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)

The public baths at our local pool were still open and available to hire when I was a child in the 70s. You could hire a towel and soap for a bit extra, or bring your own. I think the taps were tuned on with a sort of crank operated by staff, to run a specified volume of hot water, then in the user would go for the designated 10 or 15 minutes. I never used them myself as we had our own bathroom with enamel bath, but back then not every home had one.

My grandparents (born 1910s) slept in separate rooms since the early years of their marriage which was highly unusual and only had 3 children when much larger families were more common. The reason for this according to my granddad was that he ‘loved her too much, couldn’t put her through another birth and was afraid of losing her in birth.’ I didn’t understand this as a young teen before he died. But I do now. What a man. I wish I had known him better.

Gave me rage too. Utter prick.

I often think how long the evenings must have seemed. Poor lighting, no internet, no tv, maybe a radio. And then probably tuned to whatever the men of the house wanted. Sitting darning socks or listening to someone warbling to a piano. Nightmare! And too cold to retreat to your bedroom to escape other members of the family. And an outdoor netty in the yard instead of an indoor loo. Emptying potties in the morning. Handwashing or basic washing machine for all the nappies etc. Glad I live now!

You should write a book xx

Lived in the countryside, had to use outside tap in the lane before mains water. Cooker was an old black range. When I was 5 my parents bought a GEC cooker, it was wonderful! Toilet attached to the house but outside- the rhubarb patch benefited! Bath next to a copper that had a fire lit underneath on wash day. Washing machine worked by rotating a handle on top. Many years later saw similar in a museum. Meat kept in mesh fronted safe in the pantry. No fridge. Many times had sour milk and meat a bit “off” Mum got fridge when I was 16- it was a big day. No hoover. No tv until I was 12. I got married in the sixties, twin tub was a luxury, bought fridge which lasted 26 years! Lived in military accommodation, house had brown Lino which had to be polished. Nappies boiled in Baby Burco. Thought I was well off at the time! My mum had it hard, her mum had it harder. Looking back it was hard, but things were improving.

Bastard.

Totally with you on this OP!! I put a wash on a timer so it is done by the time I get up and I can hang out while shouting at the kids to get up. Prep dinner the night before and put in slow cooker in morning ready for when we get home. Heating on a timer so on and off depending on when we are in. Robovac is set on a schedule to vacuum for an hour a few days a week.

I often think about my nana and grandma and how they had to do all the same with 4 kids plus making a fire and no magic helpers. Must have been a bloody nightmare. And yes no indoor toilets 😞

I just inventoried everything that was there and made meals out of it. I had dried fruit and pears in the freezer which helped for freshness. I made a thick stew out of potatoes, herbs, tomato puree and chickpeas that had been in the cupboard forever. I did buy some milk, actually, so cheated a bit on that, but otherwise it was all freezer and cupboard. Partly this was motivated by the fact I need to turn the freezer off to defrost it, which I will tomorrow, but also it was good to remind myself how much I have when I think I have "nothing" just because I don't see immediate choice. The idea we should get to eat the exact thing we feel like at any given moment is kind of uniquely ridiculous in human history really.

@MrsApplepants

My maternal grandparents were born in 1902 (GF) and 1909 (GM). They only had the two sons plus my mum whom they adopted from my grandmother's unmarried sister in the 1940s (at her request; she was already a single mother to one child and felt she couldn't cope with another). I do wonder if my grandmother, who had been one of the eight children raised with her parents in a two bedroom terraced home that I mentioned up thread, and grandfather decided that that wasn't what they wanted for their own family.

My Mam had a twin tub until about 20yrs ago.

The house they still live in had no bathroom when we moved in, just an outside toilet and wash house. I was bathed in the kitchen sink until my Dad built a bathroom.

There was no central heating or double glazing back then. My parents built a fire in the mornings. We tolerated 'Jack frost' for many winters.

It's not that long ago, I'm 51.🤔

Yes it’s mind boggling that the men who resented paying for condoms would end up paying a lot more when the babies came along. I guess life back then was mostly hard and grim and they probably felt a few minutes cheap pleasure without the physical discomfort of a condom (never mind what the woman felt obv) was worth the risk of the wife falling pregnant. Instant gratification took precedent. A lot were probably drunk as par the course so weren’t going to thinking long term at that point anyway.

