One big difference between then and now ( cholera epidemics etc) is that it was spread by sewage contaminating drinking water .
Not really person to person contact.
Phthisis is an airborne disease but one person in a family could get it ,others not .
My mother slept with her older sister ,who died at sixteen from TB,but also had Pernicious anaemia.My mother though kept well.
The difference though was more in the social life, the small narrow streets were conducive to illness and disease ,but also to neighbourliness .
People were in and out of one another’s houses ,older women monitored the whole street ,disciplined everyone’s children and were there for births and deaths.They were valued.Respected.
One of the worst social tragedies ever committed was when Manchester City Council carried out its slum clearance programme .
People were led to believe they would be re housed sort on en bloc ,so neighbours would be near each other .
That was not the case ,people were uprooted ,given limited choice , and two refusals of entirely unsuitable locations — distance from work etc—-
and there was no choice.—
The estates were built but no shops ,families in high rise blocks ,how can a m other supervise playing children from the seventh floor.
Within months black mould so injurious to young childrens’ health was on ievery wall as there was nowhere to dry washing but inside.
When I visited the Drs with one or other of my children ,there were always many women on the verge of breakdowns ,pleading with the Dr.. To give them a note so they could get out of their flat which was their prison.
The community and its particular ethos had gone.
People hardly “ neighbour “ any more , mother’s did not always work, the streets were not so quiet as today with almost every one out at work all day.
The old ladies like me had the keys for neighbours as we were at home most of the time.Saw to the coal man ,paid the window cleaner and took kids in if mothers had been delayed.
So different in those far off days.
But old people were respected and had an importance in the community.
They were nothing like so lonely as nowadays.
But I am sure everyone is coping as best as they can, we are all different ,
and whilst so much is better materially ,,things are worse in other ways.
But I for one am so glad it does not entail leaving my house night after night
to go to the underground , or the damp cold shelter .
Things are comparitive , if people are not old enough to be able to compare it is perfectly understandable they feel what us happening now is one of the worst things they have experienced.
I can sympathise with that.
Perhaps it will be realised though after this just what lonely lives older people have very often.
Caroline ,don’t feel guilty ,you have worked hard for what you have and your family have had possibly better than you knew.
My children certainly have , but I was allowed into further education , my OH not so,for him it was seven years at night school ,three nights a week for three hours a night .
Our children have more than we ever had ,because we could let them go to
Uni etc,.I have never had my children come home with a wage packet .
After graduating their jobs were in their Uni towns .
Did not come back home to live,but always ask if I am OK financially .3
Them at Uni entailed sacrifice ,but it was OK as we had known times when there was very little ,we were not strangers to making do and mending ,no holidays for seven years etc.We could let them do better than we had done .
It would have been harder had we been more comfortably off .
I had lived in a house with no running water ,that had to be carried in buckets .Honestly!
Gathering sticks for kindling .Wasn’t I lucky to know such a simple way of life
Viktoria.
