The heat or heat statment.

[Heiionwheels]

I am aware that ( totally apart from rising food and petrol costs and other general cost of living costs or any medical or age related need for heat) a few of my more elderly friends are actually agast at all the reactions about the 'need 'to be warm in the house.
They have sèen that younger family members have got used to / seem to feel it the norm/ entitled to being able to walk round indoors in shorts and t shirts.
Wereas when they were younger they only heated one room ,wore jumpers, used hot water bottles as normal life. There wasnt all this talk of hypothermia and i live in a old house.
They seem to think believimg that you need a hot / warm house is actually a quite spoilt entitled stance and refelective of a pampered generation in some ways ,one who cannot cope with putting on an extra jumper, watching the pennies,being frugal .
They think that the tears on tv, the talk of getting ill due to cold reflects todays attitides of unability to get on with things and expectation of what is actually luxery not really such a hardship( apart from above type ofgrounds as outlines) .
Many many people have managed without warm houses and they want to know why this is seen as a right amd essential when really its a modern day thing. Likewise people have lived thro many things and have had to live frugally.we can do it too .
I see their point in some ways.

I grew up in a country that did not have central heating when I was a child (70/80’s). I had a perpetual chesty cough and remember feeling like the cold was going through to your bones. You could see your breath on the air. We had 2-bar electric heaters which were worse than useless and expensive to run.

I moved to England twenty years ago and experienced CH for the first time and couldn't believe the difference it made to my health - the chesty cough vanished within a year - but the sense of morale and not being chilled to the bone all the time in the colder months.

That people today can’t afford heating in 2022 is a shocking indictment on this country.

I didn't grow up in poverty. But my parents had lived through WW2. The pullovers etc are what everyone did in the 1950s to about 1980s. It was just regarded as common sense.

DP does not have any heating at all in his home and over the years has got used to it
I can only stay there in the summer months as it causes problems with my asthma
My room thermostat is set to 17 in sitting room but that’s only for 4 hours a day - I don’t have radiator on in my bedroom unless icy outside but it’s warm enough as other rooms are heated

I didn't grow up in poverty. But my parents had lived through WW2. The pullovers etc are what everyone did in the 1950s to about 1980s. It was just regarded as common sense.
I don't think it has changed judging by the sales of snuggle ponchos, fluffy PJ'S, fluffy socks.
There is a huge market for warm comfortable lounge wear.
People enjoy comfort in clothing and heat.
I only see my naked skin showering in the winter, other times its hands and head only.

We did without a lot of things when I was growing up. My mam didn’t have a washing machine. We didn’t have central heating and I had ice on the inside of my windows in the winter. But just because I loved like that then, doesn’t mean I have to now, in 2022. Things are an absolute disgrace. This government are a disgrace and people saying add a jumper blah blah must be music to Boris’ ears. We shouldn’t bloody have to!!

I kind of get this op. Its only been for about the last 30 years that people have been used to being routinely warm in the UK indoors. I wasn't exactly cold as a child, but heaven forbid I left a light on or ran a bath too deep or left the back door open. My parents one generation before had no heating other that a coal fire in the front room and had to boil water for baths and my grandparents not only didn't have an inside toilet, but didn't even have one in the garden. It was a communal toilet block at the end of the street and a guzunder under the bed to use at night. Being warm at home is a really really short lived experience for human kind. We think of it as normal, because for our lifetimes things have always got better. Progress. But there is no reason that will continue to happen. Things have got worse many times before. No one chooses to race to the bottom, but we have a perfect storm with covid, recession, Boris, Ukraine. It just seems really naive to think that it can't all go tits up at a moments notice. I think that's what annoys the elderly in general - that we think we have a birthright to be warm etc., when they certainly didn't.

Many many people have managed without warm houses and they want to know why this is seen as a right amd essential when really its a modern day thing

Before they were invented, many many people went without antibiotics. Should we stop medicating people who have awful infections just because it's really a modern day thing and so why on earth should it be seen as essential?

@PinkiOcelot

We did without a lot of things when I was growing up. My mam didn’t have a washing machine. We didn’t have central heating and I had ice on the inside of my windows in the winter. But just because I loved like that then, doesn’t mean I have to now, in 2022. Things are an absolute disgrace. This government are a disgrace and people saying add a jumper blah blah must be music to Boris’ ears. We shouldn’t bloody have to!!

