# Subconscious thoughts.



## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Isn't it odd how at times we can wake in the night and all sorts of unrelated things are on yer mind?
5am. this morning and I'm reliving all my earliest memories living in a tenement above a shop while still at junior school. Third floor with four flights of stairs to three small rooms and a sink on the half landing in the 50s. 
I can recall my mother (war widow) and me being chucked out of the ground floor garden flat she had been manageress of the newsagents all through the war and told she had to occupy this attic hovel. All sorts of memories came flooding back.
Then the new manager became difficult to us and got us moved to another slightly larger tenement hovel two doors away but at least with a kitchen. Tin bath hanging on the back of the door and a small sink Ascot and hot water. Bliss. I can even now recall the furniture and rickety sash windows. 

Who knows what tomorrow am will bring?

Ray.


----------



## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

They were the good old days Ray and some people want them back.>


----------



## jiwawa (Jun 22, 2007)

I remember reading a book when I was in my 40's or 50's - it was an autobiography of someone who'd grown up in the tenements in Glasgow.

I read "We were so poor we had to scrape the butter wrapping paper....". That was the first time I'd thought - were we really POOR? cos my mum did the same; I still do! 

I know there was no money to spare but my mum was a great manager with what she had. All our clothes were made, or knitted, some from adult hand-me-downs. 

But I never felt deprived. I think now, what a great childhood I had, so much freedom that today's youngsters are not allowed. We didn't have all the extra-curricular classes that so many have now and maybe that stunted our development in some ways but I think we got a great education in life.


----------



## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

I never really appreciated how hard a time my mother went through until I was 40+. 
Women and especially single parent women no matter their circumstances were definitely second class citizens. 
She was pushed from one accommodation to the next without any say or choice. Had to have a man friend to agree to the rental and was unable to open a bank account without a man guaranteeing her. The landlord locked us out one night after we visited friends and even then when my mother went to the police they would do nothing until a man friend came to argue her case.
And even then she was paid half the wage any man doing the same job. She had to take on three menial jobs just to pay the £1 a week rent. 
I think I was shielded from the insecurities and hardships of her life and thought everyone was in the same boat. But it taught me to save and appreciate although probably made me angry and cynical.

She had to be both farther and mother to me and when it came to punishment by getting my hand whacked by the copper stick, I obediently held my hand out. Make do and mend was always with us that enabled me to have a car at 18 and sell at a profit later. I eventually did that 600 times.

Ray.


----------



## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

I often think of how my Mum managed, she washed the village football teams shirts, shorts and socks by hand every week, had a cleaning job with 2 trainers (race horse trainers) in our village. I also remember her cleaning the Congregational Church every so often. Knitting and crocheting clothes from wool she had unwound from jumpers bought at jumble sales. Most of my dresses, skirts and coats were given to me by the Mother of a girl 3 years older than me. I remember ice on the windows, boiling water in the gas copper for a bath that we shared with Dad and my brother, just adding a bit more boiling water to hot it up each time. No visitors left our house without a jar of jam or pickled onions or a bottle of elderberry wine or something else Mum had made. Then there were the hats she knitted and sold, the wool was brushed with a teasel brush to make it look like fur. The dolls with woollen crinoline dresses to cover the spare toilet roll, I still have one. Anything to make a few extra shillings. Dad would do gardening in his spare time and thatch hey stacks in the Autumn. He kept a good garden at home with veg. and flowers. When it came to making horse radish sauce I kept out of the way :grin2 A bank account was never heard of. She was widowed with 5 boys between 13 and 2 years old and managed to look after them and then me for 7 years before our step Dad married her, what a man to take on a woman with 6 kids. My biological Father sent her a telegram the day they were to be married saying he couldn't as he was already married, I never knew his name, never wanted to as my step Dad was the best Dad in the world to me and he adored my Mum.


----------



## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Yep, those were the days...…………………………….






Ray.


----------



## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

Compared with the way people had to live in this country after the war Ray, we lived in luxury.


