Brookside reruns - Part two

[Famua]

A second thread for Brookie watchers….

No he didnt but in his last episode he had a scene where he looked at the house ,it seemed poignant to me as he clearly looked upset ,at this point Doreen Sloane would have already passed away and he looked on the verge of tears maybe real life and his characters life colliding?
It must have been very hard for him .

He did have a kind of storyline that him and Annabelle would have a garden flat looking after mona and her husband
It wasent very reasonable considering the past storyline, but from my understanding sadly Doreen Sloane passed away very quickly and until then had bern responding well to her cancer treatment

I suppose they had to quickly make up a story line for the Collins family in lieu of Doreen Sloans death. I assume Annabelle was quietly written out , her moving before Paul to the new place ? Obviously they couldn’t mention her real life death.

It’s amazing property prices 40 years ago. I mean the Brookside houses were £30k approximately. I’d estimate the average wage in the mid 80s was maybe 10k per year? So a property was 3 times an average salary.

The average salary now is probably £32k and houses are much more than that. It shows how much the housing system had broken in the last 4 decades.

I also think that the right to buy ultimately broke the system. In the 80s many people still lived in council houses, although many of those same people brought them during the 80s and 90s.

We no longer have council homes and most are private. I blame Thatcher for the housing crisis which will never recover from.

It’s been said before but people acted and looked older back in the 1980s. I’ve jus seen the episode where Marie Jackson looks at the posh school.
The headmaster later appeared as David Crosbie , who was 54 in 1984. He looked more like mid 60s then rather than mid 50s..

And I think of Bobby and Sheila Grant as more my parents age , but I’m actually the same age as them now as they were in early Brookside !

The mortgage interest rate in 1985 was around 12-13%, so houses were
not as affordable as the x3 salary might suggest… it was also harder to be a dual income family as nursery care was not common, nor was wrap around. Liverpool was also on its arse still at that stage with dreadful unemployment rates. Several of the story lines focus on that aspect plus fear around losing houses due to non-payment of the mortgage.

Liverpool city centre for very rundown in the late 80s/90s and there wasn’t much work around. I had family who had to work down South because there were no jobs (also a storyline)

Sounds stupid maybe but in 80s Liverpool and other cities with lack of work , wouldn’t jobs such as the fire brigade or police not been an option for people ?Atleast they are secure jobs with no chance of redundancy..

I guess so but not everyone would be able to get public sector jobs i was a child in the 80,,s but do remember that Liverpool had paticularly high unemployment. at the time.

Yes there was a lot of early to mid 80,s documentaries about peoole having to travel south till find work.

The fire brigade and similar employers could only take so many staff - there were three million people unemployed, plus the ones who were hidden in ‘schemes’ like Tracy’s original hairdressing one, and Damon’s painting and decorating.

Yes YTS was very hit and miss I never did one but I know plenty of people that did ,some were offered proper jobs when their YTS ended but many weren't and just treated as cheap labour.

Yes, people often just look at house prices and think life was so easy back then, but forget (or don't know about) the interest rates or the unemployment situation, particularly in the North.

Some of the storylines in Brookside show how important having a job was - The Collins' drop in status that led to their moving to the Close, Billy's 'doleite' spell, Barry and Terry (and Sinbad) living on the edges of criminality, Damon and Tracy's treatment on 'the schemes', Frank losing his job - and they're just the ones I can remember that have been featured so far in the reruns.

Society was so different in the 80s, and even the 90s. I'm loving seeing it all and remembering things that seemed normal at the time, but now need 'attitudes of the time' warnings.

Back then , if people owned a home with a mortgage and they lost their job, what happened with their mortgage payments? Were people still expected to pay, did they have any help or did they have to sell up and be homeless like what happened in the early 90s?

My mum and dad were married in 1982, my dad was in the army at the time. Things were hard financially for them, even though his job was secure.
The wages for lower ranks were poor , my dad got promoted as quick as he could to try and get pay rises but that took a few years and not an instant thing.
I can’t remember if he said if income support was offered or not, but the early 80s were definitely hard.

