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Keeping Warm

mbenne

mbenne

master brummie
With gas and electricity prices escalating, like everyone else, we've been economising. The central heating goes on for an hour or two in the evening, heating two rooms only. We have a wall mounted tv in the bedroom so we tend to go to bed earlier now with the electric blanket on to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime. In the morning I get up early to make a cup of tea and if the kitchen is really cold I turn on two gas rings and its warm in no time.

It brought back memories of when Mom and Dad didn't have the luxury of central heating. I'd go to bed with a pop bottle filled with hot water and Dad would drape his overcoat over the bed if it was really cold. I'd read my Xmas annuals until my arms got too cold. Next day I'd get up for school and stand on a cold linoleum floor while gently tugging back the bedroom curtains which had frozen to the condensation on inside of the windows. The only direct source of heating was a single coal fire in the living room which would have long burned out in the early hours. In the kitchen Mom would fill a bowl with hot water for a pre school wash in the sink, make porridge, light the New World gas oven and leave the oven door open so I could get dressed - that was luxury!

It made me think that despite rising costs we are still slightly better off today.
 
Over here, wood burners have been traditional for a long time, with a lot of people having access to their own source. Wood to buy by the stere, (cubic metre) has become dearer recently. Now the push is towards pellet burners, which gives enterprises a chance to take some profit, and which just moves the pollution to another place. Oil and gas are deprecated, and can’t be fitted into new builds. By 2028, existing ones will have to come out. Heat pumps, and electric heating generally are preferred, with grants available. Energy costs are rising sharply here however. Hit the poor hardest seems to be a first world mantra.


I remember as well the single room coke fire. We had a cellar where coke went into a hatch on the pavement and was fetched up a stairway in a bucket. I hated going down there in the dark. We tended towards one room living in those days. The stairway door to the upstairs from the back room was left open to get some heat to the bedrooms. The front room was not used except to come in from the street, and pass through to the back. We also had a gas stove in the kitchen for extra warmth. We also had, wait for it, a Burco boiler, so the bath could be filled quicker than one kettle at a time.

I am lucky in that I haven't ever felt the cold unless it is extreme. This is the case even today, so our central heating is set at a compromise, as is the TOG rating of our duvet. We have tested setting the heating at best temperature for each of us, and we are about 6 deg C apart ! My other half, who is more normal, still prefers the local heat from a hot water bottle. She also remembers single room heating and frozen windows on the inside from her early years.

Most of us are better off than yesteryear.

Andrew.
 
mbenne said:
With gas and electricity prices escalating, like everyone else, we've been economising. The central heating goes on for an hour or two in the evening, heating two rooms only. We have a wall mounted tv in the bedroom so we tend to go to bed earlier now with the electric blanket on to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime. In the morning I get up early to make a cup of tea and if the kitchen is really cold I turn on two gas rings and its warm in no time.

It brought back memories of when Mom and Dad didn't have the luxury of central heating. I'd go to bed with a pop bottle filled with hot water and Dad would drape his overcoat over the bed if it was really cold. I'd read my Xmas annuals until my arms got too cold. Next day I'd get up for school and stand on a cold linoleum floor while gently tugging back the bedroom curtains which had frozen to the condensation on inside of the windows. The only direct source of heating was a single coal fire in the living room which would have long burned out in the early hours. In the kitchen Mom would fill a bowl with hot water for a pre school wash in the sink, make porridge, light the New World gas oven and leave the oven door open so I could get dressed - that was luxury!

It made me think that despite rising costs we are still slightly better off today.
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We had one of those New World gas ovens, made the kippers and toast on the same grill or burner! We had two fire places one in the kitchen and one in the front room which was only lit at Christmas and New Year!
I remember so well the curtains in the bedroom being frozen to the windows by the condensation.

Thank you for the memories! (I think :) ).
 
mbenne said:
With gas and electricity prices escalating, like everyone else, we've been economising. The central heating goes on for an hour or two in the evening, heating two rooms only. We have a wall mounted tv in the bedroom so we tend to go to bed earlier now with the electric blanket on to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime. In the morning I get up early to make a cup of tea and if the kitchen is really cold I turn on two gas rings and its warm in no time.

It brought back memories of when Mom and Dad didn't have the luxury of central heating. I'd go to bed with a pop bottle filled with hot water and Dad would drape his overcoat over the bed if it was really cold. I'd read my Xmas annuals until my arms got too cold. Next day I'd get up for school and stand on a cold linoleum floor while gently tugging back the bedroom curtains which had frozen to the condensation on inside of the windows. The only direct source of heating was a single coal fire in the living room which would have long burned out in the early hours. In the kitchen Mom would fill a bowl with hot water for a pre school wash in the sink, make porridge, light the New World gas oven and leave the oven door open so I could get dressed - that was luxury!

