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Housing : Living conditions

  • Thread starter Thread starter colinwilliams1
  • Start date Start date
Never heard of 'being sewn into clothes'. It sounds horible and what happened when the clothes got wet. One bath a week is what I recall in our time and since showers and indoor bathrooms are the standard now...every day for some. This frequency is also a problem though because it makes your skin dry. Once a week underware changes has probably become once a day now. I don't think bathing was frowned upon...it was more an awful chore to heat up water and put the tin bath in front of the downstairs fire. Just think..mothers also had kids to bathe...who were probably being kantankerous.
Ah, the old days. When the houses for the great unwashed came sans any provision for these activities. Unwashed may have been close to the truth but perhaps underwashed is closer. Everyone had a galvanised tin tub hanging in the back kitchen or on the fence outside...at a time when most in NA had indoor plumbing and bathrooms and hot water...oh and telephones. The advent of the cell phone/Iphone whatever has been a great leveller.

And yet...since being retired I will admit to not showering every day. Many days...especially in the winter...I don't go out. Perhaps it was all a bit over the top anyway.
Don't forget there were also the Public Baths to go to. These were not only a swimming pool but also cubicles were provided to just go in and take a bath. Hey you got a small towel and a little piece of soap and one time fill of the old four legged bath tub with hot water...for a few coppers. The hot water fawcett was operated with a key by the attendent and you cooled it down with cold to suit. Actually it was all quite civilised but miserable if it was a rainy night. Towels wern't worth a damn.

When I started work down town I was introduced to the wonderful world of the Turkish Bath...and heat and steam...did I say heat...hmmm. Burned the tip of your nose if you breathed in too quickly. But that's another story.
 
Thanks so all your comments. If taking a bath was such a task in the 1930's one can only assume that it must have even more of a task around the 1880's. I imagine that wash stands must have been quite common, but I doubt that one could actually take a bath that way, more like what my mom called a sponge bath. If someone bathed once a week in England (on land) I wonder how often passengers on transatlantic ships would have bathed? or would they? I'm trying to get a picture of what it would have been like for steerage passengers about 1889. By that time, the trip across the ocean lasted little more than a week and conditions on the ships had vastly improved. However, in one account i read that the normal standards of hygiene were not always adhered to. I'd appreicate any references or ideas on the matter. Cheers Karro
 
Steerage passengers on the Titanic had two bathrooms for 700 people. There must have been more WCs I think. Most of the heat went up the chimney Bernard.
 
Our Living Room was on the right hand side of the hall, just past the 'Front Room'. As you go through the door on the is the table, tablecloth on with salt and pepper in the middle. We always ate our meals here, sometimes the cloth was moved so we could play escalada, monopoly, housey housey or paint and draw. Next to it was the alcove with the cupboad with a shelf over. On the shelf there were books, on top of the cupboard was a collection of comics - i.e. Hotspur, The Eagle, Enid Blyton magazine and mom's favourite, Secrets. Below the cupboard where the doors were which had a brass type handle had inside all our boots and shoes, which had to cleared out every so often so the cat could have her kittens.

Next to it was the tiled grate with knick knacks on, the brass crinoline lady with a bell, a brass windmill and assorted mini brass/copper items, dad and mom's woodbines and lighter. The poker in the hearth with the old bucket with the coal in at the side.

The next alcove had the Philco TV in it. Budgie cage hanging from the ceiling and in the summer fly paper also from the ceiling

There was the 2 seater settee and 2 arm chairs with the leather strapped ashtrays over the arms as both mom and dad were smokers. Lino on the floor with a rug in front of the fire.

Then there was the 'sideboard'. On top there were 2 wooden candle holders and at the base where the groove was had our marlies all round. A couple of chalk figures, plus the old clock which dad used to wind up every night at 9:00pm before he went into the kitchen to have a shave ready for work next day. Every Sunday when the baking had been done the cakes were always put on the sideboard. The drawers held, knitting needles, wool, skeins of wool for darning, the rent book, the provi book and the policies. The cupboards below held anything that you could bung into them. All these things in one small room which had 5 people living there.

