What did people do of an evening?

[silvery]

Trouble is - only reason the birth rate has dropped is contraception.  Can't think that it's anything to do with anything else!!

[toni*]

made babies 

Toni,

Great minds think alike,as soon as I saw the title of this thread that's what I thought too 

Carol

lol  

i thought they got up with the sun and went to bed with the sun, mind you , you don't need light to make babies!

[mazwad]

As another child of 50's/60's  I had similar pastimes.  Reading mainly in the winter months snuggled in bed with dads army greatcoat over me and a torch under the covers if it was late.  I remember The Famous Five, Secret Seven and the Mallory Towers series most of all.

We also had a dartboard in the kitchen they we spent many happy hours playing Round the Board, 501 or Killer. I remember my mum cheating as her dart was close to double nineteen and she said it was in and pulled her darts out quickly before anyone could prove it wasn't.

We played all sorts of card games and a homemade table skittle game with empty bullet cases as skittles was always a favourite.

Life was much simpler then and a shilling in the leccy wouldn't have lasted long with all the tv's, computers and electronic games we have now.

[madpants]

made dens in the woods, roamed around the Cleveland Hills until it was too dark to see, pinched fruit from the allotments and wandered home as night fell .

Jen

Were you one of the brave ones that went down 'devil's hole' Jen? 

[meles]

All my family had pianos. None of them had lessons, but seemed to be able to thump out a tune - "vamping", I think it was called.

My 88 year old Mum tells me she went to the pictures at least twice a week.

And they were avid readers - newspapers and books from the public libraries.

The wireless was also very popular.

meles

[silvery]

1909  - miners from Shropshire going to Canada took with them violin, mandolin, piccolo, banjo, cello.  This was just one family.     
Lots of people made their own music, with tunes passed down to them over the years.  There would also be songs to join in with, so everyone was involved. 

[RichardK]

Having just had a little sing song with my family around our piano I started up the computer and found this thread - don't know if the kids will still be up for that when they get a bit bigger mind!

[mike175]

Great topic.    I often wonder just what my earlier ancestors' lives were really like, as I try to piece together the details. As for the more recent ones, well, I can't remember my nan ever sitting in an armchair without a pair of knitting needles on the go . . . or 4 double-ended needles if she was knitting socks for my grandad  

He would sit by the fire on winter evenings (just 2 lumps of coal) and read the paper, but in the lighter summer evenings he would be out in the garden or in his shed making or mending something.

My dad would usually be marking students' papers in the evenings, being a college lecturer, apart from 2 nights a week when he took evening classes!

Of course, when people had "proper" jobs, they were more than ready for their beds at the end of an exhausting day on the farm, at the mill, in the factory, or down the mine . . . and I shouldn't think they needed any sleeping pills! Leisure time is quite a recent phenomenon, except for the upper classes.

Mike.

[Trees]

Mum born 1913 one of 15 children had little time for pleasure seems to have spent her time darning socks as a child or kneading bread to be baked overnight for breakfast but nearly all the boys (13 of them) could play a musical instrument even if it was only a mouth organ or jaw harp Grand dad could play anything with strings banjo, guitar even violin. My other Grand father was good at knitting he learned in the army! Well thats what he told me He even made a shawl for each new grand child his wife was the sewer of the family all her daughters did wonderful embroidery Both Grans had pianos even in their tiny houses.
It seems people were very practical in their time not a minute wasted  perhaps we should take note   Gran's favorite saying was "The devil makes work for idle hands"
Trees