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NATIONAL TRUST BACK TO BACKS AND MEMORIES OF OUR BACK TO BACKS

cookie273uk said:
We only paid 12/6 in the 1950's. 2 rooms (no kitchen, cooker in the living room) and an attic. This was Vicarage Rd Aston. Eric
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The house I am living in now was divided before or during the war. It was sub let and several people over the years came and said they lived in our bedroom. There were no locks on the doors and the landlady was a tea leaf, my ex colleague then and her young fiancé rented our bedroom as a bedsit and they had to use a baby belling on the landing to cook on. There was an outside loo and a well in the garden and this couple told me they went to the slipper baths. I don't know how much they paid.
 
Nico said:
The house I am living in now was divided before or during the war. It was sub let and several people over the years came and said they lived in our bedroom. There were no locks on the doors and the landlady was a tea leaf, my ex colleague then and her young fiancé rented our bedroom as a bedsit and they had to use a baby belling on the landing to cook on. There was an outside loo and a well in the garden and this couple told me they went to the slipper baths. I don't know how much they paid.
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It isn't a back to back but it is very old. 1900. When you look back to what a lot of people had to live like then. And I see people living worse now.
 
When the National Trust first opened those houses they invited an old lady, a former resident, to have a look and she was disgusted at how their "experts" had perceived living conditions in those times pre WW2.
There were no fancy lace curtains, pretty wallpaper, all nicely plastered walls etc she said, just cold, damp walls, rotting window frames and draughty rooms. Her and her siblings always hungry with runny noses from a cold that went on for weeks. Seeing their neighbour have debt collectors take everything except one bed and one chair because they were behind with the rent.

I remember a big search they made for a correct chimney pot of all things whilst someone was busy inside making it look pretty.
I realise health and safety are involved but as someone who worked in TV scenery I had to age and weather sets accordingly. They should therefore have engaged a scenic painter to replicate the peeling paint and wallpaper, stained and damp walls and ceilings, broken glass in some windows with paper stuck over it. A Typical NT restoration unfortunately.
 
izzy eckerslike said:
When the National Trust first opened those houses they invited an old lady, a former resident, to have a look and she was disgusted at how their "experts" had perceived living conditions in those times pre WW2.
There were no fancy lace curtains, pretty wallpaper, all nicely plastered walls etc she said, just cold, damp walls, rotting window frames and draughty rooms. Her and her siblings always hungry with runny noses from a cold that went on for weeks. Seeing their neighbour have debt collectors take everything except one bed and one chair because they were behind with the rent.

I remember a big search they made for a correct chimney pot of all things whilst someone was busy inside making it look pretty.
I realise health and safety are involved but as someone who worked in TV scenery I had to age and weather sets accordingly. They should therefore have engaged a scenic painter to replicate the peeling paint and wallpaper, stained and damp walls and ceilings, broken glass in some windows with paper stuck over it. A Typical NT restoration unfortunately.
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Made me think of ‘distempered walls’ but I am not sure what distemper actually consisted of?
 
I always thought distemper contained lime which would have had some antibacterial properties. If so, then that might have been an advantage in those conditions
 
Morturn said:
It’s a very old type of paint that’s based on glue as its binder. It more resilient than whitewash but can still be marked and rubs off a little bit.

Emulsion paints that have oil as a binder superseded distempers.
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In my recollection it was often to be found underneath wallpaper, usually green and had a very strong smell.
 
mikejee said:
I always thought distemper contained lime which would have had some antibacterial properties. If so, then that might have been an advantage in those conditions
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It was generally based on whiting (Calcium Carbonate) with a small amount of pigment. It was a breathable coating so ideal for damp houses. Distemper was either white, light blue or buff. I know Reckitts blue was used to give the blue hue, but don’t know what was used to give the buff colour. It had more or less gone out of fashion before I started work, but we were taught a little about it at college.

I do have a very old decorators handbook that has all of the recipes. I have to dig it out sometime.
 