But as kids what we really liked was found on the back of the Living Room door - a dart board!!!

There must have been many houses with rooms like this.
 
Carolina, what a wonderful piece of creative writing. We loved the part about the cat and her kittens and yes, the sideboard was a central piece containing the things that you said. Made me quite nostalgic for those times but I suspect it is an age thing...and thinking about ones youth. I suspect that many cases of perceived woodworm were the result of dart boards and yes we had one too.
Very well done.
 
I enjoyed reading about the Room carolina! Yes the sideboard, with a fruitbowl (not usually much in it!) Always used a tablecloth on the table at mealtime, had a shabby old velvet runner the rest of the time.
(I once thought there was woodworm in my son's wardrobe, yes, that was the dartboard!)
Tell us about the rest of the house! You reminded me about the cold lino in my bedroom, ice on the inside of the window glass!
rosie.
 
The kitchen was through the Living Room and a little passageway into the kitchen. On the right as thing gots a little better mom had her twin tub washing machine which was next to the sink so she could put the hosepipe from the machine onto the taps, there was also the blue bag, probably used but hopefully would do another wash. On the draining board was last night's washing up ready to be used for the next day's tea. It was a Belfast sink and quite deep and had the carbolic soap on the top, later on an Ascot was installed, it had the window above it looking out into the back yard where you could see the tin bath hanging on the wall. Next to the sink was the boiler which was used to heat the water for the bath on a Sunday night. The wall on the right hand side was obviously used in earlier years for a fire as it had a space which now had some sort of metal container, almost like a barrel but aluminium and in it was the dirty washing. Above it it had a shelf which housed many pills and potions, brylcreem, brush and comb and a little jar where mom would put the boiled camomile flowers in to enhance my blonde hair when washed.

On the next wall was the lovely kitchen cabinet housing all sorts of food and condiments for cooking and eating and pulling down the flap to give extra work space and to which the sandwiches were also made on, probably spam. Next was the door to the cellar and just inside there was the larder where meat (when we had it!!) was put as it was cool, and then the steps leading down to the cellar. Next to the door was 1 single chair which Sunday's was usually sat on upto the kitchen cabinet to shell the peas.

Outside in the yard when you came out of the passageway, Living Room window to the right. As you walked up the yard on the left hand side there was an outhouse, inside this outhose just housed junk, but there was also a wooden staircase which took you up to a trap door, when opened this it brought you into what was known to us as kids as The Factory. It was a long windowed room, again just odds and bits in and very dusty. Sometimes if mom and dad were not in we used to play with a soft ball cricket up there. Looking through the census for this address I was able to find out that in the early 20th century that it was a jewellers workshop. Coming back to the yard, past the outhouse was the 2 dustbins and then you came to the outside lavy which inside had the newspaper cut into squares and tied on with string on a nail, plus in the winter a lamp so it wouldnt freeze up. Outside, there was then 3 steps which took you up to what we called the 'big yard'. The gate was never locked between us and the big yard, but one night someone did come into our yard and pinched all the clean washing on the line.
 
Thank you ! You have brought back many happy memories! The tin bath, the Ascot, blue-bags, and Dad's Brylcreem on the little shelf!
We had a little cupboard Mom called it the meatsafe. It had metal mesh on the front, no meat inside except for Sundays but cheese and milk like a fridge.
rosie.
 
Lovely posts & here's my contribution & recollections as a child of those times,

My house was a simple 3 roomed house,,,not to be mistaken for the usual 3 bed-detached/semi-detached yet it was "attached"
to 3 other houses,,at side, at back & even a join on the bak central corner ! Dissect a square into 4 quarters, one was mine.
Ground floor about 15 foot square,on top of that a middle floor & on top, yep you guessed it another room cloned to suit or
should that be tout suite !, Parents middle bedroom, myself my bro & 3 sisters curtained apart on top deck,
Lights worked in our bedroom when i twisted the switch wires together (Dad sold our switch for a Pint or Two)
Ground floor entrance straight in over a highly polished red step onto shining clean red flagstones, mind the little gas stove &
cold water tap over the bison (Oops i mean't Basin,,ya can't wash yer hands in a bison eh!).
The black leaded fire grate/cooker thingy produced some lovely meals (smell the stew now,but hear the cacophony of noise from
my lovely sisters) but my inner self sense enabling my (homework) dreams of Mesopotamia, shifting troubled Syrian sands of the 1st civilised City damascus,,,nowt changes does it ?,, my "lock-in" ability my Wife says is "Cocking a deaf un,,again,,grrh, Lol
No toilet or Bathroom or hot water but Brewhouse & toilets ( 4 shared in courtyard) & Tin bath (Cold after Sisters,,,bbrrrh!)
Survived Ok,,mainly because we had the lovliest , hardest working, caring Mother in the World,, Bless "er",,,John
 
