To sit and think my poor grandmother! What would she think?!

[DurableMatts]

It’s 10:30 and so far today my house has been hoovered/mopped by the robot hoover, the clothes are washed and drying…and I have only had to pop the clothes in and press a few buttons. The house is warm and I’ve done nothing for that as it’s on a thermostat.

I am wfh so I get to earn and I still dropped my dc to school.

My poor granny had 10 dc! She had no washing machine so washed everything by hand! She walked the youngest to school and then came home to clean the house, washed the clothes, hung them out if weather permitted, had to light fires to keep the house warm. And she didn’t earn a bloody penny!

she would be in awe at things today 😢 (and yes I’m well aware that a lot of people still have to do a lot of these things these days…I was just thinking about her is all and it got me)

CTM is one of the few programs where the history as shown matches with my recall of it (born in the 50's) I didn't fins the "Back in Time for" series nearly as accurate. In CTM, the recent "bra burning" storyline didn't match my recall but that's the first thing that had jangled with me. I used to work in the NHS (retired now and not in midwifery) and the old medical notes from older patients that I read during my practice match up very well with the medical stories too.

Contraception changed women's lives too and gave us so much more freedom.

My Nan also had 10 Kids . I got married in 1969, there was a housing shortage and we lived in 3 rooms. No bathroom and outside toilet. We had no running hot water so everything had to be boiled on the stove. We were really hard up, could not afford the laundromat. Every thing was washed and rinsed in a butler sink. Including towels and bedding. I did have my nan’s old mangle .

We had one electric point in the kitchen and we ran an extension lead to the living room to plug in the tv. The electric was not enough to support two appliances so we had to unplug the fridge to watch tv.

Worst was the leaking gas pipes in the kitchen. The gas board used to come and lag them but has the house was part of slum clearance no major repairs were carried out.

After 3 years we were rehoused to a new council flat and I was so happy. It was built like a honeycombe so all the front doors were on the same landing. The landing was really wide and all the kids played out there like a street.

I do believe that having that sort of start in life really made me appreciate everything that came later.

Both my parents were evacuated in the war. Can’t imagine that these days with all the checks people have to be involved with children and parents who won’t let children do anything without being closely watched.
My Dad spent part of the war with a single lady who also had 6 other male evacuees living with her. She also cared for her bedridden mother. There was no running water (well in the garden) and an outside toilet.

Personally I think it would be a great help to a lot of people.if they had to be active because they have no choice.

In that time you didn't have a choice. You had to get up and do all that otherwise you'd freeze or not eat. Or have dirty clothes.

Being active during the day is great for mental health. Keeping busy is also good for mental health.

Iv started watching call the midwife,I have to say I am in awe of the women back then.

I’m only sixty but there were six of us (two adults and four kids) in a one bedroom flat with an outside loo. We had a mangle too. No heating aside from a small paraffin heater.

My mum was so excited when we got a modern council flat with two bedrooms, heating, a proper bathroom and a communal washing line area. And no mice!!!

This made me so sad to read :(

My mother talked about the "rags" they used to have to wear during their periods, bits of old cloth that had to be washed and dried ready for re-use.

I often think about what my ancestors of, say, 150 years ago would have thought if they could see life today. Electricity, aeroplanes, indoor plumbing for everyone, hot water on tap, easy contraception, the NHS would all seem miraculous. Mobile phones and emails would seem like witchcraft.

I remember clearly the first time I heard about the internet, in about 1994. A young relative had been working in Silicon Valley for a while and tried to explain to me the concept of computers connecting with and "talking to" each other. I simply couldn't understand it - it seemed nonsensical!

My lovely Nan (Mum's Mum) lived to the ripe old age of 98, I'm convinced it's due to being such a hard worker inside and outside of the home most of her life that gave her such a healthy outlook. She had such a hard life as well in many ways, very poor as a child, she went on to have 14 children (and several miscarriages), her husband was physically violent, she lost 3 children young, one due to TB and twins who got run over whilst holding hands crossing the road. Her husband (Mum's Dad) died when my Mum was 6 leaving my Nan a single parent, she never stopped working, taking on any jobs.
Like other's have said on here, it was all hand washing, cooking everything from scratch, beating the rugs and down on hands/knees to scrub the floors.
She took in a lodger and they fell in love and got married, she had one more child (this is the man I consider my Grandad. he treated her like a Queen) they still didn't have much but it was a house of hard work and love / laughter. When one of my Aunts died in a horrific way, my poor Nan's black hair turned white in the space of a week, yet she kept on going, taking in my two cousins who had become orphan's (their Dad had killed my Aunt), my Grandad passed young and still she kept going. I'm so glad she found happiness with my Grandad and together they travelled to Spain / Malta, and she got a washing machine, hoover etc.
Backbreaking stuff bless her, she was marvelous and I miss her

I never met my granny as she died before I was born

My father is the youngest and a massive age gap-20 years between him and the eldest child and she died when my father turned 19,he had met and married my mother aged 21 and they tried for a baby for 7 years before I came along

I know she was an amazing cook,in another time she would have been a top chef but was a sahm as where most women of that era

She ran a home,4 babies/children (for well over 20 years) and did everything for grandad without a fridge,freezer,washing machine,microwave,decent kitchen(grandad was a joiner by trade and the kitchen he made her was solid-which was the only thing going for it) and no other mod-cons at all

She wasn't bothered about the washing (so my father says!) but was desperate for a fridge as their larder was at the 'wrong' end of the kitchen and food spoiled fast (they apparently saved hard and she cried when they finally got one)

