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how has life changed in british homes since WW2?

• Message 1. 

  Posted by Gul_rose (U2303197) on Sunday, 22nd January 2006

  if anyone out there who knows a long and detailed awnser to my quesstion, PLEASE<PLEASE tell me!! #
  
  
  
  i need help.
  

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• Message 2

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  Posted by Slimdaddy101 (U2553470) on Sunday, 22nd January 2006

  Council owners can now purchase their homes from the local authority. And most homes now have microwaves. Ikea has changed British homes considerably. There was no flatpack furniture prior to WW2. And you don't get those 3 wee ducks thingys anymore that used to be on Hilda Ogdens wall. Y'know the wee duck, the slighlty bigger duck and the daddy duck. Wallpaper isn't as popular as it once was either. And outside toilets are a thing of the past. And wooden flooring is all the rage these days, whereas it used to be carpets. And we got TV's and everything.

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  Posted by 3Lllama (U2603256) on Sunday, 22nd January 2006

  I suppose the big thing is the change in life/work patterns. The average family back in 1945 wouldn’t have seen much of Dad while he was awake. For one thing, ten-hour days weren’t uncommon, and Saturday mornings were part of the working week into the early 60s (Saturday afternoons were for going to the match). Then there’s the fact that men tended to keep each other’s company more, or at least spent more of their free time, such as it was, outside the family circle: the allotment, the pub, the bookie’s, the golf club…
  
  Someone worked out that in 1994 the average adult worked just as long as in 1950 – it’s just that paid work is more evenly divided between the sexes now (this is Dutch data, but I can’t imagine things are very different for the UK). Families in 1945 had more children and, with very little road traffic, children spent most of their free time out of doors. Another difference: in-laws would either live in the house itself (hard to imagine how people coped, though it must have helped with child care) or not very far away. People would live much closer to their place or work – necessarily so, I suppose, as the average UK family couldn’t afford a car until the late 60s. And the shortage of affordable housing meant that young married couples would often live with their parents (we seem to have come full-circle here, though).
  
  Then there's books: I don't remember many books in peoples'homes back in the 60s, and they tended to be coffee-table books or refernce books bought from book clubs. Infact, an earlier, but still post-war, generation remembers being discouraged from reading as children. For some reason, reading was considered morally suspect. (I suspect this may have been parents brought up with the "healthy living" ideals of the inter-war years.)
  
  Lots of things, in other words. But if I wanted to get a more general feel for how things have changed, I’d read a novel written at the time. Fiction is full of unwitting testimony, after all.
  

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  Posted by arnaldalmaric (U1756653) on Sunday, 22nd January 2006

  Errm, there weren't bombs dropping on our houses?
  
  

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  Posted by Grumpyfred (U2228930) on Sunday, 22nd January 2006

  My wifes parents first home after the war, was a prefab, which was the first homes ever to have fitted kitchens, and even fridges. My parents home in which I lived until 1969 was built pre 1900 it was a terrace, but with both inside and an out side loo. I moved from there to our hom upon getting married. A ex Semi Detatched Council house. Wages when I started work 1960. £4-00d a week. Wages when married about £20-00d including overtime. Cost of a gallon of petrol less than 25p Now

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  Posted by priscilla (U1793779) on Monday, 23rd January 2006

  When plastic came into homes it made a great impact in the work load for women i.e. lifting heavy buckets etc. Likewise cloth which did not have to be ironed - crimplene caused a revolution for a time.
  
  Post war 'contempory' was an interesting phase in the 50's when modern design touched everything even at the cheapest level and old furniture ws thrown out. 'Antique' was not in vogue!
  
  TV in the late 50's led to a breakdown in family dialogue. Food began to be taken on trays before the box instead of around the table where elders sat most of the evening listening to the radio but at the same time making things or reading the paper.
  
  Popping in next door and visiting un announced diminished gradually for the same reason.
  
  Street'garden play also diminished then. Gardens turned over to veg patches were changed back for flowers and lawns.
  
  Pianos were exchanged for radiograms and family sing songs likewise, I assume.
  I have heard tell of peoples' regret about what was lost after the war in friendship.
  A ramble - sorry - but an interesting thread to reflect on.
  Regards P.
  
  
  

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  Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Monday, 23rd January 2006

  The main change is in the standard of living. After the war, the factories which had been producing war material began producing consumer goods. Electricity became more widely available throughout the country. This was the start consumerism with televisions, refrigerators and washing machines gradually becoming more common. By the sixties, a number of liberalising acts of parliament accompanied a boom in popular art (Andy Warhol, the Beatles, D H Lawrence) and a better standard of education in state-funded schools was more widely available.
  
  In essence, nearly everything changed. Wealth was more widely distributed, with more women taking up paid employment, couples had more disposable income which was used to buy consumer goods, which boosted the economy. And form about the 1970s, there was a boom in consumer credit which further fuelled spending, and, of course, inflation, resulting in a number of boom-bust economic cycles.
  
  Socially, differences between the classes began to become a bit blurred and institutions such as the Church began to slowly lose the influence they had enjoyed pre-war.
  
  I think it is York museum which has examples of living rooms from throughout the 20th century. Compare even the 1950s to modern day and there is a massive difference, not just in style, but mostly in the area of electrically powered consumer goods. Where the radio once dominated, you now have television, DVD, Video, CD, PC.
  

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  Posted by Eliza6Beth (U2637732) on Monday, 23rd January 2006

  Here are some stats which may be useful. They come, of all things, from an NSPCC leaflet!
  
  l940s - three bed semi just ouside london cost £800
  
  l950s Fridya night fish and chips cost 1 s 6 p (7 p!)
  
  l960s an audio typist got paid £30 a month. (£10,000 a year in l990)
  
  l970s a hliday in Alicante, Spain, cost 21 guineas per person (that's £21 and 21 shillings, which is actually £22 and one shilling.)
  
  l980s a three bed simi just outside London cost £30,000 (£300,000 by 2000!)
  
  
  Eliza.
  
  
  
  

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  Posted by Aiden (U1707544) on Tuesday, 24th January 2006

  I think the main thing is the amout of consumer products has grown beyond belief, people live longer than they ever had in the history of these islands, and we are the wealthiest we have ever been.
  And as a result of all this abundance ? We probably moan now more than we did then !!
  

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  Posted by Eliza6Beth (U2637732) on Wednesday, 25th January 2006

  I think the essence was that, postWWII, Britain finally became a top-to-bottom rich/developed nation. There was no more endemic poverty in the working class, only the very-hard-to-eradicate 'pockets of poverty' that Galbraith identifies in affluent societies, such as immigrants/disabled/mentally ill/pensioners/single mothers. These are with us still, and are, indeed, proving very hard to eradicate.
  
  This extraordinary removal of mass lower class poverty was very well recognised at the time, with the Welfare State giving the vital safety net needed then (but now overabused and creating and sustaining the culture of dependence??), with Harol Macmillan famously teling everyone 'you've never had it so good'. He was right.
  
  In the l950s onwards, Britain finally lost the vestiges of being a 'third world country' with a large mass of seriously poor people.
  
  Eliza.

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