Hey, My Generation......
Hi everyone, run ragged by the pups since 6 am this morning. If I try to look stern and tell them off, they go down on their front paws, tails wagging in the air and I would swear if I didn’t know better the little beggars are laughing at me!! They know already that I am an easy pushover!.
Anyway, it’s just gone 1 o’clock, they’re both fast asleep in their cage cuddled up to each other so I can now enjoy my usual lovely cuppa and two chocolate hob nobs. (well, maybe one and I’ll put the other back in the biscuit barrel. It all depends on how bloody-minded I happen to feel once I finish the first one.
Well, as usual, been reading the DM Letters Page and there is what I think is a brilliant letter from a lovely lady by the name of Janice Wood from Sidcup in Kent. She is having a go at something a columnist in the DM (Sarah Vine) said in a previous edition, demeaning pensioners. (mind you, I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on what she said, she is after all, Michael Gove’s wife!!) Enough said there ey! look what happened there!
Oops, I digress as usual….. Here then with the letter Janice Wood wrote, I’m pretty sure most of us resonate with her…..there is a photo of her. She looks a lovely lady in her mid sixties - her hair in a bob to her chin with vivid pink dye highlights throughout her hair and her fringe. It rather suits her. chuckle.
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LEAVE THE OVER-60’S ALONE. WE EARNED OUR PENSIONS.
What has Sarah Vine got against people in their 60’s (Mail).
I know I am old, but I dye my hair and try to look the best I can. I don’t drink a bottle of wine a day, but I go out at weekends and have some fun. Surely you should be able to enjoy yourself when you have worked all of your life?
My eyesight is not what it used to be, but other than that I am fine.
So please don’t shout at me or treat me like I am some sort of idiot who doesn’t understand what is going on. You won’t want to be treated that way when you grow old.
When my generation was young, life was very different. There was no hot water on tap. Instead, there was a tin bath hanging on a nail, which was brought in at the weekend for the family bath - everyone shared the same water. It took ages to fill using kettles and saucepans. The toilet was outside, which was a nightmare during the winter.
No central heating, so the coal fire had to be raked and laid on winter mornings.
No fridge or supermarkets, so shopping was done daily in the local shops.
No vacuum cleaner, no TV, no car, no washing machine or tumble dryer and no microwave.
If you had a baby, there were no disposable nappies, they were terry towelling and you soaked them in a bucket and then hand-washed them. I remember getting sore knuckles trying to get them pristine. Then you would hang them on the line. In the winter they would freeze solid and you would have to defrost them on the fireguard.
I worked from the age of 15 to 65, so feel I have earned my pension. I took my children to school or to the child-minder before work. I walked everywhere as like most I did not have a car. Sometimes I would be doing the ironing at midnight.
I am sorry that youngsters today can’t look forward to a good pension pot, but that is not my fault. It is the way things have gone.
People today have a much easier lifestyle, and I am glad as that is what my generation wanted for our children, to have the things that we never had.
Perhaps we were wrong.
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Good letter I thought. Makes one think. I’m coming up to 69 this month (gulp!) and I am trying to think of other things we never had in my young generation, such as a phone! Never mind mobile phones,
Hand wash, (in our house it was carbolic soap), electric blankets, my dad’s old army greatcoat was the top warmer on my little single bed!
Can anyone else think of anything that is taken for granted today which our generation didn’t have?