Have loved reading the replies and can add a few nostalgic remembrances of my own.
I was one of five children, 3 boys born in the 1940s, my sister and I born in the 50s. We lived in a three bedroomed house. My sister and I were in with my parents until I was about 7, sis 5, two brothers shared one room and the eldest had a box room on his own. When the brothers got married (very young, two were only 19, another 21) and moved out, we got their rooms.
My dad was demolition worker, out all day (drove a lorry through work - we had no car until the mid 60s). My mum never drove but was a State Registered nurse and was at home during the day and worked night shifts at the hospital and also did a morning cleaning job at a hotel. She worked like an absolute trojan and walked everywhere - miles in the course of a day to and from her two jobs as well as shopping and everything she did at home. We had a small parade of shops at the end of our road (co-op, newsagent, chemist, hairdresser, greengrocer and hardware store) and got bits from there. On Fridays after school we would walk with our mum two miles to a supermarket (not much more than a big shop really) and lug all the bags of shopping back home.
While my sis and I were at primary school my brothers were all working from aged 15 - all three doing plumbing apprenticeships (and all well off now thanks to the skills they learned lol). We'd get up in the mornings and light a fire (dad and brothers had already left for work, and mum wasn't home yet) and were experts at it. Sheet of newspaper in front of the grate to make it 'catch'. It was the only heating in the house, and it had a back boiler to heat the water which was like gold dust. The mantra in our house was 'don't waste the hot water'! In Winter the whole family would congregate around that fire.
We had power cuts all the time. Remember once the power went off on Chrismas Eve and was out until the day after Boxing Day. But we had gas cooker and always candles and paraffin lamps, so it was never a hardship. Remember clearly all sitting around eating Christmas dinner by candlelight.
We also had an outside loo (bloody freezing) and the old hard 'Cresco' (like tracing paper) toilet sheets. Useless! When that ran out we'd use cut up newspaper. We'd have porridge for breakfast (every friggin' day lol) and our main meal was school dinner which cost five bob a week. We'd dress ourselves and walk to school about a mile and a half away. When we got home, mum would have had a few hours sleep, the house would be gleaming, and we'd have 'tea' beans on toast or egg sandwiches or something. Never a big meal. Once a week on Fridays we'd have the treat of 'fish and chips' and had the best chippy in the world at the end of our road. A shilling cod and fourpence of chips. An added bonus was the free packet of 'scratchings' (all the crapola from the friers) that they'd give us ... and we loved it lol!
As someone already said the fridge was tiny with a little 'freezer' box that you could just about fit a packet of fish fingers into. We had an outside pantry (next to the toilet lol) where all other food stuff was kept. We had a bath once a week (Sunday nights) but were far from dirty - everyday you'd have a strip wash with a small basin of warm water and scrub your neck, feet etc. Can't understand why our hair never got greasy but it never did, but it was always tied up in braids or pony tail or whatever. School uniform was very strict back in those days, and we'd get two clean shirts a week only, same with socks but the rest of it we wore all week. When I went to Grammar School aged 11 I'd cycle four miles there and four miles back, all weathers and thought nothing of it.
Mum did laundry once a week and it was a major exercise. Out would come the twin tub and it would take over the kitchen. Load after load, fed from the taps with a rubber hose, then out on the line then a mammoth iron and she ironed everything - tea towels, knickers the lot! (I don't iron anything apart from once in a blue moon). Beds were proper cotton sheets and blankets and eiderdowns and changed once a week - Sunday nights after we had our baths and I can still remember that feeling of being all clean and climbing into the wonderful clean bed with the crisp sheets, all ironed, fluffy pillows.
In the garden mum grew all kinds of veg and we had gooseberry and redcurrant bushes. All through the Summer the salads and dinners we had invariably included something from the garden. Every Sunday without fail even in the height of Summer we'd have a roast for dinner and then a 'salad' tea. One thing I remember with horror is Heinz tinned vegetable salad, which was disgusting. Pudding was nearly always tinned or fresh fruit with condensed milk - the latter I hated as well.
I remember getting our first phone (around 1970) which was party line with our next door neighbour. Very often you'd pick up the phone only to hear them talking to someone.
I also remember the ice on the inside of the windows and our breath coming out in white clouds inside the house!! Piling up the bed with coats and extra blankets in the winter and going to bed wearing more clothes than we wore in the day lol, including knitted woollen bedsocks.
We were always playing out - building go karts, dens, playing tin can alley in the street (hardly any cars), going up the downs with a bottle of water and a greaseproof bag full of jam sandwiches as a picnic. When the snow came I remember us taking an old door as a sledge and having the time of our lives going down the hillsides on it.
Apart from that our main pastimes were reading (Enid Blyton books and others of that ilk) and the occasional bit of TV but there were only two channels and apart from 'Watch with Mother' at lunchtimes nothing on until the evening. We had a black and white telly with a coinbox that you had to put sixpence into and was always running out.
Other memories are the 'Corona' man who would bring fizzy drinks to the house, cherryade, limeade ... all kinds of bizarre flavours that were such a treat! Also remember the Rag and Bone men coming around with their horse and cart to collect your junk. Milk was delivered every day and in winter the bottles would freeze and the plug of cream at the top would burst through the silver foil toppers or often the birds would just peck through the lids.
Think I've written enough for now, but looking forward to reading more posts on this wonderful thread.