It made me think that despite rising costs we are still slightly better off today.
Click to expand...
 
Nick O’Nions said:
Without trying to be too critical , my poor Dad would be turning in his grave at the way people's priorities have changed these days . Moaning about heating costs (which I am actually with you on by the way!!) and ony heating 2 rooms in the house - yet you can afford Netflix and Amazon Prime!!!
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Don’t disagree but it’s about choices!
 
lets not forget that although todays heating problems has been touched upon this thread is under the childhood section of the forum and is about keeping warm when we were children

so to get back on topic my childhood home built about 1860 and very damp had 2 living rooms...it was very rare that coal was afforded to light both coal fires...we had a very long kitchen and in the middle of that during the winter was a pararfin heater just to take the chill off...5 out of 6 children were all born at home and because of this the only bedroom to have heat was mom and dads which consisted of a small electric fire..no heating at all in the other bedroom or the attic and certainly no carpet...having said that we all survived and i am not complaining....very happy days bought up in a loving family

lyn
 
Brummie a long time ago said:
We have tested setting the heating at best temperature for each of us, and we are about 6 deg C apart ! My other half, who is more normal, still prefers the local heat from a hot water bottle.
Click to expand...
Mum and Dad bought an electric blanket in the days before central heating. It had a seperate control for each side of the bed. One night Dad got too hot so he turned his control down. Mum was too cold so she turned her control up. That continued throughout the night. In the morning they discovered that the blanket had been put on the bed upside down so the controls were swapped.

The best we children got was a stoneware 'pig', a lot better than a rubber hot water bottle that we were always scared would burst. (One of those 'horror' stories that scar children for life - never had one burst on me yet).
 
Spargone said:
Mum and Dad bought an electric blanket in the days before central heating. It had a seperate control for each side of the bed. One night Dad got too hot so he turned his control down. Mum was too cold so she turned her control up. That continued throughout the night. In the morning they discovered that the blanket had been put on the bed upside down so the controls were swapped.

The best we children got was a stoneware 'pig', a lot better than a rubber hot water bottle that we were always scared would burst. (One of those 'horror' stories that scar children for life - never had one burst on me yet).
Click to expand...
Electric blankets were never in our play book circa 1960.
 
I can recall as a child having Dad's old military greatcoat over the blankets and the room being heated by a Valor paraffin heater, which had a patterned perforated top which sent out a wonderful yellow pattern onto the ceiling. I was also fascinated by the frost that formed on the windows, to me as a child they seem to form the most fascinating floral designs and wasn't that lino on the floor a shock to the system when you put your feet fresh from a warm bed, onto it?

Screenshot 2022-01-23 062919.jpg
 
we lived in a very small back 2 back i coal fire in the living room that was a range no heating up stairs.there were some gas lights on the wall, that give a bit of heat,but mostly stink.the walls were damp and the whitwas was peeling off.us kids all slept in one bed to keep warm.and we too had a overcoat on the bed.i would sometimes sleep in my balaclava. the floor had no oil cloth on the foor only a rag mats by the bed that dad made from old sack bags. of a morning we would wait for mom and dad to get up and light the range. and sit in front of it eating our poridge. the kitchen had a gas boiler that gave us the hot water for a wash and the tin bath on a sun night, if it went very cold the waterpipe froze, and if no water had been left in the kettel that was it no tea or poridge.
 
We have the central heating on first thing in the morning and again now and then during the day but we also use those little 3 bar halogen heaters which are just 400 watt per bar and give out a lot of instant heat. Here is an old photo of a burst pipe in the loft for some unfortunate resident in the 1960's big freeze
icicles.jpg
 
jmadone said:
I can recall as a child having Dad's old military greatcoat over the blankets and the room being heated by a Valor paraffin heater, which had a patterned perforated top which sent out a wonderful yellow pattern onto the ceiling. I was also fascinated by the frost that formed on the windows, to me as a child they seem to form the most fascinating floral designs and wasn't that lino on the floor a shock to the system when you put your feet fresh from a warm bed, onto it?

