Poverty in the 1960's and 1970's

[[Ray]]

HI

"There were no mobile phones . . . . . "

Just street boxes.
People rang the nearest street box to the person/family they wanted to speak to.
With any luck someone (passing) would answer it AND go to the requisite house door to say "you have a call".

Then,
 there were the shared lines, where upstairs would always be on the line.

Then,
 when the family got their own line, daughter "Irene" would be in the hall "all evening" talking to her latest beau.

He'd be in the street box, 25 yards away, with loads of pennies frantically pushing button A.
Or, was it Button B?


Ray

[BumbleB]

He'd be in the street box, 25 yards away, with loads of pennies frantically pushing button A.
Or, was it Button B?


Ray

If you knew how to do it, you didn't need any pennies at all - you could use the phonebox for free 

[[Ray]]

Message to BumbleB . . . . .

Tap, tap, tap, shhhhhhhhhhh.   


Brings back so many memories.

Ray

[[Ray]]

. . . . . and then there was that poor boy Bill Stickers.

Once we got the street boxes they started picking on him.
He WILL be prosecuted.


 

[confused73]

Have just looked at the awful photos, and no you can not believe all you see in the newspapers, I am not denying there was dreadful poverty,  but some of the photos are false! In the first photo the woman is pushing a very Bonny baby in a brand new pram..... another photo it says a poor child in poor grubby clothes, but look at the spotless white socks and brand new shiny shoes.... 

[antiquesam]

I was a student in Salford in 1969-71 and walked over those wastelands to get to our student house. I don't remember it being so bad. Clothes in the bedrooms got a bit damp, as did the bedding, but then we were young and didn't have a family to worry about.

[barryd]

If I sound like a Victorian Moralist then I plead guilty.

I arrived in America  as one of the “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” people. Not at Ellis Island but at Port Everglades, Florida the only person on the ship with an immigrant visa.

A month later I was standing in the grocery store checkout and observed a man who paid for his groceries with "food stamps" (government coupons to buy food) then then he handed over cash to pay for his cigarettes. I took a dislike to food stamps that very day.

Not all poverty is caused by lifestyle but how many of the poor:

Smoke tobacco
Drink alcohol
Use illegal drugs
Have tattoos
Have the latest electronic gadget
Gamble

All with money which they have so little.

[carol8353]

. . . . . and then there was that poor boy Bill Stickers.

Once we got the street boxes they started picking on him.
He WILL be prosecuted.


 

My mum was a northerner (Macclesfield) and when she first came to London in 1947 and worked up town,travelling there by train,she felt really sorry for this Bill Stickers bloke and asked my grandma,her future mum in law,what he'd done and why was he going to be prosecuted.

Carol

[Erato]

"but how many of the poor  ...  "

Dunno, barry.  Probably about as many as finance their vices with income derived from, say, crop subsidies. They amount to around $20 billion per year in the US, but maybe you don't consider them to be welfare payments.