But why should WE not have to? What makes us more precious that our grandparents, a Russian pauper, someone dying of TB in India? Why does living in a rich country make us more precious. For the most part we did nothing to earn that 'richness'. Even if we think we have been working hard for 'the man' and not being fairly paid surely that is the same for most of human kind even today. But much much worse in most places. I'm not racing to the bottom. I feel incredibly lucky to be right near the top, and I don't know you, but if you live in the UK you are near the top too.

But why should WE not have to? What makes us more precious that our grandparents, a Russian pauper, someone dying of TB in India? Why does living in a rich country make us more precious.

People shouldn't have to worry about money when heating their homes in the
winter due to financial difficulties, those with young DC or living in damp conditions, the elderly who aren't mobile enough to generate heat or go to the library for some.

It doesn't make a person more precious, the resource is available, most people are mindful about resources the impact with the costs.

Should people refuse the BCG for the DC? give away any valuables in sympathy with the Russian man.

Life isn't fair.

If you live on the UK you are near the top too.

Wow. What a comment. Am actually speechless at the sheer ignorance of this comment. Along with your ' what makes us more precious than our grandparents'. People can't help being born 60/70/80 years after their grandparents. In 2022 no one should still have to live like it were the 1900's.

Homes without central heating are not just from the past though. I have never lived in a house with central heating. It wasn't planned, but that's how it turned out. Currently I live in a house with a wood burner in the living room and an electric radiator in the bathroom. It isn't damp or mouldy. An electric blanket keeps me toasty warm at night. I wear an extra sweater if I need to and we have warm throws in the sitting room for those times when it is cool but not quite cold enough to light the burner. The thing is, our house is an old one and was built to be without central heating. The walls are thick, so any heat inside is retained (this also helps to keep the house cool in summer). They are also rendered in lime plaster so that they breathe, meaning that it doesn't get damp. I'm not for a second saying that everyone should be like this, but I do think that many newer homes have been built without thought for the most efficient way of keeping them warm. No wonder so many people are having to spend so much to heat them. It won't help in the short term, but in the long term this is something that really needs to be addressed.

I was admitted to hospital with hypothermia as a child. Snow, massive amounts of it, cut the power out and so we had no heat or hot water
Managed for a few days and eventually I just got so cold I couldn't warm up. Think I was about 5. Don't remember much apart from how bright and warm the hospital was

And I wasn't an unwell or fragile child. I can't imagine if I had been a baby or very elderly

There has to be some kind of happy medium. People shouldn't have to live in freezing houses where they can't afford heating. But on the other hand, having your house heated to 20 degrees and wearing T-shirt and shorts inside is a ridiculous luxury, not something people should be entitled to by right. If you want to do it, fine, but be prepared to pay the cost.

I'm sick of this 'actually being too poor to put the heating in is fine' narrative. OP are you employed by Tory HQ?

Being cold is crap and causes increased illness and earlier deaths.

Sure, some people overheat their homes. That is a separate issue, and doesn't mean it is ok for more people to get ill and die due to being cold.

progression is a good thing.

But it's not one extreme or the other. I don't know anyone who expects to be able to walk around in shirts and t shirts in the winter inside. Most people I know don't have the heat on during the day unless really cold out. I do as I'm at home, but the temp is set at about 18, which is fine if wearing a couple layers.
I've not heard any comments from 'older' people about this anyway, but I am guilty of telling my kids that I grew up without computers/mobiles/internet/all day tv so they could pick up a book occasionally.

Sure, some people overheat their homes. That is a separate issue, and doesn't mean it is ok for more people to get ill and die due to being cold.

Exactly.

It was always tough for certain people pre lock down people went to the shopping centre or library for free heat, when that stopped it ploughed those people into poverty.

Many of the older generation lost their mobility staying in for 2 years.

We're experiencing similar issues in Ireland with pricing going through the roof, housing is scarcer than ever, rents skyrocketing, wages aren't rising, increasing energy costs and service charges, it isn't sustainable.