----------



## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

My mum worked in a factory when we were growing up. From the day I, the youngest of three, started school (I refused to be left at nursery) she went out at 7am and came home at 4pm. From five years old I took myself to school as my brothers just ran off. During the holidays we just ran wild. 
Before I was born the family lived in tenements until they got the luxury of a council house. Only two bedrooms with three children but I bet they were thrilled. It must have been wonderful to finally feel secure that, as long as you paid the rent, you had a roof over your head.

Chris's 't mum was a widow with two boys. She cleaned in a factory and anywhere else that paid. Her spinster sister helped out where she could. They both had council houses and so were secure.

I remember that it was the done thing to take anyone in that needed a bed. In our two bedroom house we often had my nan and bachelor uncle staying as their landlord had evicted them. Also another bachelor uncle stayed when he was in town. If relatives visited for Sunday Tea it was like Royalty was coming! I hated it. I still don't like entertaining because of all the stress i remember from my childhood.

My dad only ever put housekeeping money on the table. The rest he kept for himself. It caused a lot of friction when things were tight. Never stopped my mum from going to the pub for her Guinness on a Saturday night, though. We were all left at home in bed!


----------



## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Yes Pat different times.
We played on the bomb sites and after being introduced to school at 6, I walked the mile with a similar age friend every day finding short cuts over walls and gardens.
At about 10 or younger, I was put on the train at Kings Cross (I think). Mum asked the guard to keep an eye on me and my aunt picked me up at Newcastle. Did it every summer school holidays. 

Mind you I nearly drowned several times as we lived near the Thames.

Ray.


----------



## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

My brother, too, played on bomb sites, munition dumps (!) and the the banks of the Thames. 

One family story is about my Christmas present one year. My dad had found a second hand doll's house. It needed repairs but he did not get around to it. When it was unveiled on Christmas morning with a hole in the roof, and other bits of damage, I was told it was "bombed in the war"


----------



## Mrplodd (Mar 4, 2008)

Ray
Thanks for the link to the Monty Python sketch, I had forgotten JUST how funny it was. I used to work with a chap, we called him “Two***ts Jones” If you had one ***t he would ALWAYS have had two!! 

Sometimes at meal breaks a few of us would “rehearse” some scenario and decide on whiat each of us would say, just to get Two sh**s to exaggerate HIS experience beyond any reasonable level. He was simpley so far up his own arse he couldn’t see how ridiculous he sounded! Happy days!!

Back to younger days aged about 10 I would be tasked with the Saturday morning shop because mum and Dad would be out at work.. One of my tasks was visiting the butchers and asking for some bones for the dog, this confused me somewhat as we could never afford to have a dog, “Just do as you are told” was the instruction. It was years before I connected that with fact we usually had soup on Monday!! 

This experience did have a very long lasting influence on my later life. It took Mrs P many years to convince me that we actually COULD afford to buy things without the risk of being in the workhouse the following week. Daft, but sadly it was a serious issue in my head for many years. 
I still sometimes have trouble justifying certain purchases to myself, and will ALWAYS look for a bargain. 

Kids?? They don’t know their born, now in MY day.....................

Andy


----------



## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Eggzackery Andy. We went quite literally from rags to riches and back to rags again.
Having a very frugal upbringing after the war, I felt quite chuffed and relatively affluent in the 90's and 2000's. But always sought the best deal. Even when we spent $250,000 on an RV and new Jeep, It was always my pleasure to get $4 a night camping and all you can eat breakfast for $2.99.

So now it's easy to revert almost back to square one and make sure every penny counts.

Ray.


----------



## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

That upbringing never leaves you. My brothers and I are all the same. We call it "brushing dad (with all his penny pinching ways) off our shoulders when we want to buy ourselves something nice. My dad's favourite phrase was "what do you want that for?" whenever you got something new. I remember my mum nagging for ages for a new light fitting in her lounge. He would just not give in. One day we went out and bought one and brought it home telling dad that it came from a garage sale that we happened to be passing!

