100 Years Ago....

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.

Paulus

Started young, and still going.
Location
Barnet,
One hundred years ago, in my industry this was the cutting edge of locomotive design.

scotsman-blog1.jpg
 

Drago

Legendary Member
100 years ago Keith Richard was only forty.
 

gbb

Squire
Location
Peterborough
A visit to Beamish living museum really opened my eyes a few years ago.
Iirc they have a 1920s house, remarkably spartan but with some (then) mod cons. Coal fire of course, flagstoned floors with rugs, the thing that struck me was how little 'extras' there were, it was all very spartan and utilitarian.A late 1800s house was even simpler.
A late 1700s, early 1800s House was just plain bleak, huge deep bedding, gaps in doors, it must have been blooming bitterly cold in winter.
 
My great grandfather (Mum's Mum's Dad) from the 1870's through to the 1920's, earned his living hiring himself and his horse out (presumably several over that time frame) to tow barges along the Birmingham canals.

He was well known for his end of shift drop into the local alehouse on the way home, and, on several occasions found himself in a police cell to "sober up" overnight, whilst his horse was put in the police stables. Different times.
 

gbb

Squire
Location
Peterborough
Was it Orwells book The Clergymans Daughter that chronicled hop picking in the 1930s, almost itinerant farm workers that moved where the work was. It painted a hard life but equally conveyed a sense of togetherness between the hop picking gang.

1970s, I lived in a Notts village Flintham. There was an ancient lady Mrs White that ran the local shop. It was disgusting by todays standards but around the walls on high shelves were those large bottles of potions and remedies, long out of use but still there. They apparently recreated it in the village somewhere as a museum when she passed on. She would have been running that shop perhaps since the 1930s, maybe earlier, a real time capsule.
 

gbb

Squire
Location
Peterborough
My great grandfather (Mum's Mum's Dad) from the 1870's through to the 1920's, earned his living hiring himself and his horse out (presumably several over that time frame) to tow barges along the Birmingham canals.

He was well known for his end of shift drop into the local alehouse on the way home, and, on several occasions found himself in a police cell to "sober up" overnight, whilst his horse was put in the police stables. Different times.

Dad, born 1930, lived in Bristol near the Docks, Docks tend to be quite rough places. His father had a lodger, Ralph Weeks, a very big man who was the local bobby. Apparently if a big fight broke out ( this would perhaps be the late 1930s) in a local pub (as it often did apparently), there'd be a knock at the door, Mr Weeks, we need you at....
He'd go down there, pick out the biggest fella,...and set to him, often knocking him out, or down. That tended to calm things down a bit.
Imagine that happening now....
 

oldwheels

Legendary Member
Location
Isle of Mull
Dad, born 1930, lived in Bristol near the Docks, Docks tend to be quite rough places. His father had a lodger, Ralph Weeks, a very big man who was the local bobby. Apparently if a big fight broke out ( this would perhaps be the late 1930s) in a local pub (as it often did apparently), there'd be a knock at the door, Mr Weeks, we need you at....
He'd go down there, pick out the biggest fella,...and set to him, often knocking him out, or down. That tended to calm things down a bit.
Imagine that happening now....

Glasgow had a similar type of bobby in I think the 1930's. I had a grand uncle [ I think that was the proper term] who was a long retired polis and had lots of stories of his time working in Govan police station. If they had a particularly obnoxious prisoner the shout went out ' Get Big Tam o' the Toll "and the prisoner immediately shut up and behaved as the aforementioned Big Tam had a fearsome reputation.
 

palinurus

Velo, boulot, dodo
Location
Watford
I found some papers at my mum's flat where someone had gone back a few generations and the family from this area (Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire) were all occupied in various agricultural occupations- or adjacent industries- and there was a branch in Wales and they were miners.

I have trouble describing my job if asked.
 

tarric

Über Member
Location
Scotland
Up until the mid 1980s my grandparents only had an outside toilet, no bathroom and no central heating in a 2 up 2 down. They lived in the farming community in the fens.
It was Victorian living conditions in Thatchers Yuppie Britain.


A bit like the village I lived in in the mid 90's early 00's, a number of little cottages with only outside toilets and quite a few with only cold running water, hard to believe at the start of the 21 centaury in a supposed rich first world country.
 
Top Bottom