WE ARE SURVIVORS
We were born before television, before penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods. Xerox,contact lenses, videos and the pill. We were before radar, credit cards, split atoms, laser beams and ballpoint pens, before dish-washers, tumble driers, electric blankets, air conditioners, drip-dry clothes...and before man walked on th moon.

We got married first and then lived together (how quaint can you be?)
We thought 'fast food' was what you ate in Lent, a 'Big Mac'was an oversized raincoat and 'crumpet' we had for tea. We existed before house husbands, computer dating and sheltered accommodation was where you waited for a bus.

We were before day care centres, group homes and disposable nappies. We never heard of FM radio, tape decks, artificial hearts, word processors, or young men wearing earrings. For us 'time sharing' meant together-ness, a chip was a piece of wood or fried potato, 'hardware-ware' meant nuts and bolts and 'software' wasn't a word.

Before 1940 'Made in Japan' meant junk, the term 'making out' referred to how you did in your exams, 'stud' was something that fastened a collar to a shirt and 'going all the way' meant staying on a double-decker bus to the terminus. In our day,cigarette smoking was 'fashionable', 'grass' was mown. 'coke' was kept in the coalhouse, a 'joint' was apiece of meat you ate on Sundays and 'pot' was something you cooked in. 'Rock Music' was a fond mother's lullaby, 'Eldorado' was an ice-cream, a 'gay person' was the life and soul of a party, while 'aids' just meant beauty treatment or help for someone in trouble

We who were born before 1940 must be a hardy bunch when you think of the way in which the world has changed and the adjustments we have had to make. No wonder there is a generation gap today...BUT we have survived!

Amen to all that, says he who is 77! What we DID have was a wireless with wires. Bit of an anomoly, I thought. And a wind-up gramophone boasting a huge horn! And the Austin 6, coppers who gave you a clip round the ear, real tramcars from which no-one in Sheffield was more than ten minutes walk away … I could go on, but space forbids it!

Beautifully put kensos, makes you wonder how we have survived to this new age. But then again,
We could walk down the street at night without getting mugged
We could leave our doors unlocked
We could go out and play with our friends instead of being stuck in front of the t.v. or computer
We could depend on our friends and neighbours and we learn't to respect our elders, we also learn't that we couldn't have every thing we wanted and to make do.
Then came the war and we learn'd how to grieve and to rejoice,we knew how to have a good time without costing a fortune.
Sure, we are survivers and perhaps more by good luck than anything else.
but l'm certainly glad l lived through that era and not in the present one,at least now, l can blame my ignorance of all these technical gadgets on my age.
Good look to the youngsters of today, youve got it a lot harder than we oldies ever had.
Stop the world l want to get off.

Amen to all the above.

If you were born before 1940, or no later than 1945, it was into a world without antibiotics or any of the other wonder drugs and surgical procedures that are available now. Just surviving to school age was an achievement. That was without the added threat of the bombing.

Even though we only had BBC radio, newspapers and mags like Picture Post and Illustrated, I think that we were better informed than people are today. Of course, there is lot more "news" - so called - now but when you get down to it, and remove all the Hollywood gosip, dog and cat stories,etc, the rest is mostly what people here call "Info -mercials". Actual news here is less than 20 % of the total.

No doubt about it, electronics such as computers, etc. have made a tremendous impact and removed a lot of the drugery from the work place. I was more than pleased to put away my slide rule and log tables. It has also cost a lot of people who couldn't or wouldn't adapt, their jobs.

Text messaging has also been a god-send to the functionally-illiterate. Their grammar, syntax and spelling errors now generally go unnoticed.

One thing that I'm glad I will miss is the full impact of global climate change.

So good luck girls and boys.

Regards

The only thing I couldn't have done without on your extensive list kensos, is the ballpoint pen. The trouble to obtain and trim a quill was time consuming to say the least. I get to be 70 something in a couple of days or so, and thinking about it, If I'd thought I was going to get this far I would've looked after myself a little better.

The only thing I couldn't have done without on your extensive list kensos, is the ballpoint pen. The trouble to obtain and trim a quill was time consuming to say the least. I get to be 70 something in a couple of days or so, and thinking about it, If I'd thought I was going to get this far I would've looked after myself a little better.

Many happy returns for a couple of days or so, and best wishes for your continued future.

WE ARE SURVIVORS
We were born before television, before penicillin, polio shots, frozen foods. Xerox,contact lenses, videos and the pill. We were before radar, credit cards, split atoms, laser beams and ballpoint pens, before dish-washers, tumble driers, electric blankets, air conditioners, drip-dry clothes...and before man walked on th moon.

