Out with the old, in with the new

One evening through the week, I went out to dinner with friends to celebrate a birthday and following the usual conversations about men, sex and children, the conversation turned to past times and how the era in which we grew up was vastly different to that of our grandchildren today. I grew up in the 50's and 60's, when life was basic compared to now.

I have three brothers and one sister and am the second youngest child. As a small child we lived in a 'two up-two down' terraced house with a toilet at the bottom of the yard. We had a tin bath in which, every Sunday, we bathed in front of the fire, and this bath was filled with a boiling kettle. Monday was wash day using  a tub with a separate wringer and I can remember the iron which was heated on a hot plate. Rooms had oilcloth flooring with a square carpet in the middle which was brushed daily with a large sweeping brush and pan and the front step and door entrance were scrubbed clean. I grew up on homemade cakes and pies, pea soup with ham shank, roast lamb Sunday dinners, soggy vegetables and fruit from the corner shop. We had comics to read every week and and Saturday was matinee afternoon at the cinema (the pictures). Our playtime was spent outdoors or in the local park, playing group games or with my girlfriends, playing with dolls and prams.

I remember the old black and white, box TV that we had when I was about 7 years old however, programmes only began at 5pm.





In my early teens we moved to a council estate in a three bedroom house, with a bathroom and indoor toilet and a garden at the front and back of the house. I attended a grammar school which was within walking distance and this education catapulted me into a different world from that of my siblings. The early sixties brought the rise of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and pop music but I loved Motown music and felt very sophisticated. Very few people had a house telephone or a car, so arrangements to meet friends would be organised at school or before returning home at the end of an evening.

Although I had a happy childhood, I resist referring to bygone eras as the good old days because I think we now live in exciting times. When I see the giant strides made in technology and science in particular, in the last 50 years, I think I will now have to believe that pigs really can fly! My children urge me to write my 'memoirs', particularly about my early years and I hope to put pen to paper, or should I say, fingers to keyboard, some time before my memory fades.  

Yes, my grandchildren and children live in a different world which I hope they can embrace and enjoy to the full.