the smoking, the sexism (not safe to be kid) the little englander mentality re Racism.
(not much changed there then, last time I went 'home' :(
As a teen, we all watched the same stuff on TV - Swap Shop, then the Young Ones, Spitting Image, C4, the Music was good, the fashions were bad, the Politics, the City opening up, getting away to London.
There was still a chance of bettering yourself if you worked hard (not now). Sorry that is all more personal than general I think.

It is very hard to piece together bits of an absent or deceased parent from relations who wont talk about them. I am in this situation too. I have had some snippets but they are only really that and sometimes they come with painful stuff attached which is hard to process. I think all you can do is know that you will always yearn for that person (to the extent you are asking about 'life in general then' / for me, not knowing even the basics) but know that you have to find a way to live with that yearning.
You Mum would be proud of you, that' the main thing. Keep going xxx

I'm a couple of years older than your DM. I remember pre decimalisation money, free milk at school which was horrible if the weather was warm.

TV was dominated with war references, Dad's army, It Ain't Half Hot, Mum and others.

We used to have to go to the coal bunker at the end of the garden to fetch some for the water boiler in the kitchen.

*Being a typist / secretary / hairdresser was a common goal for female school leavers

Being a typist / secretary / hairdresser was a common goal for female school leavers

If you could type you could get a job, easily.

“Being a typist / secretary / hairdresser was a common goal for female school leavers”

I think that depended on your background. I’ve friends who went to State Secondaries from working class backgrounds who felt resentment in their twenties that this was all they were encouraged to be.

Speaking as one, for girls from other backgrounds (particularly if they had professional mothers who had themselves struggled against the system), we were encouraged to go as far as we absolutely could. I remember writing to Jim’ll Fix It to ask if I could be an Air Hostess - my Mum was really horrified that I wanted to be a ‘trolly dolly’ (which is a completely unfair description of most air hostesses).

A 1966 baby here. Wrestling on Saturday on tv. Old films on Sunday afternoon. Kids tv weekend morning. Mum got on with the housework. Bedtime was early in my house! Nylon nighties and nylon sheets. How we crackled and sparked with static. We had nightie bags and 3 piece hairbrush sets. We were taught to tell the time with a wind up wrist watch. Played outside everyday. Mum knitted cardigans and jumpers. A comic was 2p. Older brother walked us to the library in town. We didn't have Sindy, we had Cindy with homemade clothes. Bath night was Sunday night with shared water. Childrens parties were rare and always in the home. A homemade cake was normal. Girls wore long dresses and hairbands.
Sleepovers were almost unheard of. Divorce was rare. Not all mums could drive. Visits to grandparents were regular and mandatory. Meals outside a home so rare. I had heard of meals out, but didn't eat in a pub until I was 16.
House hold chores(for my family girls) were expected.

Cousins were around to play with alot. Nobody in my family went abroad for holidays. A visit to the zoo on birthdays, but no trip to the onsite cafe! Tupperware sandwiches and warm orange squash was the norm.
The 80's were amazing. A wonderful time to be young. I bet your mum had great teenage years. Maybe she read Just 17 and put Lipcote over her Twighlight Teaser lipstick. The Lipcote stung but was supposed to stop your colour sliding off. Perhaps she had neon leg warmers and net gloves. Did she sigh over Adam Ant or Gary Numan? I bet she sang along to the Top 40 on a radio on Sunday night!

My mums friends who I'm in touch with are people she went to college with or worked with over the years.

This sentence stood out to me. I'm your mum's age, and throughout school and college years we wrote endlessly postcards and letters to friends, grandparents, parents and even the occasional teacher. First jobs, dodgy boyfriends, trips abroad, haircuts with the dissecting scissors when drunk (maybe that's just my friends) it all got written down and posted to someone.

Some of your mum's friends might have a box of letters still stashed in the attic or in a shoebox somewhere. I bet they'd be happy to get them out for you if so.

