What was it like growing up in the 50’s/60’s?

[WhyBeDennyDifferent]

I’m feeling a bit nostalgic about my mum and have been pondering what her childhood was like growing up in the 50s/60s in Northern Ireland.
Would anyone care to share their experiences? Even just daft things like what sort of dinners you had, how far you had to walk to school etc. What was expected of you as a child? How did your parents bring you up?

I’m aware everyone’s experiences will vary, I was just looking for a general idea.

Thank you

I was born in 1955, the youngest of 3 children, living on a huge council estate, my house was built in 1950, so was fairly new.

Totally agree with many other posters-no central heating, coal fires, ice on the inside of the windows, no duvets, but piles of blankets, and a quilt on top, and (especially in 1963 which was a very cold long winter) being augmented by my dads coat on top of all that. The bed being very damp, but snuggling up with a hot-water bottle, and soon getting snug and warm. Most nights we would have cocoa before we went to bed "to warm us up".

Very few cars-kids could play quite safely in the streets, and we had games of rounders or cricket which would go on for ages, and sometimes the mums and dads would even join in.

Same meals on the same days, with slight seasonal variations, no freezers or fridges, shopping locally, usually on a daily basis, but loads of stuff was delivered to your door-Milk, Bread, the "Pop Man", if you were fairly well off, and really posh people had Beer delivered to their homes on a weekly basis ( "Beer at home means Davenports").

We had 2 mobile shops that came round more or less on a daily basis, one being a Green-grocer van, and one being an old Bedford bus that had been converted into a mobile shop that sold a few fresh items, but mainly tinned and packaged goods. These mobile shops were also a meeting place for all the women to meet and have a chat about the day-to-day happenings. Life was pretty tough.

One family anecdote has stayed with my family for years, and amply illustrates the community spirit that was present then. It was 5 years before I was born, and the houses were all new, the roads were mud, and it was also another very bad winter (the winters of '47, '50 and '63 were especially bad) It was a few days before Christmas, my mum was 8 months pregnant with my older sister and it was beginning to snow. The main topic of conversation on the Grocery van was how much coal everybody had. My mum said she didn't have much, but what little they had they were saving for Christmas Day, so at least we could have a fire on that day. She thought no more about it, until later that night there was a knock on the door-there stood a man she didn't know, and he said " I hear you've got no coal-well, no one goes without coal at Christmas, not all the time I work down the pit anyway". He then delivered two wheel-barrows full of coal (all coal miners got an allowance of 1 Ton of coal every 6 weeks, and we lived in a huge coal mining area). He, and his family, remained family friends until he sadly died in the 1980's. Life was tough, but everyone was in the same boat, and just seemed to get one with it.

Remember that many people had lived and fought through two world wars by the time they were 45, and so just a peaceful existence was something of a luxury.

Only having a bath once a week (on a Sunday), as that was the one day when everyone was in, and the coal fire was lit all day to get the water hot. The rest of the week it was a strip wash at the kitchen sink, or me and my sister sitting on the draining board and taking it in turns to have a "bath" in the huge Butler sink in the kitchen. Shampoo was bought in a sachet containing enough shampoo for one wash, and was only used by adults-the kids had to use soap!.

There was more-or-less full employment, and in our immediate area nearly everyone's Dad worked at either Raleigh (Bikes), Ericssons (Telephones), Players (cigarettes) Boots (medicines) or Stanton Iron works (local steel works)-and of course, loads of Miners . There was lots of women employed in these factories too, and there was loads of part-time work, so in our city we were quite lucky as many families had two incomes, which was not so common in other towns and cities in our area.

I'll have to stop now, or else I will ramble on 'til the early hours, but I would just like to say, even though we had nowt, I had an absolutely wonderful childhood, and I don't think I would really change anything. And, even though we didn't have central heating, and the floors were cold lino, I can never actually remember being cold. Maybe it was just accepted as part of life, and it just didn't lodge in my memory.

In NI bread came in many forms. Sliced pan which was a sliced white load or Plain bread which was a more dense bread -usually unsliced and with a deep crust top and bottom - invariably burnt but not something to complain about. These were baked all together so that the side had a funny laminated texture to it. Fantastic with a big wadge of butter on it. Then there was soda bread . My favourite was treacle soda and one day I will get round to making it myself. There was also plain and wheaten and, in some bakeries ,fruit soda. There were baps - lovely and crusty and always fresh from the bakery.
Paris buns were a favourite - dense maderia cake-like buns with a peak -no icing or anything but butter again helped it out. Sore heads (buns) were similar but with a grease proof paper wrapper .
In the chip shop adults would get fish on fridays but children got pasties - a battered shape made of left over chips and anything else they could stick in it - bound together with egg ,breadcrumbs and some mixed spice. Very tasty.
We had ice-cream a lot .There were may ice cream shops -all run by Italian families . Children were sent for pokes ( cones) or sliders ( wafers) these were put into a metal rectangular shape , ice cream put on top and the another wafer to finish. The metal holder kept it all together and then end result was slid out and put onto a sheet of greaseproof paper with the rest of the order and the whole lot wrapped up for the journey home.