John, why is it with all the lack of things materially, we still remember it with such fondness. Its probably down to our parents love.
 
I don't think that it is 'It' that you remember but the family that you relied upon for support and 'It' was co-incidental and remembered because of this fact. The support, that was in both directions, was the bond. That bond, being there, would have only been enhanced by improved living conditions and means. The bond not being there...would not have been created by anything and memories would not be fond ones, or only passably sanguine at best. It's pure luck being born into such warmth that deserves the caring input to cary it for a lifetime.
 
Rupert, we were lucky as my dad's main priority was his family and mom always worked, even though it was just across the road. Neighbours were allies as well in each helping when needed. I was 16 when we moved from Hockley to a brand new maisonette in Edgbaston. My mom thought it was the end of the world with a bathroom, 2 toilets and under floor heating. We brought the 3 piece suite which was green 'leather' which had been in the front room. Her only regret was that within 5 years all of her 3 children were married and that she would have loved it dearly a few years earlier.
 
Carolina - so nice reading your posts they stir my own memories of days long gone.

I spent the first year of my life with Mom and Dad as lodgers in Goosemoore Lane and then we moved to a terrace house on the Beeches Estate where we lived most of the time in the kitchen, the front room was for special occasions.

I think the earliest thing I can remember was in that kitchen at two years old sitting on Dad's lap looking at a gas flame from a tap on the pipe, the electricity had not yet been connected, and the flickering flame lit the room like a candle. A grey enamel gas wash boiler stood in the corner, and wash day for the whole road was always on Mondays. I can picture the gardens with sheets pegged out flapping in the breeze, and if it rained we had a drying rack in the kitchen which could be lowered from the ceiling and then raised in front of the fire grate. Mom had two flat irons which were heated on the old gas stove, one being heated while the other ironed and I have a memory of finding out that the handles were very hot.

One other memory of that kitchen was on a rainy afternoon when we were all doing a jigsaw, singing along to the wireless playing the hit tune of the day 'Pedro the Fisherman' which can probably date that afternoon.

Strange things old memories .....
 
At the age of seven my family, Mom, Dad, myself and three brothers moved from our Nans house, where there had been ten of us in a four bedroomed house (overcrowded, I don't think so!!), into our own three bedroomed house, in a block of four.
Open the front door, there were the stairs leading up to the bedrooms. On your left was the door into the living room. Lino on the floor, polished by "skating" with cloths on our feet. This contained at various times, a Sideboard on which stood two Statuetts, Shy Boy and Shy Girl, an assortment of chairs, a Settee and one easy chair. A cupboard in which could be found the gas and electric meters, both of which needed feeding with copper coins ( penny for the meter ), later on a shilling, but which in turn often provided much needed funds for food and drink, in times of desperation. On top of this cupboard was our source of entertainment, the Radio. Saturday night Theatre, Journey into Space, 208 Radio Luxemburg for the latest charts. We never had a "telly" until I was about twelve, and that was second hand. A coal fire, behind which was the copper boiler that provided the hot water, if or when we had the coke or coal to make a fire. An old shoe filled with "slack" often sufficed. A door in which two vent holes were used for dart practice, no dart board I'm afraid, behind which was a closet where we hung our collection of coats and stored our shoes etc;

Tiny kitchen, off which the door to the bathroom could be found. Door leading to the outside toilet and the back garden. Large crock sink and draining board, "copper boiler" to do the washing and provide hot water for the bath. Cast iron four ring cooker, with oven and grill,on which you could do one piece of toast at a time. Door to pantry, very often very little in it. Cold slab, for keeping the milk, marge, dripping and lard cold.