View attachment 166531
Click to expand...
We had one of those. Another thing we were made fearful of in case it got tipped over. The whole top half had to be swung down to trim the wick or to re-fuel. I'm not sure that it ever got to be in the house, just Dad's workshop. Later we had a rectangular version that was more stable and that got used in our bedroom. (Later similar models came with a device to snuff out the flame if it fell over).
Move on another ten years and I share one in a student flat. Freezing cold, the ceilings are over ten foot high, which is where the heat lives. The girls in the mirror-image flat request some help, their flat is roasting, what gives? Our flat is over a building society office, you can feel the heat being sucked out at 5 p.m., their flat is over a pet shop, they need to be kept warm 24/7. We were able to heat a tin of soup on our paraffin heater though when the power went off. (Note to self: What with all these 'renewables', code for 'unreliables', perhaps a spare paraffin heater might be a good idea?).
 
We had "draught excluders" made from old stockings, they looked like large sausages but they worked. Dad bought some brass strips to put round the door frames but when the wind blew it made a terrifyng whining noise!
Our blankets were old grey army ones, very scratchy and and not very warm. I didn't like the paraffin heater (#11) we weren't allowed near it.
rosie.
 
jmadone said:
I can recall as a child having Dad's old military greatcoat over the blankets and the room being heated by a Valor paraffin heater, which had a patterned perforated top which sent out a wonderful yellow pattern onto the ceiling. I was also fascinated by the frost that formed on the windows, to me as a child they seem to form the most fascinating floral designs and wasn't that lino on the floor a shock to the system when you put your feet fresh from a warm bed, onto it?

View attachment 166531
Click to expand...
In the early days Dad placed a paraffin heater, like the one in your post, in the bathroom. One evening we were sitting in the living room and heard an occasional thumping noise coming from upstairs. He went to investigate and on opening the bathroom door was met by a pool of burning paraffin moving towards him. The linoleum tiles were ablaze and curling up at the edges. The thumping noise was caused by the bathroom tiles falling off the wall from the heat. He managed to put the fire out and vowed never to allow another paraffin heater in the house. Being risk averse he wouldn't allow me to have an electric blanket euther as these seemed to be the cause of numerous house fires in the early 60s.

We had to make do with very little secondary heating which ultimately led to the internal pipework freezing and splitting in the winter of 63!
 
mbenne said:
In the early days Dad placed a paraffin heater, like the one in your post, in the bathroom. One evening we were sitting in the living room and heard an occasional thumping noise coming from upstairs. He went to investigate and on opening the bathroom door was met by a pool of burning paraffin moving towards him. The linoleum tiles were ablaze and curling up at the edges. The thumping noise was caused by the bathroom tiles falling off the wall from the heat. He managed to put the fire out and vowed never to allow another paraffin heater in the house. Being risk averse he wouldn't allow me to have an electric blanket euther as these seemed to be the cause of numerous house fires in the early 60s.

We had to make do with very little secondary heating which ultimately led to the internal pipework freezing and splitting in the winter of 63!
Click to expand...
oh my goodness...that was a lucky escape...i can still smell the smell of our parafin heater we had in the kitchen...had either blue or pink parafin and we used to stick a slice of bread on a long fork and make toast...well remember the winter of 63/4 it was never ending....great for us kids but i bet of great concern for our mom and dad trying to keep what was then a family of 6 warm...

lyn
 
we had a parafin heater once in the kichen. i think they could be risky things

Childhood Memories

I am wondering if they did have real firearms or even shotguns which can be carried on private land with permission of the landowner. I don't know much about rifles or what type they were but they were certainly not toys. It does appear that the farmer who owned the land that later became...
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk
 
Radiorails said:
Paraffin heaters could be very dangerous if not treated and sited with care. They were responsible for many fires - and deaths as a result.
Paraffin, blue or pink coloured. was delivered in many places. Known here as 'the oil man'.
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the esso ble duller....... mom always used one in the kitchen. it had a glass bottle in the back of it, one day she put a refill in and it did not seat properly. it flooded and set on fire. luckily i was at home. i picked it up and threw it in the garden.

  • heater.jpg
 
I remember the really cold winters where we went to bed with hats, gloves and socks on to stay warm. We took it in turns to clean out the hearth each day for a fire to be lit (the only one in the house). My Nan used to hitch her skirt (bloomers on show to all) to warm her backside by the fire. I used to get chilblains a lot back then. I still to this day pop on a pair of gloves and socks in the house to get warm rather than turn the heating up.
 
i still have to clean the ashes up:( here we still have coal fires. the coleman delivers the nutty slack once a week.and use a hot water bottle,a crock one the dog killed the rubber one and soaked my bed:mad:
 
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