Remembering

[Oma]

I was talking to GS about this the other day we were having a good laugh,

Can you remember when you got your first automatic washing machine, or microwave, colour TV etc

I remember our first colour TV you had to have a separate aerial for it,
We were the only ones in the street to have one and my DDs friends would come in and sit on the floor watching the children’s programs,

Then there was our very first fridge , up till then we only had a larder,
I remember wondering if the light stayed on when you closed the door.
It had a little freezer box that would only hold a box of fish fingers or hamburgers.

Then there was the freezer and not knowing what we could freeze,

Automatic washing machine was a thing I never wanted I was happy with my twin tub ,
I was dragged kicking and screaming into that realm, now I can’t imagine using a twin tub.

Then the microwave that no one knew how to use but you had to have one.

Mobile phones, my DD and myself bought B on for Christmas,
he was over the moon only trouble was we knew no one else who had one he could phone 🤣

All these things and many more we can’t imagine life without now .

My GS thought it was all highly amusing when we described sitting watching the washing going around in the washer and having no idea how long the cycle was ,
or switching the microwave on and running away from it incase it blew up 🤣🤣

We then told him about the rubber shower hose you put on the taps to wash your hair that never stayed on and never worked you couldn’t get the right temperature,
Either scalding hot or freezing cold 🤣🤣🤣

[Plantaholic]

Ah! Oma, I remember it well.

[Gemini]

TV with only 3 channels which you had to get up and switch channels via a switch on the TV.

I was so happy when we got an automatic washing machine!
We lived with my mum and dad for a few months when DD1 was a baby, mum had a single tub with wringer. It bent all the babygro poppers out of shape.
When we got our house we had a twin tub.
To get the automatic when DD2 was a baby was luxury!

[Plantaholic]

A lot of my Appliances were second hand

[Oma]

Mine too Plant,
When we first set up home every appliance was second hand ,
there was a well known place called Jack woods he repaired and sold all kinds of appliances.
We got our twin tub , hoover ( goblin cylinder) and cooker with high level grill from him.
He maintained them too , anything went wrong he was there the same day 😁
Then we bought a Hoover upright from him .
He was the go to man at the time.

Gem
My mother had a mangle with a huge enamel dish under , I remember putting sheets through it when I was pregnant , a great workout😁

My older sister was posh she had a washing machine with an electric mangle on the top 😁😁

[Gemini]

My twin tub was second hand, as was all our furniture for the first few years.
Automatic washer was new though

[Lizzie48]

The first 2 years of living here, with a toddler and a baby, we didn't have a washer, no warm water either, how did I survive??

[Gemini]

It's amazing what we did survive Lizzie!

From DD1 being 5 weeks until she was 10 months old we lived in a caravan with no running water at all!

I was happy, but wouldn't like to live those days again!

[Nanto2girls]

I remember all those things very well Oma.

We got our first fridge when DS1 was six days old. Midwife stayed with me (he was born at home) while hubby and his dad went to buy the fridge.
First automatic washer, neighbour came round to watch it.
Our first colour tv was rented from DER.

[Oma]

DER that’s a name I haven’t heard for a long time 😁

[Daisy]

When we got married my mother lived with us. Mum and I had sold the bungalow we had lived in. OH and I bought our first house and Mum moved in with us. She brought with her a single tub washing machine with an electric wringer (very posh compared with the hand operated wringer on the previous one), a small fridge like Oma's, a toaster, an upright Hoover, an electric fire with flickering flame effect (!) a cooker with 3 hobs and a 10" black and white television, which took about 5 minutes to warm up and received BBC1 and ITV. You needed a set with 625 lines to get BBC2.

We got a huge chest freezer in about 1971/2 - bigger was cheaper because they were considered industrial and had no purchase tax (pre VAT). When DS1 was born the following year we got a tumble dryer. My thinking was that it was really easy to get clothes etc wet by washing them, but getting them dry in bad weather was another matter. Plus I loved the nice, soft fluffy nappies dried in the dryer.

We'd been married about 8 years before we got an automatic washing machine. Another couple of years before we got a colour tv, which my Mum paid for (rented).

I've only ever had 2 microwaves - the first one was so heavy I couldn't move it, but it lasted about 18 years.

Does anyone remember Marley tiled floors?

[Oma]

The first tumble drier I got was from Bs mam , she didn’t use it so sold it to us at almost the price she paid for it 🙄
I was over the moon, it was tiny but did the job and lasted many years.

We had Marley tiles in our old house , horrible brown ones that we covered with carpet ,
they eventually started to break up so we had them removed , years later we discovered they could have had asbestos in them😱

can you remember when coloured bathrooms were in fashion?
We had a navy blue one with all the splash back shelves around the bath.
It was a nightmare to keep clean , I hated it almost from day 1 , worse thing we ever bought I think .

My DD when she bought her first home , a large Victorian terrace house had a whisper pink bathroom ,
now that was rather pretty just a suttle hint of pink,she loved it.
She then moved into a modern house re modded the bathroom and bought a glass hand basin ,
OMG when clean looked fabulous but as soon as you washed your hands you had to spend 5 minutes drying and polishing it 😱

[Gemini]

Oma, those coloured bathroom suites were all the rage at one time weren't they? A glass basin would be hard work

When my ex and I bought our second home, it came complete with hideous tobacco brown bathroom suite! Can you imagine anything worse? Pink, blue avocado, I could have tolerated but this was abysmal. The first job we did in the house was replace it with a nice new white one in a style which fitted the Victorian house.

[Oma]

Oh I would have hated that Gem,
Makes you wonder what we were all thinking but Tobacco Brown Yuk 🤣🤣
They are so hard to keep clean arnt they,
Nothing wrong with a nice white set

[Plantaholic]

Our first fridge was lovely, it had a pink door. I used the launderette for some time before we got a second hand washing machine.