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Yes, poverty, squalor, deprivation can all be experienced on Google. Yes, EVERYONE on here has LIVED in their own way.

You're no different to most on here who were born in the 40's. At least you were born in 60 or thereabouts and didn't experience the immediate post war desolation, struggles, and shortages. 

 

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Just got back from QMC again........the last eight days have been a bit Traumatic to say the least,,...blood tests,,X-rays,,and today a visit to a Consultant........cut a long story short......problem

Result........CT Scans all clear......just got letter..been sweating for a fortnight......

Two years ago today..........my life changed forever,,,about this time i was on my way down to the operating theatre for what turned out to be a ten hour operation...........its been life changing in

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All of the above plus wayward girls, hardly into puberty, dropping sprogs as fast as tuffies dropping on the scale pan in the shop. No prenatal care or hospital births then - just the local wise woman in attendance and who took the afterbirth away wrapped in old newspaper to shove it on the fire. The male responsible for the birth could have been just about anyone living on the street - these girls weren't fussy. The sprogs were handed over to their grandmother to be cared for in much the same way as she had cared for her own daughter thus carrying on the stream of neglect. Their rotten teeth from continuous sucking at Delrosa or Ribena in little feeding bottles. Their stink from not bathing. Their noise from continually walking up and down the street in their mother's stiletto heel shoes, scraping them on the pavement as they went along. Their snotty noses, even when they didn't have a cold. The various parasites which took up residence on their bodies - fleas, lice, ringworm, scabies and so on.

I could go on.

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Bleddy hell Jonab...... The good old days eh ! Half of Nottingham in a nutshell there. It makes Bridlington St sound quite salubrious.

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Been thinking back to my childhood trying to work out if we were deprived or not. We were always fed and clothed and had a council house to live in. We didn’t have anything that could be classed as luxuries, but then neither did anyone else on our close. There was one family which my mum would describe as “scruffy” and we were told not to get too close (nits),  but everyone else was like us as far as I can remember. The biggest difference to nowadays is that the close was a community in itself, celebrating things together (coronation etc.) which you don’t get nowadays. I can remember my mum giving the scruffy family some of my outgrown dresses for one of their daughters and was told on pain of death I wasn’t to say anything about it (which I didnt although as a child I really wanted to). Perhaps I was just lucky?

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Exactly Ben, I cannot for the life of me understand this delight and excitement regarding poverty, filth, squalor and deprivation.

Its certainly nothing to brag about, or be proud of. Thank God most of us have fought our way out of it.

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12 hours ago, Jill Sparrow said:

Yes, CT. My father was forever reminiscing about Chapel Street in Beeston and Church Street Schools. His uncle, the youngest of eight, escaped from his nursing home aged 90 and was found wandering round Beeston clad in his pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers. When apprehended, he said he was trying to find Chapel Street where he had also lived as a child!

 

In her later years my mum was in a nursing home on Clifton about half a mile from where she'd lived for more than 40 years. On a couple of occasions the staff had to collect her from the nearby streets because she'd wandered out and was presumably aiming towards the old house. We never decided whether she was actually aware of where she was in relation to "home" or if she just walked out for no particular reason.

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11 hours ago, FLY2 said:

Totally the opposite I think. Google has dramatically enhanced the information that is available world wide. 

Google gives us untold insight into subjects that were unimaginable even twenty years ago. There is absolutely nothing that can't be investigated these days.

 

Exactly. These days anyone can look at an old census online, or the family history sites, and find all the connections and family histories with birth/marriage/death records.

 

Go back 25 years and it was probably easier to get a personal audience with the Queen than find that information.

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1 hour ago, Stavertongirl said:

.... I can remember my mum giving the scruffy family some of my outgrown dresses for one of their daughters and was told on pain of death I wasn’t to say anything about it (which I didnt although as a child I really wanted to). Perhaps I was just lucky?

.