Funny thing is that Chris was even poorer than we were. His mum, however, was completely the opposite to our family. If it was old she would "chuck it down the shute" (the refuse shute in the flats) and buy a new one. Even now Chris and I look at something worn out and old with my dad on my shoulder saying it could be saved and Chris's mum telling us to chuck it down the shute! I wonder if his mum, having lost his dad, just thought that life was too short to not have new things if you wanted them.

I eat things out of the fridge in date order so that nothing goes off. Always finish up left overs. Turn off all lights. Only boil enough water for the teapot. Save the washing up until there is a whole sink full. Never drive somewhere unless I can combine another errand into the trip. Never buy anything just because I want or like it. I must "need" it.
Someone once said to me that we are the last generation that knows how to keep milk cool without a fridge


----------



## Mrplodd (Mar 4, 2008)

raynipper said:


> So now it's easy to revert almost back to square one and make sure every penny counts.
> 
> Ray.


Nothing wrong with being careful, as long as it doesn't become obsessive. We have solar panels on the roof, along with a meter in the house that shows exactly what they are producing AND a smart meter that shows (in real time) what we are extracting from the grid.

Currently it's bright and sunny but only about 4*C, the solar panels are producing about 2.5 Kw so I have a 1500 W oil filled radiator warming lounge nicely, AND Mrs P is busy cooking on a stand alone induction hob (on low of course!) So I am using just about everything my panels are producing.
All of this is costing me nothing AND I still get paid for every watt I generate.

I have had the panels just over 3 years now, and taking into account JUST what I have received in payment, and ignoring what I have saved by using the power (like today) I have already recouped just over 30% of the capital cost (£6500) which works out between 9 & 10% :smile2: :smile2: :smile2:

Andy


----------



## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

I can only guess I must come from a long line of scrimpers and savers as I know my wife comes from a line of extravagant gamblers. To the extent they lost the family home a couple of times.
But not complaining as when we don't have it she makes do and mends. But if it's there it's to be used now.!
But we are both magpies and will hoard things just in case someone else needs them? Daft I know as often friends say their old 'something' has gone wrong and they are off to the shop to get a new one. Despite me saying we have a spare they can have. 
Trouble is we are literally drowning in our own clutter of 'come in handy' stuff. The early upbringing stops me just chucking it.
And yet I find it comic at French boot sales where a seller is asking new prices for old tech that no longer works or has been redundant for years. You can see it's been in a barn and is covered in dust and chicken poop. But old analogue tuners, XP towers, scanners, tape players, radios, CRT TVs, Hi-Fi's, etc. keep getting displayed a sale after sale.


Ray.


----------



## rayrecrok (Nov 21, 2008)

When I was a nipper my mum and I would go to the fish shop for our tea if my dad was on afternoons at the pit where he was a deputy, which meant he was on a decent wage for the time.. Round the fish shop there was a shelf at high level with coloured bottles of fizzy pop, as my mum was getting served I would ask for a bottle of pop, and my mum would always say, "No we have plenty at home and you don't drink them", I was always puzzled thinking I have never seen any at home..

In our corpi house one that had the steel outer skin, so everybody called them and still do Tin Houses estate, the windows were single glazed with metal frames, one of them never shut properly so my dad put a threepenny bit between the handle and the frame to tighten it up to stop the draughts, this was a perfect source of money for me to cough! borrow when the ice cream van came round, my dad was always going ballistic where's the threepenny bit gone and would go wandering round the garden routing through the shrubs to find where it had fallen on the floor, but he could never find them.. He got his own back later he put a couple of worthless to me penny washers in place, funny how they never got lost!.

My main source of income was trolleys, I would walk the length of the beck that ran through the estate to find old prams so I could get the wheels and axels off to make trolleys, I would then sell or barter them to the kids on the estate, in fact I had a waiting list of orders at one point much to the disdain of their mothers as they knew their darlings would wear out the toes of their shoes using their feet as propulsion and brakes. In the cricket field near us someone had broken in and ransacked the pavilion so they abended it, so us as kids used it for a den, I routed about and found a big biscuit tin of nails and screws of assorted sizes this was like gold to me, it meant I hadn't pull out and straighten old nails for my trolley jobs,, Tell a kid these days I have present that you will love and give them a biscuit tin of rusty nails and see the reaction!.

ray.