We got married first and then lived together (how quaint can you be?)
We thought 'fast food' was what you ate in Lent, a 'Big Mac'was an oversized raincoat and 'crumpet' we had for tea. We existed before house husbands, computer dating and sheltered accommodation was where you waited for a bus.

We were before day care centres, group homes and disposable nappies. We never heard of FM radio, tape decks, artificial hearts, word processors, or young men wearing earrings. For us 'time sharing' meant together-ness, a chip was a piece of wood or fried potato, 'hardware-ware' meant nuts and bolts and 'software' wasn't a word.

Before 1940 'Made in Japan' meant junk, the term 'making out' referred to how you did in your exams, 'stud' was something that fastened a collar to a shirt and 'going all the way' meant staying on a double-decker bus to the terminus. In our day,cigarette smoking was 'fashionable', 'grass' was mown. 'coke' was kept in the coalhouse, a 'joint' was apiece of meat you ate on Sundays and 'pot' was something you cooked in. 'Rock Music' was a fond mother's lullaby, 'Eldorado' was an ice-cream, a 'gay person' was the life and soul of a party, while 'aids' just meant beauty treatment or help for someone in trouble

We who were born before 1940 must be a hardy bunch when you think of the way in which the world has changed and the adjustments we have had to make. No wonder there is a generation gap today...BUT we have survived! arthur 1924 wellput together Kensos

No fitted carpets, so cold feet on the lino, no central heating so ice on the inside of the bedroom windows. no supermarkets and food rationed.
No washing machines so the wash took all day, no clothes dryers so the washing was hung round the fire on wash days. No dyson just a brush and pan. Coal fires that had to be cleaned out. No entertainment on Sundays because it was a day of rest. (no dances, no pictures), No TV, no own transport, no frozen foods, no fruit and veg out of season. No bathrooms for some people and outside toilets too.
And no computer.

hazel

No fitted carpets, so cold feet on the lino, no central heating so ice on the inside of the bedroom windows. no supermarkets and food rationed.
No washing machines so the wash took all day, no clothes dryers so the washing was hung round the fire on wash days. No dyson just a brush and pan. Coal fires that had to be cleaned out. No entertainment on Sundays because it was a day of rest. (no dances, no pictures), No TV, no own transport, no frozen foods, no fruit and veg out of season. No bathrooms for some people and outside toilets too.
And no computer.

hazel

I’m beginning to enjoy this! What we DID have was ha’porth of chips and a penny fish (they filled a large white basin), a travelling last Postal Service on all tram routes and conductors on trams, gas street lamps that gave off heat in winter, shops without shutters in the town centre, houses without burglar alarms, coal fires (upstairs too when you were sick), doctors who visited your home as soon as was humanly possible, hospitals that relied on donations and the Penny In The Pound Scheme from your wages at work, almost full employment, jam tarts at 7 for 6d. (5 for 4d., 4 for 3d., 3 for 2d. and ‘one for nowt — I tried it but it didn’t work, telephone boxes with phone directories that stayed intact (and the boxes didn’t smell of urine), last trams at 2a.m. (the first tram was 3a.m.), and 58 cinemas all showing
different films. More when I think of ’em! And P.S. We DID have washing machines!

Sorry to burst the bubble a little Peter but the glow is still there and you are quite right on the other things but the only washing machine at our house was my Mother and me.
When did you have your washing machine ?
The cold feet and the feather shapes of ice on the windows linger a little with me.
hazel

Sorry to burst the bubble a little Peter but the glow is still there and you are quite right on the other things but the only washing machine at our house was my Mother and me.
When did you have your washing machine ?
The cold feet and the feather shapes of ice on the windows linger a little with me.
hazel

My grandmother had an electric washing machine around 1934. It was a large affair boasting a somewhat shallow but large diameter basin, inside which she placed a removable ‘‘thresher” (or whatever they were called). It also had an electric “mangle” which was situated on an arm, and was swung into position when required.