Born in the 1950s. We didn’t get central heating until I was in my late teens, so I remember the icy windows and mum getting the coal fire going by using a sheet of newspaper to “draw” it, and then warming our clothes in front of it to put on when we got up. We had a stove in the kitchen which burned coke and was lit using a gas poker.

We didn’t have a fridge until I was about 10 - it was a tradition for me to have an icecream cake for my birthday party, so half way through the party (always on a Sunday afternoon) I used to run round to the newsagents and they would open specially to give me the cake which was in the shop freezer. Parties were always at home, with games and home made food - no elaborate events.

Only takeaway was fish and chips - when I was very small mum would write the order on a piece of paper and wrap the money in it and I would nip round to the chip shop - I could hardly reach up to the counter!

Although we had outings and holidays and definitely weren’t neglected, our parents were too busy to play with us on a daily basis - we were expected to amuse ourselves, and any complaints of being bored were given very short shrift! Because there was less traffic all the kids played out on the street. From the age of about 7 we would roam off further afield with our friends and would only be expected back for tea.

Luckily I reached stocking-wearing age just when tights were coming in, so only had to stand the indignity of wearing a girdle for a few months.

I remember coming home from Sunday school each week and mum would be cooking Sunday dinner with Two Way Family Favourites on the radio. I had an old-fashioned tape recorder and used to tape the Top Twenty on Sunday nights. Trying not to get the DJ’s voice on the recording required considerable dexterity.

These are just a few snapshots - I could go on! I don’t think many people would want to go back to those days, although life as a child then seems simpler than it is now. I took the 11-plus and we just came into school one day and the desks were set up for us to take the test - no weeks of preparation or hothousing.

Born in '62 in the North of Scotland. I remember sitting with my mum on Sunday evenings listening to Fireside Sunday School and eating banana sandwiches. I was very excited one evening when someone from school got mentioned on the programme.

Going shopping with my mum meant going to the butcher, then the grocer and then the bakers. We even had a shoe shop and a draper's shop.( I don't think they even exist any more). This was in a village and there was also a chemist and a newsagent.

Mum was a teacher but didn't go back to work until the youngest of us was 5. The mums who worked were usually in the family business.

The doctor's surgery was in his house. I remember my mum going to the nursing home in the nearest big town to have my brother. She seemed to be away for ages and wrote to me to tell me about the baby and to get me to remind my granny who had come to help out to make sure I had my PE kit.

We lived in quite a big house with no central heating or double glazing. There was always ice on the inside of the windows and I remember the terry nappies freezing on the washing line. Our heating was a lovely warm raeburn in the kitchen and a peat or coal fire in the living room. None of the other rooms had heating apart from the bathroom which had an electric wall heater and my dad's study as he worked from home a lot.

I remember going for piano lessons with the lady who owned the shoe shop and the room where she gave the lessons was full of shoe boxes.

I loved my childhood there but we moved to a big city in the early 70s which was actually a good age to move although at the time I hated it.

Would I go back? As a child yes but as other Pps have said it would probably be very different as an adult.

My mother grew up in Northern Ireland.

My mother nursed her grandmother and father at home until they died (her father died from leukaemia), so I'm guessing healthcare provision wasn't as good as it is today. The memory she always shares is sitting next to his bed, pressing a damp cloth against his lips, which were black.

They were very poor. She tells me stories about the poverty, which always makes me wonder why the welfare net didn't seem to stretch as far as her family - or those around them.

She and the other children in the family left school with no qualifications. In fact, my mother left at 12 effectively. I think all of them had left by 14.

She says that the water tasted good, though. Which, incidentally, she had to collect from a well.

It all makes me very grateful for the things we enjoy now.

On the other hand, my father grew up with a television in the house (thrilling) and remembers lively arguments at school as to whether Elvis really was the 'King of Rock and Roll'. He was into jazz and joined a school jazz club, where they'd play records.

I love to think of him as a school-child, with the 'Swinging Sixties' just around the corner. He missed all that, though. They had children by that point!

He owned a car from a young age and remembers the M1 being so sparsely used, he could race along it with his friends, exchanging cigarettes from one car window to another.

Ah yes! I remember going to the library too. I was (still am) a voracious reader, and had special dispensation to have more books per week than you were allowed, so that I always had something to read.

Children's paperbacks (usually Puffin) were 2/6s (12.5 in today's money!), and book tokens usually came in 5 shilling or 10 shilling denominations, so I used to look forward to birthdays and Christmas for that reason.