Pity the poor women who had undiagnosed HG. Their lives would have been hell on earth. Everybody around them telling them to shut up and just get on with it, as it wasn’t a ‘thing’ back then, and comparatively few women suffer from it compared with most. There would have probably been a lot of ‘self-medication’ sadly, and back street solutions that went wrong 😢

Seconded! My granddad died in 1967, at a time when a washing machine would have been way out of the budget for most working class families (he was, by my mum's account, a kind and generous man who lived and worked - as a bricklayer, in all weathers - for his family. In later years, Nan had a twin tub, whose praises she sang to Kingdom come. What a difference after decades of hand washing and wringing laundry through the mangle!

I often think this about my mum. There were 4 of us and I can remember my mum crying when not long after my sister was born because my grandparents (dad's parents) sent the money so they could get a washing machine and fridge freezer
I don't know how she managed before but I guess people just did.
Showing my age a bit but I also remember the absolute joy of my parents having gas central heating installed when I was 12. Had night storage heaters before. The evenings were so cold

I've got a similar story. My grandmother wanted central heating and wasn't allowed it. Then she died and my grandfather got it installed. He was a mean man so probably thought she'd "waste" it when he was out of the house. She used to bury burnt toast in the garden in case he found it.

What area were you in? I find the idea of slum clearances very interesting and wonder if people suffered for losing their community.

Researching my family history (Ireland), I've realised how common it was to have babies until the change of life. Women giving birth at 47, 48. All without modern obstetrics or any kind of professional care during pregnancy or labour. My great aunt delivered her own youngest brother for her mother, who was then early forties, in their remote farmhouse, not even a midwife. Actually surprised that mother and child mortality wasn't higher than it was.

were you alive then and living in those circumstances?

@Myblueclematis

"nan found she was entitled to a 10s. (50p) charity ticket from the local church. The vicar was so horrible to her, he made nan practically beg for that charity ticket in order to feed her children."

My great grandmother was widowed in the 1920s with eight children to feed. Times were incredibly hard and she had to work several jobs to manage, because she was determined that none of her children would end up in children's homes or adopted out, as happened to many others in these circumstances, who had "fallen on hard times".

GGM would get some help from what was called "Parish Money". But a man would visit regularly to check that they weren't "living it up" on the PM. 🙄 I remember my mum telling me of the anger and bitterness with which my nan (her mum) would relate, that if he spotted so much as a battered old wooden chair that a neighbour had donated, the eagle eye would spot it, and the "Where did that come from?" probing would come. Because they were obviously living the life of Riley with their "new" chair. 🤬

fridge freezers didn't exist! Home freezers didn't exist when i was a child, you might get a small "ice box" In the top of the fridge to hold a block of icecream or small packet of frozen peas but that was that. We didn't get a fridge until I was around 13 and we moved to a council flat from a condemned building. It was a gas fridge too!

I think the answer to that is "it depends" In many cases people didn't move far so the people still used the same shops and the kids went to the same schools. I also think, as someone whose husband experienced it, that the "crab bucket" aspect of community is not talked about as much as it should be.

Yesterday my ungrateful teen was moaning about the (minimal) effort required for a brilliant opportunity and I took the opportunity to remind them where their bloodlines are from and that the life we live is our ancestors wildest dreams.

And I do hope that 3 generations on they do look back at my life and think OMG I can’t believe they didn’t have robo housekeepers, I can’t believe medical treatment for X, Y and Z was so barbaric, I can’t believe it took 5 hours to get from A to B when now it is 20 minutes.

Oh, yeah, the body-fixing nanobots, I'm still waiting on them too.

That's terrible. My parents were not churchgoers but we lived close to the local church (c of e) and the local primary was linked to it. My parents always knew the vicars well and while we were not rich, we were not as poor as some. From very early we were coached not to comment if we saw a child at school wearing clothes or shoes that had been ours. As an adult, I found out that the church was also part of a loose organisation who gave help and support to abused women fleeing from their husbands.

One of the stately homes I visited used to employ a servant whose job it was to empty all the family members bed pans 🤮
Thank god for the modern toilet!