Not a lot, but I loved every minute of my time there until the day I got married and "left home"

Oh, by the way, as the old wives saying goes " new house, new baby" my mom had my baby sister within the first year of moving in.

Happy happy days
jimbo
 
An early 1950's room from a family photo I had put on elsewhere in the forum.
Interesting chairs, a two bar electric log fire, postwar luxuries had arrived !
Family_Photo_3.jpg
 
What great descriptions of your houses, there are a lot of things that bring back memories of my nans and aunts houses, paramount in the scullery at my aunts the never cold stew pan!! The meat safe still had pride of place in nanskitchen up till she died in 2006, never recall seeing meat in it, but its where we found the bank book when she died!!
Can remember the table in all of their houses too, with chenille cloths on. Mom and dads house is the one I grew up in from age 3, but always a table not just for meals but for painting, modelling and of course not forgetting the ever popular Lego!!
Thanks for posting the memories.
Sue
 
Hi, Jimbo, in what city was this house you described.??? It sounds like the same type we moved to from Vauxhall to Kingstanding in 1938 when they were being built. Open front door, there were the stairs up to three bedrooms, to the left was the living room, and so on as you described it.
Have a nice day, Wally.
 
Hello wallyb71. Birmingham. Did not move far, one road into another a matter of four/five hundred yards. I suppose it was of the same design that went up all across the out lying Suburbs of the City.
jimbo
 
Our hallway was approached by 3 steps from the Street. Not a lot in the hall, but full and empty milk bottles, full and empty pop bottles. All the coats on hooks hanging at the bottom of the stairs.

The stairs then led to the landing. On the left handside was 'The Factory' next to it was a bedroom where my 2 brothers slept. It had two beds, a fire place, 1 wardrobe and a chair and the window looked over the back yard. Along the landing on the right hand side was another set of stairs which led to the attic. Further on the landing was mom and dad's bedroom. A double bed and 1 small single bed, 2 wardrobes, one kept the bed linen in (sounds posh but it wasnt) and this one the veneer was splitting. The other wardrobe had clothes in, and this is where one Xmas morning I was told to open and look in and found I had got a Cinderella watch in a glass slipper which to me was the end of the world. There was a dressing table with 3 drawers and one of them had got presents which my Uncle had sent to my mom when he was in the 8th Army during the war. On top was the green glasswear with odds of bits of junk jewellery in, but was fascinating when I wanted to dress up - the dressing table had woodworm. It also had a fireplace with a shelf over and on top was another chalk figure which my eldest brother had brought her back an ashtray from a holiday with his cousins saying 'Broadstairs'. It had 2 windows which looked out over the street. There was a table each side of the bed, and of course the 'bucket'. My dad suffered with fibrositis, so there was always Algipan in a tube on it. The small single bed was where I slept when I was very young and then eventually moved into the same bedroom as my brothers. At the age of 7 I had my tonsils out at the Childrens Hospital and when I came home, my 2 brothers had been moved up to the attic and I had the back bedroom to myself. I remember for one Xmas I had been bought a pink shell styled wall lamp, which I had put on the top of my headboard. I felt really grown up. There was also a fireplace in here and was very lucky if I was ill a fire would be lit in it for me.
 
Yeah, I remember that...sitting around the fire trying to stay warm. Usually in the one room in the house that was heated. Ours would have been coal. Yeah, no sitting around a tele...if you had one...more important to stay warm. Any television would be set off to the side then and not many had them in my day. We used to listen to Dick Barton and the Archers on the steam radio that was plugged in to the one power point in the living room. Hmm you could see up the garden path from the living room past the galvanized tin bath tub hanging on the fence...well, no where to keep it inside...most used the similar fence I suspect. Hey, there were communal bath houses, if one was close enough. Beat the tin tub in front of the fire...if one felt comfortable enough to use one. Miserable to walk there and back in the rain though. Hmmm...the fifties may well be best forgotten perhaps.
 
