“Outhouse to luxury in our new Brighton home” Brighton News

When I was born we lived with my maternal grandparents because my father was in the air force during WWII. Our house was a two up, two down with an outhouse.

Yes, we also had cut paper. Izal toilet paper was horrible because it was so shiny and probably expensive.

The tin baths were kept in the garden shed. A big one for the big ones and a small one for the children. My dan would fill the gas-powered wash copper with cold water and pour it into the bath when it was hot enough. After the baths, most of the water would be poured into the sink with a ladle (a large dish with a handle), then the rest of the water would be poured out the back door and down the back steps.

Like Ian said, no one wanted to go out in the dark and cold to go to the bathroom at night, so we had “guzzunders” under the beds, which were emptied and washed every morning.

When my grandmother did her ironing, she used iron irons, which were heated on the gas stove. One was heated while the other was in use. All the linens were pure cotton at the time and smelled great when ironed. When she did the laundry on a Monday, I could never figure out how the laundry never came out blue after the blue “cart bag” was put in the water.

I lost count of how many times my fingers went through the huge wooden rollers of the mangle that were used to extract as much water as possible. I would forget to let go of the corners of the sheets and towels.

As I got older I was allowed to help clean the gas sleeves with a small brush every two weeks or so.

When my grandmother passed away in December 1969, she still did not have hot running water. The greedy old witch of a landlady had installed an electric light to go up and down the stairs with an outlet downstairs.

It made ironing a lot easier, but the sheets never smelled the same.

The toast was still as good as my grandfather made on the end of a long metal fork over the open fire.

We had grilled crumpets on a Sunday for tea.

Everything was bought fresh each day as there were no refrigerators and freezers, electric toasters, washing machines or vacuum cleaners.

In June 1950, when I was five and three quarters, my mother, father, two brothers and I moved to a three bedroom house in Hollingbury. It was like living in Buckingham Palace. We had running hot water, gas and electricity, a bathroom and toilet upstairs and downstairs.

All under cover.

I remember we used to have a lot of power cuts back then.

In the winter we would get snow 6 feet deep, but somehow the milkman almost always delivered our milk.

We rarely had a day off because of the bad weather. I think we were all a lot tougher back then.

Now that I’m almost 70 and slowed down a lot, I often think about the past and how grateful my husband and I should be. Automatic washing machine, toaster, electric kettle, microwave, central heating, shower, vacuum cleaner and television.

Christine luffman

Rotherfield Crescent

Hollingbury

Brighton