We didn't have a shower until some time in the early 70s, and once we had one, it revolutionised bathing and hair-washing!

Home cooked chips for tea most evenings. Done in a huge vat of smoking oil which would be allowed to cool then reused several times over.

We were sent to the woods to play but told not to go over the hill which we naturally always did. Place was alive with kids. If it snowed we'd use the metal sledge with slats to sledge down the road racing the kids down the street on opposite sides.

Outside play in all weathers at school. I often had interestingly purple hands and knees in the winter. Boys wore grey shirts and caps to school. Girls had berets with the school badge on. All had proper ties and were expected to tie them. This was state school, not private.

Library was a big deal. We were taken weekly and expected to shut up the instant we darkened the doorway.

Very dull Sundays.

BIWI what a privilege! No one, not even an adult was allowed more than two books at a time from ourlibrary under any circumstances. Those little buff coloured cards with the slot for the card from your book. I went every Saturday afternoon with my aunt.

Caravan holidays with terrifying gas mantles.

Clarks sandals in red, blue or brown for the start of the summer term.

Being cold most of the time and getting dressed in front of the fire.

biwi I lived in our library..we were allowed 6 books as a child and 8 at 13. I read voraciously too...Armada books were good.

Born 1956
No central heating until 1974 or landline. Regularly slapped by teachers and parents, for pretty much nothing. Walked to school, 3 miles each way. Played out till dark, would go on cycle rides all day with a jam sandwich. Would spend the day with other kids canoeing and sailing, no adult about and one life jacket between us. Swimming in the river in supervised. Doing housework from about age 11, being alone in the house as my mum worked, from a very early age. Everything shut on Sundays and we had to play quietly to give working men a rest, most worked 6 days a week
Started full time work at 16 and paid parents board and lodging, used to hand over my pay packet

Ah yes! The freedom. I went all over the place with my mates on our bikes. Miles away from home. As long as we were home for tea, it didn't matter what we'd done/where we'd gone.

From the age of 5 I walked to school (admittedly only about 500 yards away, and with no roads to cross), and from the age of 7 went on the bus on my own (2d bus fare) to my ballet lessons - which I loathed and detested - a journey of around a mile/mile and a half.

The Corona van that used to come round every week. The only time we had fizzy drinks. I used to love their orangeade, as well as cream soda and dandelion and burdock.

Born in 1955. I lived with my grandmother for 4 nights a week as Mum was a night nurse and dad was in the navy until he managed to pass the civil service entrance exams. She lived in a 2 up 2 down terrace with no bathroom and an outside loo at the bottom of the garden. She worked in a hardware shop where nails were weighed out by the pound and paraffin was kept in big containers.
We had frost on the inside of the windows and went to bed covered in coats to keep warm.

I remember the local corner shop had uncovered sacks full of rice and flour usually with the shop cat asleep on top.

My dad was a member of the local cricket club. I remember as a toddler going around the boundary with a collection box asking the crowd for contributions. On a Saturday and Sunday, this crowd was 3 deep around the boundary lines probably because TV wasn't so common.

I played out at the rec all day coming home in time for tea and scrumped apples from the garden of the local witch (she wasn't of course, just a woman frustrated by small children stealing her fruit).

Dad made us homemade hamburgers on Saturday while mum slept in and I sat under the kitchen table listening to Family Favourites on the radio knitting scarves.

As an 11 year old I went to a grammar school 90 minutes away by bus. I remember wearing stockings and suspenders with "granny" long legged knickers pulled down to cover my thighs. There was a time when mini skirts came in before tights were cheap enough for me to buy. It was a balancing act between having a short enough skirt and not showing stocking tops!

The only reason I'd go back in time would be to make sure I put my first wages into internet stocks and shares!

Anyone remember one of these?!

What an utterly fascinating thread. Thanks for sharing all your memories. Was an 80's child but do recall the walking everywhere and playing out all day until teatime! Love reading about how childhood was only a couple of decades earlier

Hair dryers had the most pathetic blow, and weren't that warm. Hence I always dried my hair by lying on my back across the hearth rug with my long hair by the coal fire. I once went to bed with it wet and woke up with it still v damp in the morning (no heating).
Everyone was aware of appearances. I had a good outfit for Sunday school and polished my shoes every day before school. In the 50s Mum always wore a hat if she went out. That got less in the 60s. I'm not sure the casual wear we all have now is a good thing.

