My birth

[Viktoria]

At half past three
We go home to tea
Or maybe a quarter to four
Then it’s rough and tumble
Clatter and noise .
Mums and Dads and girls and boys .
Baby in the carry cot .
Cat by the stove,
A little bit of quarrelling
A lot of love,



We sang that at the end of the day at one school where I worked,it was
lovely .

Viktoria.

[Pennines]

Oh Billy F -- just see what you started with your initial question!!

Carol - the Kids of the 50s and 60s - oh my goodness - what memories that evoked.

Coombs - Well the doctors attending your uncle's birth did a great job back then. To have 2 doctors at a birth back then seems amazing.

Regarding school Viktoria - I remember we didn't finish until 4.00pm - unlike today AND school was never closed if it snowed. From about age 5 we lived in the countryside and had to walk to a village school, whatever the weather.

This also brings to mind having a little paraffin lamp in the outside toilet to stop it freezing in winter. The bonus was, you could actually SEE when you went in at night.

[Treetotal]

....and you were able to see if there was any spiders lurking 
Carol

[Viktoria]

And see to read the squares of newspaper !
Trouble was you could never find the end of the article .
Actually, we had tissue paper, we had to cut it into squares and thread it on a bit of string with a big needle.
Mum seemed to have an endless supply of tissue paper ,but by comparison with reading whilst on the loo it was very boring .
We had to resort to Origami but it was not really known then and had it been we might have well been interned for Japanese practices !
We used newspaper to wrap vegetables in the shop ,vegetables were covered in soil in those days , and grease proof paper for fish but then in newspaper.
No plastic bags then!
Viktoria.
It was my task to scrub the loo seat, it was a wooden one, really white after my ministrations with Lifebuoy cleaning soap ,in a red bar.
Then wash and stepstone the floor .
Jeyes fluid down the grids or hot water with soda crystals dissolved in it to move any grease.

Then I got my “ spends” but had also to do the grocery  shopping ,two ration books at one shop and two at another in case one got bombed .
Food was still rationed for a while after the war.


I earned my spends !

Viktoria.

[Top-of-the-hill]

  We had one of those tin baths as well. There was no indoor plumbing except a cold tap in the scullery, and there was a bucket toilet in a shed in the backyard, next to the coal shed. At least a bath in front of the living room fire was probably warmer than one in an unheated bathroom!

[Treetotal]

We had that awful slippery toilet paper, Izal, the toilet always smelled of Carbolic soap. Our tap was outside in the backyard and it would freeze up in the winter. Dad had to put lighted paper under it to defrost it.
I remember my Mother
buying long green slabs of Palmolive soap, that she would cut a lump off at a time for us to wash with. We also had a dolly tub and posher, there used to be a copper in the yard for boiling the whites.
At the weekend when our parents went out for the night, they would often bring company back to the house to finish off the evening. We always had a piano and Mum would play all old wartime tunes. I was often called out of bed to come and sing for them whilst Mum played the piano. There would often be money put on top of the piano for my singing, I never saw much of it though 
Carol

[Viktoria]

My Dad had many zany theories ,one being that the substance in Jeyes’ toilet paper was a carcinogen!
Actually it is a coal tar derivative I think ,in which case he was not wrong.
Cancer of the b- -!

Another was that if you damaged the web of skin between thumb and forefinger you got lockjaw!
Yet he bathed in carbolic soap ,from WWI army days,the red stuff I cleaned the loo seat with ,but a different bar.

He also had trench feet in his knees!
Having been up to his knees in muck and bullets in the trenches!
His knees really were tender and inflamed ,probably some form of arthritis ,you know the one — arthuritis.

When you think how poor was the care poorer women got in home births , it is a wonder so many got though it , on the other hand they had no choice.

Women are wonderful you know!
 I nearly died shortly after my birth ,my older sister perhaps feeling sorry for me as I was crying popped a piece from the end of a peeled banana in my open mouth ,
Mum was still in bed and her older sister was looking after her ,she noticed I was going blue,picked me up and shook me , my sister said she had given me some banana ,the piece came out and I regained a good colour .

I suppose you could say that answers a lot !
Then I had a swelling behind my left ear and jaw, like mumps .
Still only days old auntie rushed me on the bus which stopped just near our house to Ancoats Hospital .
I was operated on ,it was an abscess on my Parotid gland ,often caused by insufficient fluids .It was a very hot spell of weather ,at the time of George V’s
Coronation  .
I have the scar still .
From where the access was removed.
A great big chap waiting for treatment was in tears because of my tears ,it seems I was thought too young to have any anaesthetic ,he was so upset.
It is only comparitively recent that Prem babies have been given pain relief and when you think of all the procedures they undergo!

So my first experiences in the world were a bit unusual.
I have no memories of any of that of course.
Viktoria.

[maddys52]

Thanks for starting this topic and on the subject of photos who are the gorgeous youngsters on your profile pics mare &
Treetotal
+ Your young ladies  BillyF
 & Maddy ( *I think I've asked before )

The baby in my profile is my late aunt Sylvia JONES who my nana walked home with in her arms from the hospital

My profile pic is my grandmother aged about 18 at Bondi Beach. She's the one who had no recollection of giving birth about 10 years later. 

Re outdoor toilets, my Uncle's house still had an outdoor loo and dunny man collection once a week in 1982. This was in a suburban area on the Central Coast of NSW, not out in a remote area. I remember my brother and his friends stayed there on holiday for a week but would drive 15 minutes to the local RSL club to use the toilet rather than risk their sensibilities. 

[mare]

Relate to all those things so familiar in our childhood, don't we, stirring memories of the past. Recall boxes of apples wrapped in squares of tissue which were straightened out and saved for further use.

Brigid, my image is of self, a thinker or daydreamer possibly and preschool, aged about 4 as we didn't start school until 5 years in NZ. Photographed by dad with Box Brownie and possibly going somewhere as not usual round the house clothes, big bow in hair, tidy pinafore and white blouse and shoes and socks. Usually would be in the standard skirt with bib top that could be let down with growth and made by mum, knitted cardigan over the top and perhaps bare feet or gumboots, and a lighter cotton dress in summer.  A few candid shots we have  by dad, very few done professionally but a few school ones and a couple of family ones. Mum booked a photographer to come when younger sister was a baby, company had a catchy jingle on the radio. I would have been about three and a half and supposed to be in photographs and hair in rags for ringlets the night before, shyness or stubbornness had me spending the whole session hiding under my big sister's bed and nothing would coax me out ... reminds me of #2 granddaughter at that age currently 
Sister featured in his display sample book after that shoot, beautiful baby with dark wavy hair in her layette and on the spread of one of those lovely spiderweb knitted shawls.