I'm not surprised your grandparents didn't want a meal to 'celebrate' her 50th - their daughter never got to be 50 and that must be a continuous source of pain for them. People deal with loss in their own way and we need to respect that

I totally agree with this, that SueEllenofDallas wrote.

My sister died before she got to 40. I would NOT want to 'go out and celebrate' the fact she never reached her 40th or 50th birthdays. I did think that too.

I was born in 69.I have fond memories of black and white TV, watching the two Ronnie's, Blue Peter, Swap Shop with Noel Edmunds my dad playing Elvis records.Most of the adults I knew smoked cigarettes (sort of trendy). I remember not many people had a car so we bussed most places. I remember my mum and I carrying really heavy bags of food shopping home on the bus (no out of town shops) and the carrier bag handles really hurting my fingers.

I'm pretty sure there were no seat belt laws or drink drive laws then. Food tended to be a roast with potatoes and veg and a pudding for afters.

Kids played a lot in the streets.I can remember playing in some Woods about 20 minutes from my house.The only thing you needed to know was when roughly to be home for tea.

Most people walked to primary school. Being a teenager in the 80's I remember you could be a mod or a punk, days listening to new romantic music on record players or audio cassettes. I Liked Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran. You could buy a single record disc or an LP (a collection of songs,).

The radio would have the top 40 pop songs on every Sunday and people would try and record them onto cassette but the DJ always spoke again before the song finished.

I remember the TV show Top of the Pops on every week with the latest music bands playing and reading a pop music magazine called Smash Hits.

Me and a lot of my friends had Saturday jobs when in the sixth form mainly in the local supermarket stacking shelves or working on the tills when you had to type in the price for each item that had a sticky price sticker on it.

Not totally, think the sciences you do over 2 years, half in yr 10 and finish off in year 11. Same with history zi think, its 2 separate papers across the 2 years. There is also more coursework now I think.

Sorry, but ds did GCSE last summer, all subjects 100% exams.
dd going in to year 11, no assessement until end of year 11, 100% exams.
It was changed a few years ago, back to exams. Hence the big fuss this year as exams were cancelled.

driving
I am really surprised by some of the comments on here.
I was born in 1967. I am 53, and my 3 kids are all still at school, youngets has only just left primary school. I find that some of the comments feel like my grandparents generation, not even my parents generation.
My Grannies were both born in 1910, and both drove. And one grandfather didn't.
My Mum was born in 1941, and all of her friends drove.
I had driving lessons for my 17 th birthday (much cheaper then) and passed my test at 17.
1967 is really not that long ago. Some of the parents in your kids' classes, who had their kids later, will be this age.

Yes, some things were simpler. But we were really not sent out in the morning to come back in the evening. My dad rarely went to the pub, and if he did it was with my mum. Obviously that did happen in some families, but so much is both area, class and family dependent. While I resonate with lots of what has been said, some of the comments make me feel like I'm reading about my Granny's childhood, not mine, and I am same age as the OP's Mum would be.

@steppemum I'm the same age as you and both of mine are still in primary school. I also feel this is a thread of grandparents!

My grandparents were all also born around 1910 and also all drove (at least, I think my other grandmother did, but I never met her, though her sister drove).
My mum is around the same age as yours and a few of her friends didn't drive but she thinks them silly (they all just flapped and said "oh no not little me" which she has no time for).
My grandparents were all middle class and my parents would not have been sitting outside the pub while my grandparents went in, either!

I didn't walk to primary school (we had no non-church schools within easy walking distance, I got a lift there though I walked home sometimes after I was about 8, if it was just me - I don't recall having to walk my little brother home).

Top of the Pops and Smash Hits didn't end that long ago, surely?

And a lot of stuff was very much not amazing.
Sexism
Racism
Safety especially in cars
Football hooliganism (it was not a family outing!)
The IRA (school being evacuated for a bomb scare, no litter bins)

Doesn't a lot depend on where the gal grew up -- and what kind of family.