People .
People everywhere on the streets . Mainly kids but adults too would be outside even in rainy weather. I remember almost every street corner would have a small group of youths hanging around . Sometimes adults would join them just to see who passed by . No trouble making usually just chatting and joking - oh and smoking of course. You could spot when a group was around a blind corner by the plumes of smoke.
But the streets were rarely empty - kids would play out until dark and would use the width of the street for all sorts of organised games involving a ball substitute( balls cost money and got lost) so a stick would do if it just needed to be thrown.Skipping games for girls - no boy would join in these. Boys played' kick the can' for hours .Swinging round a lampost with a rope tied by a bigger child who shinned up and attached the loop to the crossbar.
Fireworks were for children to play with. Bangers were thrown and sparklers were for babies. We knew about the dangers and got out of the way.Thunder caps would do if no bangers were available.

Old people would often take a kitchen chair and sit beside the front door . They kept an eye on the street and would report any misbehaviour to parents who acted on reports and brooked no nonsense from their offspring. Disgraced in front of neighbours ! Terrible .
The old people would be joined by anyone who had a few moments to spare to pass on gossip and they could nab a passing child to go for 'messages' (go to the shop for groceries). Fridges were a rarity so dairy produce had to be bought by the day.
Shopping meant visiting lots of individual shops and could take a good part of the day so children were necessary as runners. Often with a smaller child in tow.
We had televisions but still spent most of our time outside. We watched with mother at lunchtime of we were off school and there was a local programme called romper room where you listened for you name at the end.In the evenings everyone watched the same things so there was a sense of community the next day discussing what we had seen .

What everyone born in the 50s is saying about the cold, the food but also the freedom to go out for hours, make dens, climb trees, etc.
Sundays, the worst, most boring day. Church, no TV, aaagh.
I used to go shopping with my SAHM occasionally but most things were delivered. There seemed to be a constant stream of people in and out of the house: cleaner, grocer, greengrocer, baker, butcher.. and loads of neighbours who came in for morning coffee and incessant chat. Afternoons were for sewing, knitting, etc, often for charity, with loads of women who would take their coats off, but leave their hats on. Tea and cake would be served and when I went to school, I would arrive home in time to get mine.
When the sixties and the Beatles happened, it was like switching on colour on a previously monochrome world!
Being fortunate enough to live in a seaside holiday town, I got the full benefit as a teenager. The big bands (we called them groups then), including the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix; coffee bars to hang out in, a huge fairground, discos, roller skating rink, new fashions in dozens of boutiques (yes, I know.. shops), hundreds of Saturday and school holiday job opportunities in the summer and new boyfriends every fortnight when they arrived on holiday. Later, we had a basement hippy den in the town, where we could retire and do drugs in peace, listening to “underground” music.
I don't know if the holiday atmosphere of the seaside had anything to do with it but there was a small gay community, who seemed to be accepted and fitted in, to my outside view, even prior to 1969.
The rampant sexism became wearisome, but we discovered Germaine Greer around 1970, became feminists and began to fight back!

Sounds like Dreamland Giggorata

Today's weather reminds me of the cold days of my 40s/50s childhood. In the evening we would draw the armchairs and settee up to the fire and create a small semi-circle of warmth, while we listened to the wireless. It took a real effort of will to go upstairs to the freezing lavatory.
I remember having cold feet, especially after waiting for the bus to go to school. I had read about frost-bite and how in severe cases peoples' toes could fall off, and some days I would really worry about changing into my indoor shoes at school in case my toes were rolling around in my socks. Sometimes we would have to wear coats in the classroom, and had to jump up and down to keep warm. We were forbidden to sit on the radiators as it would 'give us piles'. (They forgot to mention that giving birth could have the same effect!)

Growing up in the fifties, most people had very little, but we didn't meet rich people so we didn't feel deprived, just normal. We played outside most of the time and took neighbours' babies for a walk in the pram! Prams were left outside shops as a matter of course.

Nowadays there are efforts to make people recycle but after the war this was automatic. Children's clothes were passed on to younger relatives and the rag man collected what was unwearable. We had a hessian sack (no plastics) for newspaper collections and a pigs bin for food waste, peelings etc. Brown paper and string were always kept for reuse.

Child benefit - family allowance - wasn't paid for the first child. We had hardly any clothes, mainly school uniform and something smart for church.

Although corporal punishment was permitted and common, I was never smacked. My dad was very strict but a look was enough.

I wonder if things will change as radically for the next couple of generations.

The 60s and 70s were decades of a revolution in food processing, and lots of new foods were 'enjoyed', like Instant Whip/Angel Delight, Vesta Chow Mein or Curry, Cadbury's Smash.

We started having 'French dressing' on our salad, instead of Heinz salad cream, and spaghetti became more popular - in very long blue packets.

Olive oil moved from being something you bought from the chemist in little bottles, to be dropped into your ears if you had waxy ears, to something used in dressings and cooking. And Parmesan cheese made its first appearance - although dried, in little drums, rather than fresh. It smelt of vomit!

By the 70s, pizza was becoming more established, along with pizza restaurants. Remember Pizzaland, anyone?!