When you wake up in the morning in your new home, snuggled in your nice warm bed, the central heating popping away and double glazing keeping out the drafts, do you ever consider what someone waking up in a similar situation 50 or 100 years ago would be facing? Probably not; life, in terms of labour saving gadgets and construction of our homes now are the best they have probably ever been. But what was it like for someone waking up then and getting ready to face the day.
When it comes to moving into a new home one of the most stressful parts can be the actual moving day but I Move Removals are a Bristol Removals company that can take the stress away for you. Again, this is a stress that was felt much stronger in the past. Let’s take a look:
The 1950’s – It’s very likely that you probably did not actually own your home. The building of Council houses was at its peak in the 50’s as the Labour and conservative governments sought to make good on the promise of providing homes for service men and getting rid of the back to backs and terraced slums. You would most likely be living in a prefab house, one made of bolted together concrete on a new estate. Inside the house the white goods we have might be a bit sparse depending on what you were earning. An automated dishwasher was certainly not an option and the washing machine might still be manual as well. A larder or cool store was where you kept your families food but you would have had a big garden to grow vegetables. On average you’d have two bedrooms, a living room and front room (that you dare not go into if you were a child) and a bathroom with toilet (which was a novelty as before that most were outside). For entertainment you would have had a library card and a radio but a television wasn’t a common addition until later in the decade.
The Turn of the century – Where as you probably wake up in your own room for those living in the Victorian era its more likely that you would be sharing with a sibling or find yourselves all living in only 3 to 4rooms. The terrace housing and slums, that the houses from the 1950’s were built to replace, were very much the norm certainly for the lower classes. Renting was the most common way of living unless you were rich enough to own your own home. Everything was shared; plumbing was only available to those that could afford it. Your home was most likely owned by the local factory or mill and the rent was taken straight out of your wages. You had nowhere to store food and preparing it was usually in a shared space.
We certainly have a lot to be grateful for.
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