Hi Peter I didn't know that they were made in that era we never had a washing machine until after I started work which would have been around 1952.
Sorry about that

hazel

Milkman with horse and cart, big churn in the back with a tap at the bottom. He shouted “Milko!” when I lived at Sharrow. Also, the pikelet man who carried a wooden tray on his head (Attercliiffe) early 1930’s, and the ice-cream hand-carts! Oh! and the three-wheeler Wall’s ‘Stop Me and Buy One’. There was usually one who ‘parked’ at Hunter’s Bar waiting for us to come out of school! And the tar men who refilled the setts on Sharrow Vale Road and elsewhere, and road sweepers who also kept the pavements clean. And I remember the tyre I fondly batted all the way to school in a morning, all the way home at dinner-time, all the way back again after dinner, and then finally back home again — five days a week! It muust have done thousands of miles!

I was born in 1943 & can identify with almost everything written here, I always told my kids that I was born in the best time ever and it's true.
I remember well the gas lighting at my aunties house at Stannington, & having to take the accumulater [battery] to get charged so we could listen to the radio.
As a teenager we had the best music, which is still played today, I wouldn't change a day of my life, even if I had the opportunity.

Another thought about gas street lighting : You could see the stars and easily identify the North Star and the Great Bear, and they were even clearer when we were blacked out during the war! It was a wonderful world for children, especially the ability to play in Endcliffe Woods without fear of mugging or molestation, to walk the city centre streets and ‘window-shop’ through glass panes and not steel shutters, and to be able to cycle all over the place and hardly see a car!

Hi Peter I didn't know that they were made in that era we never had a washing machine until after I started work which would have been around 1952.
So about that

hazel

Electric washing machines were invented in 1908. In our family, only my grand-parents could afford one. My grand-father was a skilled, time-served turner and my grandmother had a small shop on Woodbourne Road, from which she sold ‘real’ home-made cakes, and fish-cakes that you’d kill for! She sold them to chip shops, and they were in rissole form — long before someone accepted a couple of slices of potato and a miniscule of fish as the ‘real Sheffield fish-cake’. Mind you, today’s poor deluded chip shop wallahs have never lived!

Hold on a moment, yes we are survivors, but I, and a lot of my friends and family are only around today because of advanced surgery now available, and dare I mention it, on the NHS!

I do appreciate the 'good old days' but we have much to be thankful for today.

Good luck to all the 'pre 1940s'

Hold on a moment, yes we are survivors, but I, and a lot of my friends and family are only around today because of advanced surgery now available, and dare I mention it, on the NHS!

I do appreciate the 'good old days' but we have much to be thankful for today.

Good luck to all the 'pre 1940s'

Sounds like you’re only a post-war survivor. I don’t think that counts. Most of us were survivors when a simple appendix operation gave you a 50-50 per cent chance of surviving, truly. It’s an old joke, but us old uns actually had rough lives standing in cinema queues for an hour in the pouring rain, but we survived. In any event, it seems nowadays that some people survive DESPITE the NHS. Go into hospitals today; get MRSA!

Sounds like you’re only a post-war survivor. I don’t think that counts. Most of us were survivors when a simple appendix operation gave you a 50-50 per cent chance of surviving, truly. It’s an old joke, but us old uns actually had rough lives standing in cinema queues for an hour in the pouring rain, but we survived. In any event, it seems nowadays that some people survive DESPITE the NHS. Go into hospitals today; get MRSA!


Hello,

Yes Peter, it was a real chancy game having an operation. When I was in junior school, there always seemed to be collections for flowers for some kid that didn't make.

The after-1945-crowd wouldn't believe how many died on the operating table in those days. Simple operations like appendix, or in one case, having their tonsils removed.

Regards

Milkman with horse and cart, big churn in the back with a tap at the bottom. He shouted “Milko!” when I lived at Sharrow. Also, the pikelet man who carried a wooden tray on his head (Attercliiffe) early 1930’s, and the ice-cream hand-carts! Oh! and the three-wheeler Wall’s ‘Stop Me and Buy One’. There was usually one who ‘parked’ at Hunter’s Bar waiting for us to come out of school! And the tar men who refilled the setts on Sharrow Vale Road and elsewhere, and road sweepers who also kept the pavements clean. And I remember the tyre I fondly batted all the way to school in a morning, all the way home at dinner-time, all the way back again after dinner, and then finally back home again — five days a week! It muust have done thousands of miles!


I remember that milkman with his horse and cart,used to deliver milk to us on Sharrow Lane,actually Priory Terrace, also the "stop-me-and-buy-one " three wheeled bike. We must have been posh because our wireless worked from the mains,many a time I used to wonder what people were doing walking to the shops with a lead acid battery in hand.

Front rooms only used for funerals and Weddings in houses where people lived and died in the back room complete with stone sink and one cold water tap. A gas ring,single where you could boil a kettle of water when the coal man didn't deliver after going round begging him for a sack.

