Monday 26 January 2015

I salute you!

I don’t use this blog for meditating – I do that on “Trundling through life” but I’ve been having a few thoughts provoked by the reaction to the dyed bathrobe.

I’m a post-war baby, born 1951.  My mother even had a ration book for me for the first few years of my life but I have no recollection of that.  However, although I was unaware of it at the time, it was the period of post war austerity.  My parents were married in 1940 and so Mother’s housekeeping skills were developed through the war and the ideas of make-do-and-mend were the norm for my childhood.  Paper was saved “for salvage” - we didn’t call it recycling in those days.  Christmas presents were unwrapped very carefully so the paper could be ironed and re-used.  Father grew vegetables.   We ate seasonally.  Most of my clothes were hand-me-downs or home-made.  We had patchwork on our beds not as an expression of artistic ability but as a matter of economic necessity.  Oddments were used because nothing was thrown away until it was beyond repair – shabby chic is definitely a twenty first century concept!

Move forward sixty years and the ideas which I was brought up with don’t look so mean, they look like common sense but most people under forty have to learn those attitudes deliberately.  For me dyeing the bathrobe was actually a very modern thing because Mother would have used it no matter how grotty it looked.  (Incidentally I’ve never been brave enough to dye anything I would wear in public!)

What I’m trying to say is that I am very lucky.  I was brought up learning skills and attitudes which I am able to dredge up from my memory but they are there to be dredged.  I take my hat off to those who are younger than me who are learning them for the first time,


I salute you!

16 comments:

  1. I'm two years older than you but my mother died when I was 7. I was one of those post war babies, with a brother a generation older who spent many many years in TB sanatoriums. What you wrote about patchwork struck a cord with me as we had a quilt my mother had sewn ( she hand sewed both her dresses and mine). The patches on the quilt were of varying sizes and very odd shapes, bearing no resemblance to a pattern. I realised later that it wasn't meant to be a thing of beauty, just necessity. If I was cold my dad used to put an old army coat on top of me in bed.

    She must have bought, or been given, a packet of dye that was a very dull pinky mauve - and she dyed everything she could with it, even the paper thin curtains. Hard times, but lessons learned.

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  2. Mary, I am also a post-war baby, born 1950. I was an "only" and my parents came from very different backgrounds. My father lived with his grandmother most of his youth and she was a make-do person. My mother's parents were a little more flush -- even during the depression -- and she didn't have a frugal mindset. She did, however, make sure that I learned skills. I learned to cook, clean, sew, handle money. I grew up with that old, war-time adage -- "use it up, wear it out, make do or do without". I wore clothes handed down from my cousin and we passed them on to other cousins. From my great-grandmother on my father's side I learned to love quilting and from my mother's mother I learned to love needle work. To this day I don't like doing "art" quilts or something that should be put on a wall -- I like plain patchwork that you can wrap a baby in or yourself in the cold. My daughter was a little resistant to learning skills and she is having to learn them now. I am making sure that Miss Bean learns a few things -- we are cooking -- and I hope to introduce her to sewing a little later. I worry about young people now who aren't learning the life skills that we did -- we were blessed beyond measure to grow up before the age of affluence and materialism. I am so thankful for my foremothers who taught me.

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  3. Hi, I am a bit younger in this conversation being a 1952 baby. But everything is very familiar as my parents struggled post war. It was rag rugs I remember covering the lino in the unheated rooms up to the 1970s. We are now in retirement and having to use all those skills and get used to make do and mend too.

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  4. I'm a mere baby at 56 but my father who served abroad during the war left India in 1948 with my mother and brother. They arrived in the UK with nothing. They had to learn to do anything and everything a mentality that was widespread. She in turn taught me lots of frugal tips.

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  5. Thank-you for this post! It certainly puts things into perspective for those of us trying to learn "frugal" ways. I get a ton of inspiration and wonderful ideas from you. The fact that you appreciate these things that you learned in your youth is really beautiful.

    The age of affluence and materialism mentioned in the comment above is precisely the time I grew up in. It seemed that if my parents wanted something then they got it (at least they lived that way before their divorce). I certainly wasn't taught to use things to their fullest capacity and then re-make them. Actually in a way I was taught to take out loans, and credit, and borrow and live however I liked. Yikes, what a mess that made! But I am learning now and it's challenging but exciting too. AND I'm trying to teach my kid to appreciate and use everything.

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    1. And I think you represent a lot of younger people, Rivulet. Sadly some of my own generation too enter retirement with debt and even sadder, I think that situation will become commoner.

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    2. My humble opinion is that even if you are financially well off and don't NEED to do things yourself, learning those skills just makes a person more well-rounded. It is very satisfying to know how to do things. And....life can change in a blink of an eye and you never know when you will actually need to know how to be self sufficient

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  6. I was brought up in a frugal household in the 1960s and 70s. We didn't have much money but my Mum really knew how to make everything an adventure or event. I've discovered over recent years that life is far more fun that way. Jx

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  7. I was also born in 1951. I don't remember it being too bad when there were only my brother and I, but when 3 more siblings came along money was in very short supply. I don't remember ever having store bought clothes (other than undies) my mom made everything. I remember when I went to grammar school at age 10, I got one skirt, 2 blouses and one sweater for my uniform and I was still wearing them when I left in the 4th year when we came to Canada. We used to heat bricks in the oven and wrap them in rags to put in our beds in the winter and there were lots of meals like egg on toast, beans on toast, home made soup etc. I don't remember ever being hungry because my mom could stretch the pennies and make me walk over a mile to save 1/2d on the price of a loaf of bread. I can remember having the very occasional ice cream though so all wasn't too bad.

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  8. While I never mastered most domestic skills related to sewing, knitting, or generally anything crafty, I learned how to stretch what was left in the pantry into humble but tasty dishes. Many I didn't realize as a kid were pretty much just fillers to help us get by until there was new grocery money-we just liked them. Creamed macaroni, basically mac and cheese with no cheese because there wasn't any,with a squirt of ketchup was a kid favorite. Later as a teen working in a grocery store, I learned a lot ringing up the frugal shoppers carts, noticing almost identical types of groceries purchased between two different shoppers, but the smart shopper, buying the store or bargain brands, using coupons, and skipping processed short cut foods stretched their dollars so much further.

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  9. Thinking back I can remember macaroni pudding - a bit like your macaroni cheese without the macaroni but sweetened. I'd forgotten that one!

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    1. Silly me. I should have said "a bit like your macaroni cheese without the CHEESE". My brain is mush!

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  10. FC, hope you're doing alright - haven't heard from you here for a while!

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  11. Hello. I am only 47 this year so I was a teenager in the 1980's. My parents were quite well off and I never remember going without but I was not really actively taught to be careful with my money, but I am now. I had a Store Card and an active social life in my 20's which for a while was my undoing. Now, well I am married, we don't have a credit card, when the bank did a financial health check they took it away from us becasue we just don't use it; the bank doesn't like people like us. I love a challenge and take on the mentality of the make do and mend era in some ways as well as only buying food we need, not stock piling and I enjoy the way we live.

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    1. Brilliant. Consider yourself saluted!

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    2. Thanks. Have added you to my list of blogs to inspre.

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