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How Did We Cope With Blankets, One Coal Fire and Freezing Windows and Rooms?


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Old 28-12-2014, 23:38
Mrs Teapot
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On a lighter note after seeing the frost today and the Duvet Thread, how on earth did we cope as kids with none of the luxuries that we now have.

I loved my Candlewick Bedspread but hated the iced up windows
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:41
swingaleg
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Hot water bottles.......
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:42
fefster
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I was cold, I remember that. I wore a hat, gloves and socks in bed and the thought of getting up for school was unbearable. You could scrape the ice off the inside of my window.
I guess you cope because you have no choice.
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:42
skp20040
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Because we were not molly coddled, we went out to play , we got dirty, we ate proper cooked food and not microwave meals or fast food, our bodies were exposed to natural things and were usually hardier for it. Most of todays little loves would die if their X Box went down for half an hour and if they could not find their mobile the world would have officially ended.
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:43
bspace
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Cold lino on the bedroom floor, outside toilets, hot water only from a kettle.

When it got really cold piling me dads overcoat on top of the bed

Kids today blah blah blah
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:43
MAW
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On a lighter note after seeing the frost today and the Duvet Thread, how on earth did we cope as kids with none of the luxuries that we now have.

I loved my Candlewick Bedspread but hated the iced up windows
I think the blankets must have been surprisingly warm. I do t remember being cold in bed, apart from the initial shock that is. I can remember having actual snow on my window sill, inside, where it had blown through the cracks round the leaded panes.
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:46
Mrs Teapot
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Hot water bottles.......
I was cold, I remember that. I wore a hat, gloves and socks in bed and the thought of getting up for school was unbearable. You could scrape the ice off the inside of my window.
I guess you cope because you have no choice.
Because we were not molly coddled, we went out to play , we got dirty, we ate proper cooked food and not microwave meals or fast food, our bodies were exposed to natural things and were usually hardier for it. Most of todays little loves would die if their X Box went down for half an hour and if they could not find their mobile the world would have officially ended.
Cold lino on the bedroom floor, outside toilets, hot water only from a kettle.

When it got really cold piling me dads overcoat on top of the bed

Kids today blah blah blah
I think the blankets must have been surprisingly warm. I do t remember being cold in bed, apart from the initial shock that is. I can remember having actual snow on my window sill, inside, where it had blown through the cracks round the leaded panes.
We are far tougher than this lot aren't we
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:50
Mrs Teapot
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Cold lino on the bedroom floor, outside toilets, hot water only from a kettle.

When it got really cold piling me dads overcoat on top of the bed

Kids today blah blah blah
Adults today, blah, blau

In truth, I was laughing about it today and recalling ice on windows and your breath in the bedroom whilst overheating on a ton of blankets lmao
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:50
2shy2007
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We had no heating apart from a gas fire in the lounge, and the bedrooms were freezing, we had scratchy old blankets and has to wear our jumpers in bed and have our coats thrown over the top, a hot water bottle made hardly any difference, my bedroom was on the corner and had ice on the inside.

When it was really bitter my dad would light a paraffin heater on the top of the stairs! and it would stink the place out.

We knew no better in the 60s and 70s though. It wasnt until about 1985 that we got central heating, oh it was bliss!!! I swore back then that my children would never be cold, and these days they are all nice and toasty.
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:53
omipalone
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Let Billy Explain
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:54
Whedonite
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Because we were not molly coddled, we went out to play , we got dirty, we ate proper cooked food and not microwave meals or fast food, our bodies were exposed to natural things and were usually hardier for it. Most of todays little loves would die if their X Box went down for half an hour and if they could not find their mobile the world would have officially ended.
Eating cooked food made freezing temperatures tolerable?
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:54
Mrs Teapot
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We had no heating apart from a gas fire in the lounge, and the bedrooms were freezing, we had scratchy old blankets and has to wear our jumpers in bed and have our coats thrown over the top, a hot water bottle made hardly any difference, my bedroom was on the corner and had ice on the inside.

When it was really bitter my dad would light a paraffin heater on the top of the stairs! and it would stink the place out.