The 70s right through to the 80s were bad. First, mortgages were much harder to get in those decades. So lenders had much less patience with borrowers who could not pay. I remember homeowners leaving and posting the keys back through the door. It was also very hard to sell homes if you lost a job as too many other people were in the same position. This meant you needed to sell at a loss, if you could find a buyer at all, so there was the spectre of negative equity. This debt remained after repossession as the bank couldn’t cover the initial loan and needed to sell speedily too. So, you ended up with no home and a huge debt.

in terms of welfare support, there was a rudimentary system but, possibly a bit like now, as a ‘homeowner’ you weren’t getting a lot due to the ‘asset’. You were stymied.

Growing up at this time in this area has shaped the adult me. I am fearful of debt and very risk averse financially as the insecurity of income and home has stayed with me. My parents were trying to sell a property in a market with no buyers, we had no home insurance as we had no money so when we were burgled nothing could be replaced. Money problems are like that; they spiral. I was jealous of school mates living in council houses on benefits as they had a stability that I did not. They would go on school trips, have the latest clothes, wear the correct version of the uniform (full uniform grant) etc whilst I was once the only child in my whole year group left in school, wearing a knock off version of the uniform, as my parents couldn’t pay for the trip or the uniform shop uniform. I was treated as a thorough nuisance by the teachers (middle class, stable income) who had to accommodate me not being on the trip - I won’t detail but some of the things said and done were really unforgivable and I was afraid to tell my parents and escalate the situation.

I think Brookside captured the escalation and tension of mortgage issues well, including how it can turn good relationships bad. I was collateral damage and my parents offered no support or sympathy as they were in a whole world of their own pain. So, in short, yes, there are clearly housing issues now however there were no halcyon days of easy, cheap property purchase.

just editing to add - my parents weren’t home owners as they fancied themselves as a bit posh, they were homeowners as they were ex-military and didn’t qualify, never mind get priority, for housing due to not growing up in the area. It was catch 22 for them. Couldn’t make a home in the military town as they didn’t qualify there, had been away too long from birth town to qualify there, hadn’t been in new area where working long enough to go on the list there. After staying with a relative they managed to get a mortgage offer. Note offer - not offers, as there was no shopping around, you needed to have years of financial history with the bank you were applying to and have an interview to check your credentials. Face didn’t fit? Too bad. This was more early 70s - obviously things changed as time moved on re: mortgage availability

I think there was supplementary benefit for families on low incomes ?
I know my mum said you could only get family allowance / child benefit for the second and subsequent children.
My Dad worked at the Gas Board which was a public service ( before it was privatised) so had a secure job and was quite well paid because he worked shifts and some Saturdays
His job was office based he directed the people in gas v4ans where to go when there were leaks etc
My mum subsequently got a Job at the Gas Board in a completely different department dealing with accounts
They both had secure jobs
So we had a fairly comfortable life in the 80,s

I think my parents first mortgage was through the local council??
Not sure how that worked 🤔

You could insure your payments, but there were strict conditions about proving you were looking for work (more like the benefit ones are now, as opposed to how they were then) and they were limited. I think it was on the lines of they paid out after 12 weeks and lasted for 6 months or something. If you were made voluntarily redundant they didn't pay - if there'd been any sort of volunteering involved they didn't pay. Also, they were expensive, and when mortgage rates were high, they were unaffordable for many - maybe more so if you were likely to become unemployed.

When it comes to benefit payments, I think (but could be wrong) that if you had any savings (including redundancy payments) mortgage payments weren't covered. I think you got job-seekers' allowance for so long, then moved onto whatever it was that preceded UC. At that point they would pay towards housing costs, but again, only if you had no money. It would have been easier to get a council house, as fewer of them had been sold off, but that would still depend on points, so people with no children, or divorced dads would struggle. Homelessness was much less of a thing then though, as at least council houses still existed, although they started to get rarer as the 80s progressed. For people like the Brookside residents, many of whom had escaped 'the estate' to live on the Close, the fear of moving back after being seen to have gone up in the world would be very real. Also, the received wisdom was that anyone being made redundant over the age of 40 was on the scrap heap, and unlikely to get another job, or at least one at the same rate of pay. I suppose Paul Collins showed that side of things.

