I have a vague recollection that the ground was frozen so hard in some places that it was impossible to dig graves.

Actually, what I remember was asking my mum where they were going to keep all the dead people. Sadly, I can't remember her answer!

Very true!

Also, I'm sure we all know some poor girl who still bears the scars of getting too close to a paraffin heater whilst scraping the ice off the bedroom windows of a morning in one of these nylon beauties: http://i61.tinypic.com/fuxsmq.jpg

My Dad has dementia, I really miss sitting and listening to him for hours talking about his job, who he met, his family's history ... luckily I did spend a lot of time asking him (interviewing him) and so I'm able to tell him stories about his days in the army which he can't recall anymore.

If any children today lived in the conditions that most of us here did, they would instantly come under the category of "disadvantaged children" so eligible for grants and Government help

Thinking about it we had no smart phone, or Sky TV and our parents did not have a car then, so we would definitely have been come into that category of "disadvantaged".

Some funny stories here - I guess my generation (I'm 35) is relatively spoiled! The weather doesn't seem to be the same either...never known snow to last for months (I hope it doesn't start now, I have a transatlantic flight in January!). I still say no matter how many jumpers/blankets/fleeces you wear, if the air around is cold you'll never feel warm!

If my feet are warm, i am warm regardless of the rest of me...within reason.

Well, I always argue that, just because people managed or coped, or even have fuzzy memories (overlooking the bad points of those times) of harder times gone by, doesn't mean that we shouldn't expect more or better in what is meant to be an ever-improving society. Times change, things change, our expectations change and so they should.

I remember a great big red eiderdown quilt on the bed in winter . A hot water bottle was put in before bedtime . We got into flannel pyjamas by the fire and straight in under the sheets and quilt
We were toasty warm in bed , getting up to pee was a torture
The quilt got heavier as the night wore on and by morning had listed floorways .

We went to school on snowy mornings with knitted hat scarf and gloves and plastic bags over our shoes so our feet stayed dry

I love my central heating to bits now and when I flick it on for instant heat I thank progress and its inventors !!

Yes but equally your (and my) generation would themselves have been see as cosseted, over-entitled wimps by the generations preceding them.

Thus as with childhood, you cant compare old age nowadays with the old age of my grandparents generation. The old today now live on average a quarter of a century longer. In today's terms the state pension in the 1950s was about £30 a week IIRC.

I'm loving the funny anecdotes too - most of them I went through myself, and at least at the moment (boiler-less as I am) my windows haven't been visited by Jack Frost, like they were back then.

A guy I worked with about 15 years ago told me his parents still lived in a little croft in Ireland, in the middle of a peat bog. They had no electricity or gas, and when he went to visit it was like stepping back in time and the childhood memories were even more powerful for that. He said the best bit of visiting was being able to 'disconnect' from the mobile phone and laptop life he had to lead the rest of the year.

My son ,when here at Christmas, was talking of getting one of those calor gas fires (the small ones with the gas tank you replace if empty) as his flat has storage heaters (private rent) and he remembers us having the fire sitting at the top of the stairs in our bedroom doorway with all the doors open heating the upstairs. We had a coal fire downstairs and they used hot water bottles and plenty of covers on their beds. This is my middle son and he's 21. My youngest is 19 and she remembers the fire and how she was told not to go near it. My oldest was in the house (before we moved) of the frozen inside windows and we had a pull out sofa bed in the living room and we me,hubby and son would sleep on that in the winter with the coal fire heating us up. Our oldest is 25. Think Carrie (the 19 year old) was 4 when the gas heating went in.

I was born in 1970 and remember very well going to bed with half a dozen blankets, socks, gloves and scarf. It did soon get very toasty under those covers though getting out the next morning was a killer, and yes we had frost on the inside of the windows too. There was no heating apart from the fire in the living room until well into the later half of the 80's and then my Mam (single parent) couldn't afford to run it. I am a wuss now though and like my house to be toasty warm, the heating is on as I type

My Central heating is a bit mean, with only small radiators so it never gets too warm in my house. I want to fit bigger radiators when funds permit. I put the gas fire on in the loungr during the day all day at the moment and leave the doors open so the heat circulates. At night I recommend an electric blanket- left on minimum all night-bliss! I never want to get up!
I was born in the 60s and well remember breath in clouds in the bedrooms, hot water bottles and paraffin heaters until 1980. We also had an outside toilet until then as well. There was a hurricane lamp out there for heat and it was kept lit. That stopped the pan from freezing, and the cistern and it was suprisingly warm using the loo.
When many people lived like that you just don't notice it, but Im much older now and feel the cold badly now.