 How things have changed now!  In this village, the young mums bring outgrown children's clothes to our Toddler Group and other mums just openly take what they need/want for free.  (Some of the parents are not very well-off , while some are definitely 'well-heeled'). There doesn't seem to be any shame in having other people's clothes at all.

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1 hour ago, Cliff Ton said:

Go back 25 years and it was probably easier to get a personal audience with the Queen than find that information.

I remember, in the late 70s, contacting the vicar of a parish near Ollerton to ask for permission to view the parish registers. He agreed and I turned up. All he was interested in was whether I was a Mormon because, he said, if so I couldn't view the registers. How do you prove a negative? In the end, I gave him the phone number of the Vicar of St Stephen's church where I was organist and he finally fetched the registers! Coffee and biscuits too...for which there was a charge!  The irony being that there was nothing pertaining to my family in the registers!

 

Much less hassle these days.

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We were brought up with the maxims Waste Not, Want Not and Make Do and Mend. Still very much influenced by them today. We weren't wealthy by any means but never went hungry, poorly dressed or unwashed. Married couples in those days couldn't afford to buy their own home and lived in their own parents' front room until they could afford to rent or save a deposit. Even then, it was furnished with whatever bits and pieces the family could spare. When children arrived most mums stayed at home to care for them. My mum was always at the school gate, lunchtime and hometimes. Always interested in my school day. Never any doubt that my parents loved, cared and had time for us. Money can't buy that and children instinctively know when it isn't there.

 

We have come to expect too much. Everything on a plate. Perhaps the pendulum is now swinging in the opposite direction.

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2 hours ago, Cliff Ton said:

 

In her later years my mum was in a nursing home on Clifton about half a mile from where she'd lived for more than 40 years. On a couple of occasions the staff had to collect her from the nearby streets because she'd wandered out and was presumably aiming towards the old house. We never decided whether she was actually aware of where she was in relation to "home" or if she just walked out for no particular reason.

was the home the Old Rectory, Rivergreen or Laura Chambers Lodge? Used to visit those three fortnightly to pay the residents pocket money and pick up their pension books. This was the bad old days, when the council ran all the homes. I often had to scoot out with the staff to retrieve the odd stray.

 

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2 hours ago, FLY2 said:

Exactly Ben, I cannot for the life of me understand this delight and excitement regarding poverty, filth, squalor and deprivation.

Its certainly nothing to brag about, or be proud of. Thank God most of us have fought our way out of it.

too right. Tony Capstick has much to say on the matter (and much else besides) - a lot of which is very, very funny; on account of being utterly true.

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Some of the horrors described here are no doubt true, but were certainly not my general experience. 

We weren't 'posh', but we weren't 'scruffy' either.  My Dad worked 'down't pit' and my Mum was a very thrifty housekeeper who seemed to me to be constantly cleaning , or washing or mending, and sometimes when I was maybe 10 or thereabouts she had a job in a Textile Co called 'Automatic Braiding' which involved her coming home at about 9:00 every evening.  I never settled till she was home and especially if Dad was on 'afters'', although I'd go to bed as instructed at whatever time and just lie there awake till I heard her come in.

 

A family moved in close behind us, onto the next street. They were mostly regarded as 'scruffs' and my Mum knew them by reputation from 'Boowul'.  Over a period of a few years they seemed to settle down and be 'socialised' into the general behavioural 'norms' of the estate. Bit noisier than most and quite a crew in one house, but no real trouble.

 

I only knew of two teenage pregnancies on the estate though no doubt there were more.  One was a lad from a few doors down whose family were known to Ben and maybe to Trogg, but I won't name them.  The lad was only around 16 when he impregnated a girl.  I know there was some discussion of them having to get some sort of special license in order to get married.  I don't think it lasted.  The other was my late Sis, who told me she was 'in trouble', before she told our parents.  She married 'the lad' and despite many ups and downs they remained devoted to each other till she passed away. He still mourns her, as do we all.