Yes, councils offered mortgages. My parents' friends had one, and it turned out to be a really good deal as it was fixed at 6%, which was very much cheaper than building society mortgages. We got our first mortgage in the 80s, and we had to be interviewed by the BS to get it. It was a full-on 'wear a suit (him) and dress (me)' job. You had to take bank statements and pay slips going back months, and they went through them all and asked about anything they wanted to. I think they even contacted your employers to make sur you weren't likely to be paid off any time soon, but I can't be sure, as it was so long ago.

We got a mortgage, and the rates had doubled before we'd completed on the house. It was scary, but we were young, and we got through somehow. House prices were rising so fast that there was no question of pulling out and waiting for rates to come down, as the mortgage multipliers were strict. Twice the male salary and once the woman's was usual, although there was some flexibility to comply with sex discrimination laws. I think it had changed to twice the higher wage (99% of the time that was the man's anyway) and once the woman's. You couldn't get any more though, so if the house you wanted had increased in price you just lost it.

There’s an interesting documentary from about 1990 on YouTube, Panorma or something similar
to that.

It featured several couples/ families who couldn’t pay their mortgages due to the interest rates being so high. They basically had to give their properties back and wait for the council to re- home them.

People tried to sell their homes but it was very difficult for lots of people because many others were in the same boat.There were streets with multiple properties for sale, some estate were littered with ‘for sale board’.

And of course a smaller pool of buyers because many couldn’t afford to get a mortgage to buy in the first place.

The house I live in now was built in 1979. I have the original sales brochure where the previous owner has three prices crossed out as the price went up with inflation!

Theres a documentary I’ve seen from 1985, on YouTube about a council in London. They were swamped with people going to their office who were homeless.
Families living in temporary accommodation such as hotels. Mould, damp, terrible conditions, cold, lack of heating.

Fast forward 40 years and people are still facing the same problems today. It’s actually quite depressing.

If you remember what its called can you post it on the thread I like watching old Documentaries on you tube .

So today's episodes were interesting Chrissie said if she got a Job for more than 24 hours they would lose the family credit which i assumed was a for runner to tax credits / universal credit ?
Im not liking the fact Barry isn't Bobby's son considering Sheila,s personality and her sanctimonious attitude it seems completely out of chracheter plus how can she be sure ?
Was it explained wether she was also sleeping with Bobby?
Also I also thought it was Matty who was Barry's biological father so who is " Paddy"?

Also about Daniel being on Terry's passport I had temporarily forgot the days we all travelled on holiday on my Dad's passport my Dad ,my mum and me and my sister all went on holiday in the 80,s on my Dad's passport.

I had forgotten that Bobby's not the daddy, and have no recollection of whether the father is Matty, but have to say that sounds more credible than a mysterious Paddy. How did she get Bobby to marry her so quickly - the baby would probably be close to showing before she had a positive test.

I can't remember family credit, either. It seems more likely that people working more than 24 hours would qualify though - why give money to people for working very short hours? Or have a financial cut-off? As there were so many unemployed there were a lot of 'schemes' to massage the figures - maybe that was one of them?

This week did show how precarious life was then, I thought. Chrissy had what would seem like a secure job. One minute she had Frank had just bought a 4 bed house, and the next they are in trouble, Sinbad - hapless as he is - goes away for a couple of weeks and ends up sleeping in a shed with a skeleton. Patricia Farnham was horrible, too. I know there were divides between 'loadsamoney' yuppies and 'losers' on the dole, but her comments were extraordinarily insensitive. I had also forgotten about Patricia and Susannah. I always think 'Max and Susannah', but it's Patricia's face I remember.

I’m just placemarking, I’d missed that there was a new thread.

It definitely feels as though we’re moving into a new era with Brookside now.