There were a lot of laughs I seem to recall and games to make getting from warm living room (coal fire) to bedroom (no heating and frost on the windows when we got up in the mornings).
Didn't have a bathroom until I was about 12, tin bath in front of the coal fire in the living room, 4 adults and 3 children and we took turns - luckily kids went first because it was like soup towards the end of the evening.
Some bad times too Nan bending to wash my younger sister in the tin bath caught her dress on the coal fire and went up like nothing I have seen since, luckily granddad had his wits about him and threw her into the bath so burns were not as bad as they could have been.
I was married and about 25 before we moved into a centrally heated flat, stifled us for a year or two we could never get it cool enough, but we got used to it and it's hard now if we go camping to cope with the cold, we used to camp in February these days if it isn't middle of the summer we don't bother because we know we can't cope with the cold.

I think heating is fantastic but feel we have lost something along the way and I am not sure some people would survive what we went through.

I think you'd be surprised, and I also think a lot of people - children and adults - in the UK and around the world, suffer through a lot more hardship on a daily basis than is being described on this thread

I loved that vid, was that you milking the goat?


We are indeed , I hope you get your heating sorted but your right about wrapping up and being sensible.


LMAO


Okay, I'll be there a bit later with some thermals for you


Ours was a council house and boy was it cold, it was big and roomy. I remember topping and tailing with my younger brothers to keep a bit warmer


Oh aye, it was just around the corner but I took the long route


Snipped but I love your post, it was atmospheric. I remember the toast on the fire too. When we got a gas fire we ruined the grill area of it by still sticking toast on it with a long knife.


I've been reading all the posts, fun. I'm wondering if anyone remembers the worst thing that happened to bedding? Nylon fitted sheets!!! Oh shine they were horrible

"Corned beef legs!" I thought it was just our family who used that expression. My daughter and I only mentioned it the other day when talking about her childhood lol

More than the cold itself, the thing that stuck in my mind was how it made the whole place feel so grim.

I'd forgotten the weight of the blankets! I love the way you so accurately describe it! As a child I suppose there was a sense of security being tucked in like that.

Poor quality coal often used to contain stone and this is what would crack and spit bits of hot stone out into the room if not protected by a fireguard. A common trick to get fires to start was to use accelerants such as petrol to help, unfortunately they are very unstable and often blew up like this causing burns to the person trying to start the fire.

It amuses me to see people on TV who are thinking of purchasing homes admiring the open fire which judging by the proximity of firewood, lack of spark guard and perfect cream fluffy carpet are clearly never used. A real, working open fire means keeping anything flammable (like wood or clothing) well away from it, a fire guard to catch those stray sparks from odd bits of stone or very dry timber and occasional minor burns to the carpet from those determined sparks which managed to evade the guard. Somehow I doubt if many of those homebuyers will persevere with their beautiful cosy open fire after battling to get damp logs to light or spending hours coaxing the 5 cm square patch of fire out to join the rest of the unburnt fuel in the grate

Brentford ******** nylons have got a lot to answer for!

I don't doubt a lot of people do but we aren't talking about them we are talking about us. And having had our electric go off last year middle of the summer I can honestly say the people in my block of flats panicking because they couldn't access the internet or charge phones etc they would curl up and die if it got really cold in their flat , was quite shocking the way they behaved.

I grew up in a large old Victorian house which had open fireplaces in the bedrooms. When we were ill and had to stop in bed my mother would light a fire in the bedroom, sheer luxury, she would bring a shovel full of hot coals from the downstairs fire and carry it up two flights of stairs. Elf n Safety would have a fit nowadays, although looking back it was quite dangerous.

While I can appreciate that it's flattering to think of things like that, it wasn't all rosy. You don't see many kids with rickets nowadays, for example, despite them all apparently being raised on rubbish food.

They certainly didn't close in panic at the first sign of a bit of sleet. We did have to walk home more than once in the deep snow and the dark when I was six or seven. My school was in the next village which takes a round about route either way by road and a minibus was laid on for the few of us in our village. It was only a mile or so as the crow flies across fields and farm tracks. We were wrapped up in our wellies and coats when the bus couldn't run, and were led home along the farm tracks by a teacher.