I had a good ole natter with Grandma this morning & thought to myself I must take notes on what we were woffling about.......namely some of the things from her childhood & early married life. My my, how the times have changed, as I'm sure you'll see......................

Grandma remembers war planes dropping bombs over the Sheffield area & the evacuee children who were sent up to Yorkshire from the South coast region. At the time she lived quite close to Doncaster racecourse & remembered the jockey & stable-hands accommodation being taken over by the army, to house the troops.

She used to have to queue at the local butcher to buy horsemeat & also whale meat, because normal meat just wasn't available.

(She also recalled a woman of suspected ill-repute nicknamed 'Racecourse Rita'!)

As a young 'un, she would have to help her mother with all the household duties....................these included cleaning the windows every single Saturday, come rain, shine, hail or snow. She would have to fire up the copper boiler every week, to boil all the whites & sheets. Once boiled, the sheets were removed & taken to the bath to be rinsed & then put through a mangle. Other washing was done by hand, with a washboard propped up in the bath. Her parents had a house with an actual bathroom - it contained an enamel bath & a wash basin. The toilet was outdoors.

Every night, she would have to wash the dinner dishes & also had to help her mother with the baking.

As a teenager, she was allowed to go out 2 nights per week - on a Wednesday & Saturday. If she wasn't home by 11pm on the dot (or sooner) her mother would be pacing up & down the street looking for her. Punishment for being a minute late meant being grounded for a week. Grandma always missed the last waltz at local dances, as they only came on at 11pm & it was always too late. There was no such thing as a disco - you went to a dance & there would be a live band playing.

Grandma left school when she was 14 years old. Her first job in life was as a Clerk, working for the Co-op. Her weekly salary was 15/- (shillings) & from that, she had to give her mother 5/- for her 'keep'. Bus fares to & from work were 1d (1 'old' penny) & going to the cinema cost a whopping 1/- (plus sweets!).

Married life began with sub-letting 2 rooms in a 'pit' (coal mine) house from a newly acquired sister-in-law. The arrangement didn't last too long. Grandma (& Grandad) moved out of their rooms, out of their village & out of the County. Shock/horror..............it wasn't the 'done thing' in those days..........you were expected to live & die in the village where you were raised.

The first TV that Grandma bought had to be turned off every hour, to prevent it from over-heating.

The first fridge she ever had was huge, but it's inside capacity would hold a couple of pints of milk & a pound of butter if you were lucky! She was very proud to have a fridge.

The first car Grandad bought was a 2nd hand Ford. Grandma remembers it costing them £20 & it had spoked wheels.

Her first washing machine was a tiny Hoover, which cost £18. It's maximum load was one sheet.

She had her first baby in hospital. It was National Health Services policy that a woman could have the first baby in hopital & any others thereafter were to be born at home. After the birth, she wasn't allowed to get out of bed for 10 days, even though she'd had a perfectly normal & uneventful delivery!

Hubs was born at home. Grandma prepared herself as soon as she realised she was in labour. She dragged the cot from one room to another, ready for the new baby. Grandad was asleep. She managed to wake him & tell him to go down to the local phone box, to phone the midwife for assistance. He roused himself, went out in the bitter cold, phoned the midwife, said "my wife's having a baby......can you come?" & put the phone down. He neglected to tell the midwife who he was! Thankfully, the midwife only had Grandma on her books for around then, so she arrived in time for the delivery. Grandad went back to sleep, so Grandma lit the fire in the fireplace, because in those days, you had to burn the afterbirth if you delivered at home.

In 1955 she had all her teeth out, at once (aaarrrrhhhh!!!) & had to wait six weeks before having dentures fitted. (OMG!)

Until the 60's Grandma & Grandad had always lived in 'company' housing. They bought their first house for £3000. Neither Grandma's parents, nor her in-laws had ever owned their own homes.

In 1964, a friend of Grandma's suggested she smoke a cigarette after each meal, as this would help her lose weight.

Divorce - in those days - was understood to be totally scandalous! Couples stuck together, normally through 'thick & thin'.

In 1975, I met Hubs. In 1976 Grandma & Grandad came to South Africa to meet me & have a holiday to celebrate their Silver Wedding Anniversary. They fell in love with my adopted country & 3yrs later, emigrated.

The rest - as they say - is History........................