I grew up in a Council Scheme...1960's.
Parents too old in their late marriage to qualify for a mortgage, and the only cottages around that they could pay cash for were without built in bathrooms, had stone floors, no central heating, the wiring was , yeah, etc., etc.,
Instead they moved into a brand new three bedroom house with an inside bathroom, laundry/kitchen (double sinks, wringer, etc., all built in. Hot and cold running water (back boiler on the fire, which heated the upstair bedrooms too). Gas (we had a gas fridge/freezer, we could plug in the gas the same way we did with an electric plug, just a bayonet fitting) and electricity all plumbed in. Big gardens (folks still expected to grow food in those days)....and all they had to do was to pay the rent every week.
So they did.
Council schemes weren't poverty. Poverty was those poor benighted souls who couldn't pay the rent.
Council rents weren't cheap; my parents paid as much as a much younger Aunt did for her mortgage.
We had tennis courts, bowling greens, golf course, library, big parks, lot of space, fresh air, good schools, shops, churches, Dentist and Doctors surgeries. Scouts, Guides, BB's, etc.,
We did have party line for the phone though; it was a shared line because there just wasn't enough flex in the system for everyone to have a phone...made it kind of surreal, you got to know the other party fairly well
There were/are 36 houses in the Crescent where we lived. In my primary school years there were eighty three children. By the time I left secondary school thirty of those children had gone or were on their way to University/seminary or teacher training college. Others went to apprenticeships, nursing, or secretarial schools.
Among the people who lived in the Crescent were four teachers, three miners, two electricians, two joiners, three plumbers, three engineers who worked at Caterpillar, a bookie's runner, a postman, two men who worked on the railways, a book keeper, a lawyer's clerk, two shipyard workers, a hairdresser, two gardeners and a gravedigger.....just ordinary folks.
There's a reason almost every house in that Crescent became owner occupied as soon as the opportunity presented, and why they sell well on the rare occasions that they come on the market. They were and are good houses, with good sized rooms and gardens. Civic amenities readily available, etc., good transport links.
My Dad built a new boat every year, next door neighbour couldn't bed out his crops until the boat got out through his garden
Next door other side played in a jazz band, my big brother played the pipes, three neighbours played fiddles, and one elderly man played the hammer dulcimer. Four of the houses in the Crescent had pianos. Two neighbours were really 'into cars', every weekend was an education in the disembowelling of motors
One neighbour bred puppies, and ferrets. People went on holiday, many went abroad. Fashion was a big thing, music was a big thing, especially for the youth, lots of dances and the like.
Some families emigrated, Canada was a big draw, there used to be bus trips full of neighbours going to the airport to see them off.
Politics were and are divisive but there was a lot more discussion rather than media flared fracas.
This was all normal. Nothing unusual. Council houses were normal for the majority of the population. It was better by far than private lets, even if it was sometimes more expensive.
Different times, from this age I can truthfully say they were very different times.
The 1970's hit the whole country. Power cuts, sugar, bread and flour rationed by the shops who could get supplies, same with paraffin and coal.
Folks are adaptable, they managed. No one starved, no one froze to death, no one did without medical care.
Was it easier than things are now ?
No. There was poverty, real grind folks down poverty. It wasn't all rose gardens. Sectarianism and it's violent and aggressive undercurrents were rife. The tribalism of the football, the cultural divisions in peoples origins, drinking was hard and was done in short hours, and that exacerbated the issues.
Very much a, 'hit me and I'll hit you back harder', kind of background. Virtually every man had some military experience. One neighbour had flown spitfires
One brought home a German wife; she hated it here, said we were ungodly, didn't do anything right. In the end he went back to Germany with her.
I haven't lived there in nearly fifty years, yet I'm still friends with many of the others who grew up in that scheme. Surprising just how many still live threre. On the whole life is for them as it has been for everyone else in the country. Too many have died, already, too many struggled with ill health, too many didn't thrive, but most just got on with things. Most did well. Most travelled, most experienced the wider world, but this area is still home.
I think that's the crux of it all.
We just get on with things. We adapt to the hand we're dealt, we help and are helped, we are part of the whole thing.
I think if you have the mindset that you'll manage, then you will.
Folks aren't stupid, and we have such resources now that were so far beyond anything in the past.
From shared party lines to every child in the land plugged into their own. If you get stuck with your phone, find a child, they'll fix it for you
M