These were the conditions we existed in then. I remember hiking through Chatsworth when a bloke with an upper-class-twit accent shouted me over,I ignored him and carried on walking. He sent the gamekeeper across who grabbed me by the collar,he got a kick in the crutch for his troubles,I was only 16 Y.O.,the expected policeman never arrived.

I remember that milkman with his horse and cart,used to deliver milk to us on Sharrow Lane,actually Priory Terrace, also the "stop-me-and-buy-one " three wheeled bike. We must have been posh because our wireless worked from the mains,many a time I used to wonder what people were doing walking to the shops with a lead acid battery in hand.

Front rooms only used for funerals and Weddings in houses where people lived and died in the back room complete with stone sink and one cold water tap. A gas ring,single where you could boil a kettle of water when the coal man didn't deliver after going round begging him for a sack.

These were the conditions we existed in then. I remember hiking through Chatsworth when a bloke with an upper-class-twit accent shouted me over,I ignored him and carried on walking. He sent the gamekeeper across who grabbed me by the collar,he got a kick in the crutch for his troubles,I was only 16 Y.O.,the expected policeman never arrived.

Sounds exactly like the second home my parents live in, at 113 Nidd Road, Attercliffe — except you were that little bit posher. Everything was the same, except you had electricity and we had gas, which not only lit up the kichen but also kept the chill off in winter. Third home was at Sharrow and I remember Priory Terrace, I think? Used to call up there to meet a schoolmate on the way to Hunter’s Bar school. If I’ve got the right place, without looking at a map it ran off Sharrow Vale Road, slightly uphill and there was a turn to the left at the top?

I take it that like everyone else in Sheffield you always used the back door rather than the front, which was only opened on special occasions and probably groaned through lack of use when it was opened every once in a blue moon. We had a wind-up gramophone in the front room along with a couple of chairs, a sideboard and the radio with a couple of acid batteries.

From my own experience, it seems that using the back door to enter or leave back has become a tradition. I’ve called on a lot of people, and they still all use it, rather than open the front door when I ring its bell!

P.S. My memory is hazy now, but I think the surname of my schoolmate was Hogg. His father had a butcher’s shop on Sharrow Vale Road.

I am a late 1941 baby, so perhaps I don't qualify for this thread.

I would be struggling to remember the war years, but remember a few things from 1947.

I will rattle the old grey matter over the next few days and make a further contribution at that time.

One thing that is quite noticeable, having just read through this thread for the first time is the perfect English and punctuation you all use.

That seems to have totally disappeared nowadays. Where did it go? Why can't the youngsters use this beautiful language of ours?

I agree with those among you who sympathise with the young ones of today. Their lives as children are totally different from the 1940's and 50's we experienced.

The carefree play, the expectations for the future, the sheer joy of "streetplay" and camaradarie, respect for our elders and so on seem so different from the experience of many modern children.

We were indeed blessed.

I was born in April '45 and remember all the above. Xmas would not have been the same without cold lino and feathered ice on the window interiors. Down to the fire in the living room to warm up and open pressies.
Another memory is about 1951/2 when just one car clogged up our street with it's untidy parking. My Dad's Ford Pop. My job was to put the parking light on the drivers window at lighting up time. I had to study the "Star" for the times. Woe betide if I missed it.

I was born in April '45 and remember all the above. Xmas would not have been the same without cold lino and feathered ice on the window interiors. Down to the fire in the living room to warm up and open pressies.
Another memory is about 1951/2 when just one car clogged up our street with it's untidy parking. My Dad's Ford Pop. My job was to put the parking light on the drivers window at lighting up time. I had to study the "Star" for the times. Woe betide if I missed it.

Lights on cars were dimmed during the war by black shades with vents in them that threw the drastically dimmed light on the road, about four feet in front of the car. There were very few cars on the road at that time. Petrol was of course rationed. Most ‘light’ came from brilliant flashes of it from the trams as the pole which connected them to the overhead wires hit a junction — or whatever they call it.

Incidentally, in 1950 I had a Ford Pop. It lasted almost a year before it died and was laid to rest, but it only cost me thirty bob so I couldn’t have cared less!

I am a late 1941 baby, so perhaps I don't qualify for this thread.

I would be struggling to remember the war years, but remember a few things from 1947.

I will rattle the old grey matter over the next few days and make a further contribution at that time.

One thing that is quite noticeable, having just read through this thread for the first time is the perfect English and punctuation you all use.

