What 'mod cons' did you have when growing up?

[Gemini]

Coats on bed to keep warm, ice on windows, today's kids would be horrified Libra

[Gemini]

I have remembered that we had only the coal fire in the living room as heating for the whole bungalow in my early childhood
. In the morning my mum would warm my clothes over the open oven door in the kitchen and dress me there. Later we got a gas fire (lovely instant heat!) in the living room and over the years those plug in electric radiators in the hallways and some rooms, and little wall mounted gas heaters in others.

[Avo]

My post seemed to appear again, so I’ve deleted it 🤪😫

We had a top loading washing machine with a mangle on the top, you had to rinse the washing! I remember a man arriving at the house with a twin tub doing a demonstration and my Mum sending him away, she did’nt like the look of it! She also had a big ironing machine.

[Daisy]

Aggie - I've never heard of a glass/scrubbing washboard. You must have been very posh indeed.

Avo - it sounds as though you were lucky with your central heating. Our coke one was a nightmare I still remember! My auntie was a very talented dressmaker (although it was not her 'trade') and she would spend ages getting a fitting just right!

When I was born my parents lived in a 1930s semi which my grandfather had helped them to buy when they got married in 1936. (The Bank of Mum and Dad isn't a new thing!) The kitchen was quite tiny - a sink with a wooden drainer under the window, a door in to the larder which was under the stairs, a gas cooker next to the sink and a kitchen table on the opposite wall. There was a door leading to the 'back porch' with a toilet and a coal hole - they were the same size, I think. We lived in the dining room which had a coal fire. There were two armchairs, dining table and chairs and a sideboard with a radio on it. The front room was for 'best'. I slept in the tiny box room until my uncle (who lived with us) died and then I moved into the back bedroom. It's only now, typing this, that I realise it must have been his bedroom. I can remember it still had black-out curtains, but I suppose just after the War (about 1948) you didn't squander precious coupons on new curtains! The bathroom upstairs had a hand basin and a bath. I've still got the laundry bin/stool - it was wood, painted white, with a cork seat.

I can remember my Mum having a 'Jiffy' for washing, plus a boiler. The Jiffy was a galvanised box on legs with an agitator inside which you operated by hand with a lever. There was a hand cranked mangle on top. I can remember the house always being filled with steam and the smell of wet washing every Monday! Later on she got an electric washing machine - single tub, not a twin tub - with an electric mangle. In fact I was still using this until about 1974!

[Nanto2girls]

Gem, we only had one fire in our house. We had an electric fan heater, and when anyone was going in the bath (no shower in those days)
we used to put the fan heater on the bedroom while we got dressed.

[Gemini]

Nan2, my parents eventually got a pretty ineffectual bathroom light which had a electric ring in it. There were strict instructions to only switch on the ring before and when having bath or shower and switch it off straight away afterwards, As it was on the ceilng it really didn't do a lot to warm up the bathroom!

[Daisy]

Gem - OH and I installed one of those in the bathroom of our first house. No, it didn't make much difference, but did take the edge off the icy chill in the winter! We also put storage radiators into that house - what luxury.

[Gemini]

Yes, it did raise it above freezing point Daisy

[Qwerty]

Great read about all our young lives I am 70 next year so can remember we had a Parnell washing machine with a wringer on top, a tv I remember from the time of the coronation to be honest my family runs along the same lines as Gem, a phone when I was about 10 , always had an inside toilet and bathroom with hot water running off the back boiler heated by the kitchen fire, always had a car but my dad did have 3 jobs to pay for it all , lived in rented accommodation all their lives

[Oma]

We had a big range in the sitting room that had a oven and hot water tank , only heating in the whole house , The bathroom had a bath and a hand basin the toilet was downstairs behind the front door ,
On cold mornings my Dad would come and wake each one of us up and wrap us in a warmed blanket to come down stairs and our clothes would be hanging on a clothes horse getting warmed for us .

Coats on the bed ice on the inside of the windows and Mam would put towels on the window sill to catch the water and condensation ,

[Grauntie Mag]

We had a paraffin heater in the bathroom. Oh the pong! The washing machine was a Service and had an electric wringer.
I used to love Saturdays when I went to Mrs. P’s while my parents worked. They had a range in the living room and it was so cosy.

[Plantaholic]

We had a paraffin heater in the hall, upstairs there was no heat but I had a lovely feather mattress. There was also a small tilly lamp in the toilet to stop burst pipes happening. Mum always got up first (Dad worked shifts) and put the gas oven on and lit the fire in the SR.

[Gemini]

We had a paraffin heater too, I remember dad cycling to the hardware store to get paraffin. I remember the smell, but not where we had it!

[Daisy]

When we moved to the shop, when I was 6, we had a paraffin heater that was moved to where we most needed it at the time - usually the bathroom. The shop next door sold paraffin, so getting it was very easy. I remember they stored the paraffin in a galvanised steel tank in their garden against the garage wall. Their whole house smelled of paraffin all the time.