Tinpot said:
In my recollection it was often to be found underneath wallpaper, usually green and had a very strong smell.
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The smell was most likely the glue size used either to make the distemper or used on the walls prior to wallpapering over the distemper.

Glue size was made from boiled up bones. We used to say it was made from boiled up horses. The smell when you made it up was horrendous.
 
Generally, distemper was used as it was a cheap solution for wall coverings as it had animal based glue in its make up . It was not that durable and marked / flaked easily, but was seen by most local authorities as a cheap, and available supply of wall paint to brighten the back to back and terraced type council housing stock at those times.
I only know this as a building design course I attended many years ago had a ex council housing manager on and distemper and it use came up in a discussion.
 
my first dog bought from pimms in the bham market had distemper and whent mad she had to be out to sleep:sob:

Distemper paintor is an ancient type of paint that can be traced back to the earliest eras of human history. It is an early form of whitewash made of water, chalk, and pigment, and it is often bound with an animal-based glue-like egg or the adhesive qualities of casein, a resin that comes from solidified milk.
Historically, distemper has been a popular interior paint for homes. In fact, it has been used since antiquity for painting walls and other types of house decoration. It is easily marked, but cannot get wet. Because it's not waterproof, it has been used almost exclusively for interior surfaces.
 
When I first started work in 1961 the painters had been using Walpamur water paint that came in a square cardboard box, it's texture was like butter, it had to be beaten in a tub and other things added to it before it could be used and applied with a whallop brush! Emulsion paint had only just arrived on the market for the first time so was ready to use straight out of the tin ( plastic containers came later on)
 
izzy eckerslike said:
When I first started work in 1961 the painters had been using Walpamur water paint that came in a square cardboard box, it's texture was like butter, it had to be beaten in a tub and other things added to it before it could be used and applied with a whallop brush! Emulsion paint had only just arrived on the market for the first time so was ready to use straight out of the tin ( plastic containers came later on)
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You may also recall Nine Elms Ceilingite another distemper that had to be prepared prior to application. It had a nice small of almonds

Im19490422ABN-Farmiloe.jpg
 
dad bought a white oblong block that looked like chalk he would break it up in a bucket add water and keep stiring and adding the bits of block untill it was thick enough to slosh on the walls
1665478801003.png
 
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Interestingly, in the cholera epidemics of the mid nineteenth century, abstinence from drink (alcohol) and whitewashing the walls was suggested as a means of protection against cholera.
 
We had some toxic wallpaper for a set built for Pebble Mill in the early 1980's, it was a hand blocked William Morris pattern and probably cost a ludicrous amount of money. It was much wider than standard wallpaper and it had to be trimmed by hand using a 6ft steel straight edge. It smelled strongly and had powder coming off it and after using it on the set two of us has red blotches all over our hands that took a week to clear up.
 
I've never been to Back to Backs, so I've booked myself in. I saw the outside of Mom's house in Reservoir Terrace before they pulled it down and inside a much renovated one of her friend's also in Ladywood. It will be interesting to see the story they tell and how the building is presented. I expect it will be clean and tidy and rather idealised like the servants' quarters in bigger houses.
 
izzy eckerslike said:
We had some toxic wallpaper for a set built for Pebble Mill in the early 1980's, it was a hand blocked William Morris pattern and probably cost a ludicrous amount of money. It was much wider than standard wallpaper and it had to be trimmed by hand using a 6ft steel straight edge. It smelled strongly and had powder coming off it and after using it on the set two of us has red blotches all over our hands that took a week to clear up.
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By coincidence it is the William Morris wallpapers that have proved to be quite toxic
 
i was speaking to a woman from the national trust she said to me "have you been in the Back 2 Back houses in brum" i said "been" i was born in one She shut up and walked away quickly
www.nationaltrust.org.uk

Birmingham Back to Backs | West Midlands

Explore 200 years of working peoples' lives on a guided tour of the Birmingham Back to Backs, a carefully restored court of houses built literally back-to-back.
www.nationaltrust.org.uk www.nationaltrust.org.uk
 