I have read all the stories, marvalous so English, and so like my rememberences, about a quieter time full of those now sadly gone, thanks for posting everyone.
paul
 
In my last post I mentioned the 'frontroom', we seemed to only use it on special occasions, one of these being Christmas.
Sometime in December Mom would say lets put the trimmings up. They were kept in an old cardboard shoe box, they were like concertinas and we had fun pinning them from the corners of the room to the light in the centre. Then the old Christmas tree would be put up and we would tie on the few glass baubles we had and fix real miniature candles on the ends of the branches. On Christmas evening Dad would light the candles and turn the light out, it was magical as they flickered. Only the radio in those days and we all played ludo and snakes and ladders while some chestnuts went bang as they roasted on the open fire ....
 
Rupert said:
Hmmm...the fifties may well be best forgotten perhaps.
Click to expand...
The fifties are not forgotten for me, I notice I've had my 'rose tinted' spectacles on and posted many times in the 'Are the 50s the forgotten decade' thread, one of them here about a sunny afternoon whizzing across the Salisbury Plains in an open Triumph Roadster ... most of my memories were happy !
 
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what happy memories
my memories of our house was a 2 up 2 down back to back over looking the railway and canal in aberdeen street winson green
my 4 brothers sleep in one room and 4 sisters in the other mom and dad slept in the front room down stairs with the youngest sister
we lived and cooked in the kitchen in the front room was mom and dads bed my youngest sister slept with them and a piano that didnt work and a armchair we moved to a big house in hockley in 1961 were 2 more sisters was born us kids was over the moon becouse we had a back garden and our own toilet outside we had a happy childhood becouse we had a mom and dad that loved us all
 
Your Christmas experences must echo most of us in the late 40's early 50's, must say though I never met anyone from my early years who owned a push bike, let alone a sports car.
paul
 
christmas was great fun in our house trying to play a piano that didnt work mom cooking dinner on the fire a bush for a christmas tree stuck in a metal mope bucket on top of the piano and a gang of kids running all over the house i dont know how mom ever managed with us all
 
I often wondered Josie how my poor Mom and Dad ever managed to do what they did , with what my poor dad earned, but we never had a bad Christmas always presents, great food, roaring coal fires, nann, and my auntie, and cousins, calling round and local friends, paper chains, a 1930's metal and green wire tree, the radio on christmas day and the queen, Dad standing to attension when the anthum was played, very frosty and cold outside, the smell of the parafine heater in the air from the landing, waking up christmas morning and the girls, (my sisters), banging on my door to tell me of the new treasures they had recieved, and me looking down to the end of the bed to see a pillow case bulging with things from woolworths, chocolates, and wooden toys, and as has been said before the feeling of love from two parents who truely cared and loved us.
paul
 
There was nothing like Xmas eve when we were kids. Trimmings up, small xmas tree on the cupboard in the Living Room and then off to bed. Dad got up early and lit the cooker to start the turkey cooking and the smell went all through the house, and like everyone else looking for the pillowcase at the end of the bed. Up and reading that year's Annuals. Outside showing others in the street what we had had from Father Christmas. In for dinner and after that we were all looking for that 6d in the Xmas pudding.

Boxing day was the usual turkey, chips and pickled onions. It was my brother's birthday, so everyone congregated at 'our house'. Men down the football match, ladies getting the tea ready. Turkey sandwiches, pork pie, onion/cucumber in vinegar, celery, plus the fabulous tasting trifle. After tea, games would be played, probably a bit of arguing with the kids where we would be told off and threatened with bed. A game of cards and finally a throw at the dartboard.
 
A memory from a bit earlier than some of the others, from about 1944 in fact. A room - the main room at that time - in a suburban semi just outside the city boundary. (Sorry it runs to some length).​




A room. Just an ordinary room. The family always call it “the dining room”. It’s not big. Taking up much of the space, there is a sideboard and a dining table with four chairs around it; a fifth chair stands apart and alone, in a corner of the room. The house it is in is modern, but somehow, much earlier in the twelve years of its life, this room has acquired a ceiling of oak beams and a plate shelf on three walls and simulated mullion windows in the bay. In later years and with changing circumstances it has become rather more than just an ordinary dining room. And now, at this time of the day, it is waiting.