We knew no better in the 60s and 70s though. It wasnt until about 1985 that we got central heating, oh it was bliss!!! I swore back then that my children would never be cold, and these days they are all nice and toasty.
I reckon our parents threw everything on beds when we were cold lmao

It sounds horrible but we all survived, I remember getting central heating later than that lmao, it was like a luxury
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:56
Mrs Teapot
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LMAO

He still has his Candlewick, it was on Antiques Roadshow a while ago
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Old 28-12-2014, 23:58
Aarghawasp!
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We didn't know any different though, and everyone around us was in the same boat so we didn"'t question it. It was just how it was.
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:03
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I've been wondering the same thing myself for the past couple of days - my boiler broke down on Boxing Day. I'm probably being a softie these days because I'm much older and less hardy than I was then, but I think having several cats competing for a place on my lap helps me to cope nowadays - my own personal (grumbling) hot water bottles.
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:05
Mrs Teapot
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We didn't know any different though, and everyone around us was in the same boat so we didn"'t question it. It was just how it was.
Your right, we just got on with it. I was jealous of the lads with balaclavas I just had to wrap a scarf around my mouth.

I kind of miss windows with patterned ice, they looked quite beautiful as you put your frozen fingers on them
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:06
wonkeydonkey
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We are far tougher than this lot aren't we
I'm, not.

I too grew up in a house with only one coal fire and an outside toilet, and I hate staying with people with no central heating in winter. I am shamefully addicted to a house that is warm all the way through.

The coldest I have ever been was as a student. I spent a year in a splendid georgian house (split into six three-bedroom flats) and was on the first floor, which had towering ceilings and huge windows. We just couldn't afford to heat it. I used to try and do all my work in bed, which made me feel properly ill, and by having showers (not that often) at the sports centre I managed not to have a bath for the entire winter.

Or every visit to my Northumberland father-in-law, who thinks the world will end if he ever switches the boiler on, so there is just a gas fire in his sitting room. I recently stayed with him for a week and (I realize I am coming across as a grubby beast) did not have a bath for five days. I normally (tmi) have a wee in the night, but for that period I just lay awake debating the relative merits of dying of hypothermia or a burst bladder.
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:11
Aarghawasp!
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Your right, we just got on with it. I was jealous of the lads with balaclavas I just had to wrap a scarf around my mouth.

I kind of miss windows with patterned ice, they looked quite beautiful as you put your frozen fingers on them
Think yourself lucky. My mum knitted me a balaclava.

Frost ferns were pretty.
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:13
Mrs Teapot
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I've been wondering the same thing myself for the past couple of days - my boiler broke down on Boxing Day. I'm probably being a softie these days because I'm much older and less hardy than I was then, but I think having several cats competing for a place on my lap helps me to cope nowadays - my own personal (grumbling) hot water bottles.
Scuse me I'm just knocking Wonkey down back to reality and sending him a Onsie and some Tena packs


I'm being light hearted but in reality truthful, we all survived the cold with virtually nowt and the cats too I used to make tracks in my Candlewick whilst suffocating under the amount of blankets
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:14
Mrs Teapot
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Think yourself lucky. My mum knitted me a balaclava.

Frost ferns were pretty.
Have you got pictures?
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:21
Mrs Teapot
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Right I'll be soon off to me blankets, crap windows, no heating and coal fire. I want like tons of sympathy votes
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:23
Wee Tinkers
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If you were to listen to my father you would think they coped with a lot of love, a fair bit of drink, the occasional violent outburst and a hell of a lot of flatulence.

He'll tell you there was 10 of them to the bed and no electricity and plumbing in the old stone cottage.

If you listen on he'll venture into fantasy and claim they'd no arse in their trousers, no shoes on their feet and one of his brothers probably tried to murder him.

I think they were dragged up, not reared up. Love his old stories.
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:27
zx50
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Because we were not molly coddled, we went out to play , we got dirty, we ate proper cooked food and not microwave meals or fast food, our bodies were exposed to natural things and were usually hardier for it. Most of todays little loves would die if their X Box went down for half an hour and if they could not find their mobile the world would have officially ended.
I remember when the tatties (tayties) got delivered in a massive brown bag and they hadn't been perfectly cleaned.
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:27
annette kurten
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i was a farm kid here in the sixties and seventies, it used to get bitter but i could happily go back and live that way again now.
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Old 29-12-2014, 00:32
Mrs Teapot
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If you were to listen to my father you would think they coped with a lot of love, a fair bit of drink, the occasional violent outburst and a hell of a lot of flatulence.

He'll tell you there was 10 of them to the bed and no electricity and plumbing in the old stone cottage.

If you listen on he'll venture into fantasy and claim they'd no arse in their trousers, no shoes on their feet and one of his brothers probably tried to murder him.

I think they were dragged up, not reared up. Love his old stories.
There will be some amount of truth in it with some elaboration no doubt. But the basic story will be true I'm sure

It wasn't being dragged up, it was growing up with very little I think, and now I really am off Snooze World
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