That seems to have totally disappeared nowadays. Where did it go? Why can't the youngsters use this beautiful language of ours?

I agree with those among you who sympathise with the young ones of today. Their lives as children are totally different from the 1940's and 50's we experienced.

The carefree play, the expectations for the future, the sheer joy of "streetplay" and camaradarie, respect for our elders and so on seem so different from the experience of many modern children.

We were indeed blessed.

Well said! I agree with every word. As for ‘qualification’ — yes, you do qualify. The Post does say 1940s.

Born in 34 but i still feel I'm living in the best era right now,nice climate controled house garden full of flowers new car and plenty of food never to go short again,what more could a man want,of course i do remember living on bread &dripping or potato soup for 15 yrs but not with any fondness.

Born in 34 but i still feel I'm living in the best era right now,nice climate controled house garden full of flowers new car and plenty of food never to go short again,what more could a man want,of course i do remember living on bread &dripping or potato soup for 15 yrs but not with any fondness.

I quite enjoy dripping on toast now, in my old age!

Dear peterw, you did make me smile with you reference to 'the tyre you batted to and from school'. We had a craze for batting tyres on Hayward Road, morning, noon and night. It reminded me of the old joke about nipping up to Fox House, having it pinched, and having to walk back to Sheffield.

Incidently, if you ever stay at the Savoy Hotel in London, they have six different kinds of dripping at the Breakfast Bar.

I quite enjoy dripping on toast now, in my old age!
yes i too will sneak the odd slice of B&D when the wifes not looking(getting a little chubby) only now its my choice,remember the food served up in the forces,the original dry potatoes "POM"dirty black and smelling of fuel and a piece of cold grey ,suppose to be black pudding,I dinned out quite a lot Canadian or Austrailian but if ever we got into an American camp Hmm just pure heaven.

yes i too will sneak the odd slice of B&D when the wifes not looking(getting a little chubby) only now its my choice,remember the food served up in the forces,the original dry potatoes "POM"dirty black and smelling of fuel and a piece of cold grey ,suppose to be black pudding,I dinned out quite a lot Canadian or Austrailian but if ever we got into an American camp Hmm just pure heaven.

You should have joined the Royal Navy, mate. Food always good, baccy always the best but the rum ration was watered down a bit.

I joined as a Boy, and when I first arrived from HMS Ganges (shore-based training establishment at Shotley near Ipswich) at Pompey Barracks I had to join a queue for ‘re-vittleing’, something they did every week to ensure they had enough food and grog for everyone. Anyway, my dad had wrongly taught me not to ask questions because it would show my ignorance, so when it came to filling in the form I was asked “T, G, or UA?” Didn’t know what any of them meant so automatically I chose G because it was the middle one.

Imagine my surprise when I got my RUM RATION! I should of course have replied UA which meant Under Age!

If the Blitz and the war in general hadn't happened, how different do you all think your lives would've been?
Did National Service make any difference to your attitudes toward life?
Sometimes I think the former had the biggest influence on myself. Just after the Blitz I went with my grandparents to Cheshire and stayed there for over three years. Not really an evacuee in the recognised sense of the time, but evacuated all the same.
For better or worse, when I got back to Sheffield I felt different.
When I completed my National Service, returning from foreign parts I couldn't settle at all.
I put these two events as the reason why I became so footloose. It's only in my dotage I've become more settled.
So thats another black mark against Hitler.

Dear peterw, you did make me smile with you reference to 'the tyre you batted to and from school'. We had a craze for batting tyres on Hayward Road, morning, noon and night. It reminded me of the old joke about nipping up to Fox House, having it pinched, and having to walk back to Sheffield.

Incidently, if you ever stay at the Savoy Hotel in London, they have six different kinds of dripping at the Breakfast Bar.

Thatnks for the laugh! That joke’s a new one on me, never heard it before but very good!

If the Blitz and the war in general hadn't happened, how different do you all think your lives would've been?
Did National Service make any difference to your attitudes toward life?
Sometimes I think the former had the biggest influence on myself. Just after the Blitz I went with my grandparents to Cheshire and stayed there for over three years. Not really an evacuee in the recognised sense of the time, but evacuated all the same.
For better or worse, when I got back to Sheffield I felt different.
When I completed my National Service, returning from foreign parts I couldn't settle at all.
I put these two events as the reason why I became so footloose. It's only in my dotage I've become more settled.
So thats another black mark against Hitler.

Can’t agree about Hitler. I believe in destiny and what will be, will be.