She made everything from scratch-im told 6 loaves of bread in the oven was normal and she could de-bone a fish with her eyes shut (I've never made bread in my life-my father told me she would have laughed at our bread makers-'one loaf at a time?' and fish is something i buy ready prepared)

How the hell she ran a home without a hoover (I think nothing of slinging the Henry about) a fridge/freezer (I buy stuff 'for the freezer') a TV (how many times did i sling the kids in front of it just so I could have a wee?) a dishwasher,the gadgets like a toastie machine/George foreman/air fryer/chip pan and have just slung my second load in the washer (which will be thrown into the dryer-weve just replaced it as the old one broke and drying it was the stuff of nightmares)

I know she went to the shop every single day for food for the days meals on top of everything else rather than my 'sling it in the freezer and we'll have it at some point'

I know my grandad really struggled with food when she died on top of the grief of losing her

He brought me up (i was born in 1978 and lived with him from about 3-14 years old until he died) and we still washed everything by hand,we did have the fridge but no freezer,no TV till I was 12 (we had a lot of books,l learned to read fast) and a chip pan-it was a lot of work but nothing like granny suffered

I try not to take it all for granted

It is probably why your back is killing you! The manual nature of the housework in the past would have kept your Grandma very physically fit, including walking not driving. The sendentary nature of our work now is what causes more physical problems now. I say this as someone in a desk job who has had big back issues and have to regularly stretch and weight train to stop them coming back.

Women do say that reliable contraceptive and automatic washing machines did change lives ( as well as other changes in the law around equality and so on too of course)
Maternity pay for many has also come a long way and better designs of homes too. It’s taken a long time, but I admire those women who fought for positive changes. Still a long way to go I’m sure.

I have to say, with cloth nappies, the twin tub was very useful. You could do your washing, and as long as it wasn't filthy usually whites) you could just chuck your nappies in at the end, so they didn't make stinking piles in the house for too long

Reminds me of my childhood. I was born in 1957 and we had coal fires which had to be lit every morning and a paraffin heater for the kitchen when it was really cold (ice on the inside of the windows type cold). We used to wash in a tin bath in front of the living room fire for which Mum would heat water in a great big pan. Our toilet was in an out house connected to a cesspit and it was cold, dark and creepy going out there but we did have chamber pots under the bed. We did have electricity of course and Mum had a twin tub with a mangle for washing clothes, which took all day. We didn't have fitted carpets but rugs, which had to be draped over the washing line and beaten. Dad grew all our own vegetables and fruit and everything we ate was made from scratch, including jams and pickles. He cycled 10 miles there and back to work every day in all winds and weathers and mum had a part time job at a local factory. I feel as though I've lived in 2 (or even 3) different worlds.

Oh my goodness, how on earth did she cope with all of that bless her heart. It makes you realise how bad the young of today are at coping even with all mod cons available. My maternal grandmother had 14 children In Ireland and passed away having her 15th baby, it is so awful when you think about it

My grandmother didn’t do any housework. Born in the late 1800s she had a cook, gardeners and a housekeeper. Not particularly wealthy but her husband was the county surgeon and that had a certain amount of prestige (west coast of Ireland). Eight kids, who were fed in the nursery except once a week when they joined their parents. All sent to boarding school.
My mother however was probably closer to your grandparents age (she’d be just over 100 now if still alive). She had three kids, worked, and had to do all the housework without help or convenience of modern appliances. Cloth nappies! Just the thought of dealing with those…
I remember when she got her first dishwasher- you had to pull it out from its area and attach the hoses to the taps at the kitchen sink. She did embrace new technology as it arrived - though never could wrap her head around mobile phones.

I grew up in a house without a bathroom or toilet or even running water.
Baths were an annual affair.

I was about the way the Sam thing. I’m binge watching it all at the moment and so many women’s lives were just so awful then.

in 1960 my mum had the first automatic washing machine in our street. All the neighbourhood kids used to come round and watch the washing going round!

I know what you mean. My nana is still alive but she remembers growing up I'm her farmhouse, carrying out chores around the house and farm, having no plumbing or heating in the house. Sharing a tin bath once a week and lighting fires and candles. Everything has changed SO much in her lifetime.

I remember my mother using a mangle for the clothes when I was growing up in the 1950s. We lived in a flat so we had mod cons like baths and indoor toilets but some buildings (in London) were houses divided into flats where bathing facilities had to be shared by families. Both she and my mother in law worked full time but didn't have large families.

There's that Peter Kay sketch about how one day, people will be saying, "Your nan had to walk over to the dishwasher, open it, take everything out, put it all into the cupboard... all on her own!"

Bear in mind that even when they had twin tubs or a washer and a mangle (ours was electric when I was a kid) they weren't plumbed in, so wash day your kitchen was taken over as you couldn't get to anything else as the washer was attached to your taps with a hose.

I was lucky, my parents were moderately well-off when they had me in the 50s.

When we got our first automatic washing machine in the late 60s, my mum's friend came round and we all sat in the kitchen watching its first complete washing cycle - magic!

Yeah, I remember grandma's mangle for all her washing, weirdly she thought it made life easier and she loved it. Goodness knows what she didn't have before. Washing machines were around, even the decent ones (skipping awful twin tubs and their rubber smell), but she just refused dads offers for one.
I remember her house being flipping freezing though, apart from the lounge where the fire was on. Making her a cuppa or going to the loo was an ordeal in the winter, so cold.

We are much luckier now for sure. Different sets of problems but at least the housework ones are much easier for most of us. Funny how though I still detest doing the washing and ironing, despite being much easier than my grannie! A chore is a chore after all.