----------



## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

My dad was a hoarder Ray. He, too, straightened old nails! It was a nightmare when he died and we had to clear his sheds etc, so my brothers and I are trying very hard to not follow his ways. My eldest brother has failed miserably. He has about an acre of ground around his house with old sheds stuffed full of mechanical bits of old cars, trucks and lorries. In between are old diggers, lorry bodies, dead washing machines etc etc, He is only just becoming anxious about leaving it all for someone else to sort. He just cannot bring himself to take the first step in clearing it. I think this anxiety arose when he, recently, cut the tip off his index finger when using one of the old but working bits of machinery he has hanging around. He saw his ability to cope dwindling away  It is making him very miserable.


----------



## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

*We have a bloke in this village like your brother Pat*

He is moving out of the house he´s been renting and transferring all his junk onto a piece of land he ownes behind a ruin of a house-chicken house and barn 2 doors away.
I saw him this morning and asked him very nicely if he could possibly move it from our view, 
"It will only be there for a few days until we clear a space behind the barn" "thank you, I am so glad" says I.
We then had a nice little conversation and he understood me feeling anxious.
Its right in our eyes view and looks awful, but this bloke has lived with it behind the rented house for at least 3 years.

This is what we see, but there's more in the barn and around the side. 
He makes dentures and that kind of thing, where all the junk comes from heaven knows.


----------



## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

Oh no, Jan! See if you can get him to move it sooner. It will just grow and grow (that is a tiny fraction of the stuff my brother has) and become too onerous to deal with.


----------



## JanHank (Mar 29, 2015)

patp said:


> Oh no, Jan! See if you can get him to move it sooner. It will just grow and grow (that is a tiny fraction of the stuff my brother has) and become too onerous to deal with.


I believe him fool that I am :smile2: They need to cut down weeds that are 6´ tall as they have done at the end we can see, All summer there were thistles covering the whole lot, then of course comes the seed blowing about all over. We don't want to get too bossy, it is his property and if he doesn't do as he says he is going to there is absolutely nothing we can do. Mind you that lorry is full of very old wood >>

We have been busy this afternoon cutting off branches from a pear tree hanging across the road that was in danger of taking the top off the Navajo if it grew out much further. Permission was obtained from the village Mayoress earlier in the year, I am dying to know if our next door neighbour has phoned to tell her what we were doing :grin2:

Back to* the good old days.*
My Dad used to sweep the snow off the path all the way to the top of the road, about 100 yards of it.
I do believe people helped each other more in those times. These days not many need help I think, only us oldies and then we have to pay for help.


----------



## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

I remember my dad doing the same around our house. Then he and other neighbours would clear any OAP's paths etc. As you say, people pulled together then.

If we were naughty the neighbours would tell us off. if our parents found out we got it twice! We had such respect for other people.

Ray, I wonder if your "subconscious thoughts" are because you are concerned about all the stuff you have? I must admit, once we had done it, I felt very good about clearing out old clutter. It nearly gave me a nervous breakdown thinking about it though.


----------



## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Neighbours can always be a pain.
We had an odd ball Mason who lived next door in Kingston. A seven bed three story house and he lived in one room with weeds and trees growing through the floor.
Do you remember the old black Aladin paraffin heaters with filigree sides. He had one that was the only source of heat in the hall and it gradually became embedded in rust off itself. But he was no trouble apart from the rats.

Now we have 'The Bitch' across our lane and sadly in our face. But as my wife often says it could always be worse. She is objectionable and complains loudly of anything and especially campers. But we could have kids and dogs creating havoc all and every day. So we are happy with the status quo. 

Ray.


----------



## patp (Apr 30, 2007)

It was always my mum's worst nightmare to be landed with "bad neighbours". Each time she moved she worried what the neighbours would be like more than anything else! Having sold the land attached to our house for building, we now have neighbours for the first time in over 35 years. So far so good as only one bungalow occupied by quiet retired couple the husband of which plays the drums! To be fair it is not too loud and not too often


----------