Radiorails said:
Many old houses had kitchen chimneys which usually were for the wash tub - called a 'copper' (in Devon anyway) as that was what the bowl was usually made from. Some chimneys it seems were for cast iron fire grates which had an oven and a warmer plus a top hob.
View attachment 144988 These can be seen at the Black Country Museum.
I wonder how many here have black leaded them in the past or when visiting grandparents or other older relatives were asked to help?
View attachment 144989
If you liked steam then this was the place to be. It was a whole mornings job in a way, fire had to be lit, water heated to very hot - none of the low temperatures (which don't kill many bugs) of today.
I can still see my dear mother-in-law working hard with the wash - always on Monday of course.
The more modern - at the time before electric washing machines - was a gas boiler, often with a copper bowl.
View attachment 144990
The fire grates, washing bowls and gas appliances were most likely made in Birmingham or the Black Country. I guess there is a thread about them.
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we had all 3 mom black leaded our range. there was tub like in pic 2 in the brew house outside, and the council boiler that had a rubber pipe conecting it to a fitting on the wall. no H&S then
 
Morturn said:
By coincidence it is the William Morris wallpapers that have proved to be quite toxic
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I went for lunch once with my colleagues in an ancient boarded building. It had remnants of the original wallpaper with notices not to touch as it was toxic. There was an episode of Doc Martin dealt with this with Miryam Margoyles's character getting poisoned and hallucinating from the old flock wallpaper.
 
cookie273uk said:
My late Wife and I lived in a back house in the 50's in a court yard in Aston, a living room a bedroom and a leaking attic it was terrible, rotting window frames, damp with peeling wallpaper, mildew, outside toilets, 4 shared by 12 houses, freezing cold in the winter. The only good thing was the cheap rent allowing us to save a deposit for a 'real' house that much quicker, it was paradise to have a kitchen, bathroom indoor toilet 3 bedrooms and warmth. Those restored houses in Hurst Street are nothing like the real thing, they are practically rebuilt. Eric
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Born in one in 1944, up a courtyard, and lived there for 14 years.All you said, plus bed bugs and mice! Both of which my dad regularly hunted! We lived in Bishop Street near the markets. It did make me very grounded though and taught me to appreciate how relatively well off I became.And to feel empathy to the homeless or people in crap housing.Consequenyly I saved to buy my own house in Halesowen before I married.
Edifi said:
It was all about the area you lived.Posh people called them Bomb Sites we called them Bombed Pecks.
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Yes,a peck's a peck. Absolutely.
 
Pedrocut said:
The scullery of a back-to-back house in Hockley, and the living room of a back-to-back house in Small Heath.

(From the above Thesis by Emma Dwyer, 2014. Pictures taken by Bill Brandt for the Bournville Trust in 1939)

View attachment 156629View attachment 156628
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Th
izzy eckerslike said:
When the National Trust first opened those houses they invited an old lady, a former resident, to have a look and she was disgusted at how their "experts" had perceived living conditions in those times pre WW2.
There were no fancy lace curtains, pretty wallpaper, all nicely plastered walls etc she said, just cold, damp walls, rotting window frames and draughty rooms. Her and her siblings always hungry with runny noses from a cold that went on for weeks. Seeing their neighbour have debt collectors take everything except one bed and one chair because they were behind with the rent.

I remember a big search they made for a correct chimney pot of all things whilst someone was busy inside making it look pretty.
I realise health and safety are involved but as someone who worked in TV scenery I had to age and weather sets accordingly. They should therefore have engaged a scenic painter to replicate the peeling paint and wallpaper, stained and damp walls and ceilings, broken glass in some windows with paper stuck over it. A Typical NT restoration unfortunately.
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Great article.Says exactly what I felt when I visited them a few years ago.And I was born half a mile away in Bishop St. in 1944, so I remembered exactly what they were like.
 
Whitewash was made by soaking quicklime (CaO) in water.Applying this to wood was sufficient to kill most bacteria on the surface
 
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