There is a fire in the grate, and outside, it is growing dark, for it is late in a winter’s afternoon. The fire hisses and smokes furiously; it has been banked up with a shovelful of slack so that the house will have its evening’s supply of hot water. The odd small puff of smoke escapes into the room where for a few moments it overwhelms the faint aroma of beeswax and last night’s tobacco. Later in the evening better coal in larger lumps will be put on, the fire will explode into life and suffuse the room with warmth and comfort. And a small boy will be able to lie on the soft woollen hearthrug with his chin in his hands and gaze into the glowing coals and see wonderful caverns and passageways opening up, with flames of red and orange and purple within, spitting and sizzling, flaring and fading. But not yet.

On the dining table lie a schoolgirl’s exercise books ready for homework; a child’s board game; a pile of socks for darning; a fountain pen beside an airmail letter pad. Two large and comfortable armchairs in brown leather have squeezed themselves in on each side of the grey tiled fireplace. Between these identical chairs, each with its matching soft and velvety cushion, various ornaments sit on the wooden mantelpiece: some small brass figures, all newly polished; a tiny mounted cannon whose cast lead barrel could well have been home-made, a pipe-rack which if touched leaves the smell of stale tar on the fingers. On a small table beside the left hand chair lie a favourite pipe, a pack of Gold Flake, a Home Guard training manual, an atlas of Europe and on top of that a letter written on flimsy paper, opened but not yet examined with due care. A stranger looking at this letter, or, more important, the army censor through whose hands it will have passed, would just see: “Hello Mother and Dad, Hope all is OK. I’m fine but a bit fed up with days of rain. We’re camped at the moment in thick mud in an olive grove …” But they would not discover just from a careless reading precisely where, on that long, murderous road stretching far to the north, past Cassino, to Rome and beyond, the muddy olive grove is located. But the father will know where it is and where his boy was at that moment of writing and he will tell the mother and their other two children. Perhaps, in a few weeks time, another letter will come. Another ruined village. Another month survived. Another smile of relief secretly exchanged. But not yet.

Within easy reach beyond the chair, against the wall, is the large wooden wireless set, an American Zenith with a glowing dial and now the main source of entertainment and information for the family: music, plays, the comedy of ITMA and above all news - news from the BBC with Alvar Liddell reading it…..News of the RAF, news from Italy, from the Pacific, from along the River Don, even news, of a sort, from Lord Haw-Haw in Hamburg. But the wireless is not yet switched on. Not yet.

By the side of the other easy chair, there is a large bookcase against the wall. It looks antique and its oak is highly polished. But perhaps it too, like the little cannon and the ancient beams, is home-made. On its shelves are a complete set of Dickens, a Dictionary of Entomology, awarded as a leaving prize from King Edwards in the summer of 1916, a History of the Great War, Practical Woodworking Yearbook 1935, a newish paperback, Gardening in Wartime. In the corner behind this chair and looking down on it stands a tall, walnut grandfather clock. In fact it is Grandfather’s clock. It has stood here for over three years, ever since it and its master were bombed out of their Handsworth home. It has survived its ordeal but the grandfather has not. The old clock ticks on, quietly resolute and comforting, as it has done for over a century already. Today it stands guardian over an area of wood-stained and polished floorboard at its foot, between the wainscoating and the edge of the carpet, small, but large enough for two children to lie on in times of particular danger and now occupied by two neatly folded sleeping bags. So far this winter they have not been needed. Not yet.

It is nearly dark. The fire is spluttering into life and the clock is chiming five. It is time to shut out a cold and threatening world: to put up the crude blackout frames in the bay windows, draw the curtains, switch on the light, lay the table for supper, prepare for the evening. The room is ready. And beyond this approaching evening, and beyond unknown hundreds more evenings just like it in the future, perhaps one day, by the grace of God, the sleeping bags will return to the loft, the ugly blackout frames will be broken up, the room will become, as it was before, just an ordinary dining room. And all five chairs will be back around the table. But not yet. Not yet.


Chris​
 
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