Real Life Coronation Street!

[sheddie]

This programme is just like where I was brought up, 4 children and 2 adults in a two up two down, with a scullery over the yard and a privy up the garden.All the neighbours helped each other and delivered one anothers babies too.We also had a shop like the newsagents on the corner and a local.
What type of house did you grow up in?

[franbee]

I was brought up in a 3 bed semi-detached cottage, one of 5 dwellings near the farm where my father worked. All the other neighbours were older people, there were only myself and my brother. We had no bathroom, just a toilet out the back, next door to a wash house. Across the lane were fields, and also behind the house. If we walked down the lane there was a main road where we could catch a bus to school in town, about 3 miles away. Fran.

[eleanor2]

i'll come on here and reply tomorrow.i'm tired out.trying to get link to keepers daughter.got her email address having trouble with it. night all.x

[Oola]

I'm still in the house I grew up in...oops! Parents and sister have since moved out and now it's me and Rich and all the animals. Whilst I was here in my teens my parents also bought some land adjacent to it, something I call the Smallest Smallholding.

I did live away for 6 months when I was 18 and rented with Rich, but I was made redundant at the tender age of 19 so we came back. My parents moved away and we never intended to stay... but 5 or 6 years on we're still here. The house feels quite different to how it was when I grew up... the functions of particular rooms have changed, we've redecorated a lot of it and our animals and use of the garden and Smallest Smallholding have sort of changed the 'landscape' a bit. It's a lovely early 20th century cottage and is built on and around old market gardens, so I'm trying to bring the Smallest Smallholding back to what it once was. Rich said when he first visited here when we just started going out, even then it felt really warm and homely.

[SummerSkye]

I left the UK at ten but can still remember our house vividly. My sister just returned for a visit and took photos, it really hasnt changed that much. We had a semi detached in Birmingham. Quite a nice house with a long garden at the back. We had a very posh front room (never used) a spare room next to it that was rented out (just after WW11) a dining/living room and attached kitchen. Upstairs were 3 bedrooms and a large bathroom. Out the back was a laundry and extra loo. There was a huge cellar where the coal was dumped and one section was used for food storage as we had no fridge. Our neighbours were all friendly and looked out for each other. My sister claims we were poor but I think that is by today's standards. Compared to others I think we were very fortunate, I can remember the headmaster complimenting my mother on the way we were so nicely dressed for school as there were 5 of us.

[eleanor2]

we had a 5 bedroomed council house.10 children.part of our house went over the top of an old mans flat.good job we were well behaved.a tiny bathroom with no heating. an outside loo.so we had a bucket in the bathroom.can you imagine it.we were only allowed to wee in it. a tiny kitchen with a little gas cooker.my brother worked for a butcher.i'll never forget those lovely big fat sausages cookong on that stove.what a treat to have some sausage with our beans.no fridge. a shop down the road in an old ladies front room.she made penny ice lollies. a big shop up the road.who would give you a penny for old pop bottles and milk bottles.me and a friend would scour peoples front gardens and roadsides for bottles.we never locked our door.everyone in the whole street was friends. we played out together at night in school hols. we respected the old people and they respected us.oh for those days again.

[sheddie]

What memories Eleanor2 did you have a gusunder? X

[Redstart]

I grew in a small end of terrace (Victorian) with a living room and kitchen with the coal house off it downstairs, two bedrooms upstiars and a loo out of the house, down the garden, up the lane and back behind the house. I can remember the first indoor bathroom arriving in the village - the whole village trouped in to see it!

My mother washed once a week on a Monday and had a big water boiler that she heaved onto the draining board. She washed all our clothes with that, soap and a rubbing board when I was small. Sheets were sent off to the laundry and the little black squiggles on them, showing ownership, fascinated me.

The village was really one main street and one short side street but it had a village shop, a butchers, a post office and a Coop. And a library that was open on Thursdays. The village has been extended since I left and has a much larger population nowadays, but now there's only one shop, no library and people don't yellow their doorsteps any more.

[Katelb]

Sheddie, we lived in a two up and two down cottage with just cold water,no electricity,so oil lamps and my mum used to cook either on an oil stove or the kitchen range,there was a wood cupboard under the stairs and the loo up the garden;and yes we had gazunders! it was such fun living there --there was myself and my Mum---,but we had so many friends to stay who loved being in the country.Oh ,and a tin bath in front of the fire! until my grandparents moved closer and we had a bath in a real bathroom.There are so many happy memories of that little cottage and now it has been knocked through with the one next door,electricity put in ,a double garage, and it is changed considerably but it still has the original windows!.

[eleanor2]

sheddy and kate you got me there.what is a gazunder.i'm dying to know.

[sheddie]

Hi Kate, sounds very like me and Eleanor2 a guznuder is a po which guzunder the bed.

[eleanor2]

are you joking.no po's in our house. a big plastic bucket between the 12 of us.the imagination has to wander here a bit.

[Katelb]

A chamber pot which in olden times used to be china and very ornate.Nowadays,they are sought after to put plants in and other things,and they can fetch quite a high price in an auction!Many old bedside cabinets had a cupboard especially for keeping it in if it wouldn't go under the bed!

[eleanor2]

a chamber pot eh.but...this gazunder.is it a real word or is sheddy making it up.my sister saves chamber pots.funny hobby.

[dinger]

oh Katelb you brought back memories about the tin bath in front of the fire .I loved our old house and the happy times we had as children there .All the neighbours knew each other and helped each other out.No one needed to lock the doors and children all played together in the street.Happy happy days .

[Redstart]

eleanor2 - a gazunder is a potty that goes under (gazunder) the bed!

[sheddie]

Eeeeee don't you trust me, would I lie to you? also did you have a wee willy winky?

[eleanor2]

only one that ran through the town.upstairs and downstairs in his dressing gown.

[sheddie]

I still sell the old candle holders with the little handle, my daughter has got lots of different ones I have picked up for her. Always handy in a power cut!

[CountryLady]

I grew up in a three bedroomed terraced house with a small front garden and quite a long if narrow back garden. In the yard was a wash house used on Mondays.
Mum stayed at home and was always cooking and baking. All the children in the street played together and walked to and from school together each day.
We had the corner shop and a laundrette and the papershop.
I don't think we had a care in the world.