How life has changed over the last 60+ years.

How life has changed during the past 60+ years.  
I had my son in 1950. The cardigan he has on was one that I knitted for him after unravelling a mans pullover because everything was still in short supply and it was a make do and mend era.  


Everything was still on rations and we still had to have dockets for furniture/
No washing machines then It was having to use a dolly tub and using a ponch to get the worst of the muck out.


Then boiling the clothes up usually on a gas stove in a tin bath.
When after rinsing the clothes and having to use one of these I certainly did not need to go to any exercise classes. I had muscles like Popeye.


After pegging them out on the line in all weathers keeping my fingers crossed that they dried before
it started hissing down with rain if the weather looked bleak. It would be good four hours
ironing then with gas irons like this.

 

Gawd! How life has altered over the years with all the labour saving devices of today.
What with built in loos and wet rooms it is incredible to think what changes have taken place.

It was outside loos in my young days with pieces of newspaper cut up into squares with some string threaded
though it to clean your bottom with. You very often finished up with yesterdays news printed across your butt.
If we wanted a bath we would have to barricade ourselves in the kitchen
after bringing in the zinc bath that used to hang on a nail outside the back door.

I still have a my m-i-l's dolly tub with a very big rosemary bush in it plus I still have one of my irons as a doorstop.

Gosh, so much has changed for sure our Maisie, and how hard you had to work too, compared to how we all do those jobs now.
Your Son looks so cute sat there, aww, bless him, and his lovely Jumper on, all snuggly and warm there.

Was a Ponch like some sort of stick?.
How long did the iron stay hot for, and did you maybe have two, in case the other had cooled too much before you had finished the ironing?. I imagine the material was thicker then, and maybe needing as hot an iron as possible.
How lovely you still have the dolly tub and iron, such memories there for you, and a treasure to have.

We called the stick a 'Posser' and yes, life certainly has changed for the better in the way of women's work.

Your son looks lovely there in his pram. My parents managed without all the equipment they have today for babies. Even when I had my first in 1967, I had only the basics and no car so none of the special seats they have now, which have to be changed as the child grows.

My daughters look in horror when I tell them we didn't have any of that when they were young. Just travelled with the baby on your knee, or in a carry-cot with no seat belts

Life has lost a lot of its charm and sense of community but that was bound to happen with the progress of technology and the high cost of everything forcing most mums to have to go out to work.

In those days your whole day was taken up with washing, ironing etc. so not much chance of doing anything else.

Your little boy in his pram is in the same pose as I was in a photo in the forties, have it here somewhere.

But I do have he old iron & like you it is the door stop.:
Jan & Molly (who is staying here for a few weeks) showing the Iron.


You ladies after the war sure worked hard, my mum was lucky as she only had me but she had to go out to work every night after my stepfather got back from stoking the Hospital boilers.Mum worked in the same Hospital as a ward auxiliary (cleaner & general dogs body) nurse later getting her SEN, thirty years later.

Wonder what will be around in another 60+years.

May I ask why Molly is staying with you Nordog?

She wanted to travel, so packed her bag and came here to visit her sister.

We look back at these things and think how hard life was in those days, there was mum, dolly tub and posser with hot water to wash the clothes.
Yet in some parts of the world the women still wash clothes at the side of a river, cold water with no tub and stick, no iron either, just a stone heated on an open fire, and I mean open, out in the fresh air.

Love threads like this, our Maisie, and I laughed out loud in delight reading the part where you said, " I had muscles like Popeye".

Your son is adorable sitting there in the pram wearing the lovely sweater you created for him.

Cat brought up an interesting point about chances that may happen over the next 60 years. For instance, both you and Nordog have the old irons, Maisie ... but things now are created to be 'disposable' for the most part so perhaps things from today won't make it to the 'relic' stage in the future - which is, in itself, a bit sad.

Really enjoyed seeing these items and hearing how you lived then, Maisie - thank you.

lovely thread our maisie. I also had a good "muscles like popeye"
We also had no seat belts like our june said and car chairs.
wow washing was a huge mission in days back when
I think it made us appreciate things more though.

We did appreciate every little thing. They have too much too soon today.

We had a flat iron but can't remember what happened to it. I still have a cobbler's last that my dad used to mend our shoes on

There was a shoe maker who entered a race, he didn't win because it is always the cobblers last.



Go on, I will groan for you!!

, our Nev!

I love the new conveniences but sometimes cringe when I think how unprepared we are now-a-days, Maisie.

Wouldn't know how to knit nor all sort of basic survival things that you undoubtedly know, our kind lady.