Callers to a NZ talkback station were complaining about the cold and the high cost of running heat pumps and central heating. They were reminded of kids in the old days walking to school in bare feet through ice and frost who would stand in fresh cow pats to warm their feet up. Kids these days, don’t know they’re alive do they.
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Sheer bloody luxury putting them on.
Mind you, I wish she bought me trousers, shirt and a jumper to wear as well.
We were poor, no very poor, my mum as was traditional cooked a chicken (bought by nan otherwise we wouldn’t had a Christmas dinner) on Christmas Day, and also traditional through it in the pot on Boxing Day, we were still finding chicken bones in April, that chicken stew lasted over 3 months, mind you it had ox tail, wild rabbit with pellets still embedded, and anything else that was found or nicked. Vegetables for the pot become heard to get as they were frozen in the ground. We only had one room with a coal fire, oh and of course the kitchen were we could keep what was laughingly known as warm.
Now those were the good old days!
It was always so cold that a balaclava was mandatory under your parka coat as were woollens. It was nearly always foggy, but on route to school, sightings of hedgehogs and stray dogs were regular occurrences.
But that was rural Ireland in the 30\40’s.
And because of that they were never in too much of a hurry to modernise.
By the time I was going to school in the 70’s I was still waking up to ice inside the windows. Dressing in front of the gas fire listening to the Hairy Cornflake and realising my one pair of school shoes per term had already worn a hole in the sole & that until Dad could get to Woolworths to get a new sole, the cut out from the tissue box would have to do.
Was it better? I didn’t know any different but I have only fond memories of my young childhood. It was only when my siblings left & it was just myself & my parents & all my friends had moved on (central heating, video recorders etc) that it felt a bit shite tbh.
Buying a house, surely this was easier/better back in the good ole days??