 

My Sis , like many thousands of other clean kids, came home with 'nits' from school and I recall being pinned to a chair for what seemed like days, while Mum dragged a viciously fine 'nit' comb through my short hair...

I recall seeing odd kids with blue stuff on their heads (Valerian?) to get rid of ringworm.

 

But, in my recall, me and my mates from the estate, all lived in similar circumstances. Homes were clean and as comfortable as could be afforded. Some had tattier furniture than others. Some had a telly but no record player or vice versa, but overall we were all well fed and clothed, and brought up to respect ourselves and others.

 

There were only two 'major crimes' locally in my youth.  A lad from my class at Henry Whipple stole a teacher's pocket watch from her desk drawer and buried it in the school flowerbeds, no doubt meaning to collect it later.  He was caught and the idea of the whole thing horrified the rest of us.  We just didn't know any 'criminals' before that. Such things just didn't happen. Contrast that with 50 years on when a couple of kids thought it was OK to take my daughter's  camera and use up the remaining film she had taking stupid shots and preventing her from taking the pics she wanted.  'Just a joke' apparently...  The other 'major crime' in our street was a bloke who stole some funds from one of the many 'social' or welfare or whatever 'clubs' that were run informally in local pubs and clubs. It won't have been much.  a few tens of pounds.  He did time for it.

I do think that having a garden front and rear, as opposed to the 'door on the street' in terraces, made for a slightly less overtly communal form of living.  We kids still played together in the street or out on the fields.  Our parents chatted over the back garden fence.  The 'front door' was at the side and the need to 'donkey stone' the front step, as an indicator of good housekeeping, no longer applied.

A nice front garden and well trimmed Privets took that role.

 

 

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11 minutes ago, DJ360 said:

Some of the horrors described here are no doubt true, but were certainly not my general experience. 

 

 

same here. Bagnall rd was rural then. Dad at Raleigh, mum doing Watmoughs wages. Gran lived ten doors down and did lunch (dinner,we called it) Funny how Mill street never posed a problem on the bike (heavy frame, and three speed Sturmey Archer gears) Very grateful to those days - especially considering that they fostered me.

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Indeed..!  Plus.. "I can't stand 'ere chattin' all day!  I've got me nets steeping, I've pots to side and clinkers to riddle.."  :laugh:

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3 hours ago, Stavertongirl said:

We didn’t have anything that could be classed as luxuries, but then neither did anyone else on our close

 

 

Wow! A close? We still had an outside toilet & no bathroom & that was the end of the 80s? 

 

I think a lot of this stuff needs moving to its own thread, before it gets buried when the bored word/keep one wake up?  

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5 minutes ago, IAN123. said:

Never heard Donkey Step Col..nice one!

 

Donkey Stone.  They came in various colours.  I think it's a Lancs. term. I've just learned here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donkey_stone

 

.. that all Donkey Stones were made from stone from two quarries, one in Northampton and the other at Appley Bridge near Wigan, which is about 15 mins drive from here. 

 

 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, oldphil said:

which primary school were you at?

 

Henry Whipple, from about 1953-1959.

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My day by the way is fab.  The afternoons get lighter from now, and the mornings from the 21st...  Onwards and upwards!!

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7 minutes ago, radfordred said:

 

 

Wow! A close? We still had an outside toilet & no bathroom & that was the end of the 80s? 

 

I think a lot of this stuff needs moving to its own thread, before it gets buried when the bored word/keep one wake up?  

Stockhill Lane houses were upgraded to indoor facilities in the early 70s onwards, at a cost of £3500 per dwelling. The Council considered it better value than demolition and re-building, a view borne out by the subsequent fiasco with the Basford tower blocks.

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2 minutes ago, DJ360 said:

My day by the way is fab.  The afternoons get lighter from now, and the mornings from the 21st...  Onwards and upwards!!

I'm still not sure how that all works - someone here did explain it, I think, but I'm no Brian Cox.

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