Tales of Home [4]

Cracking pics Norc- remind me of my childhood when the inside of all the windows used to be like that in the morning.

the inside?! omg...

Sounds cold, Petty.   

Norc wrote:what really?. colder? well.. i guess, perhaps  it's only around minus 10 here

Yeah. The temperature sank from +5 to -13 over the weekend, so we beat you by a degree or two on monday. But it's warmer now, only about -6.

And I thought you would be along to announce your pictures sooner or later.  That was what I was refering to in my last post.

They look great, by the way.  

the inside?! omg... - Norc

Yup, on the inside- the days before centrally heated homes- paraffin and calor gas heaters moved room to room to thaw them out enough before you could get dressed. No double glazing either.

So who was the poor sod who had to get up first to light them?

Or did somebody get to stay warm all night and then move them to other rooms after getting up?

My dear Maw Halfy- she would get up first and lay the fire in the living room and fire up the paraffin heater and place it in the bathroom- and a calor gas one in the kitchen (where my brother and I would get dressed as it was too cold in winter to stay upstairs) all before she even woke us up.

wow Blue  well, good for u.

Petty... that sounds like a very badly isolated house.. i feel with u bro. we didn't have a heater in our bathroom for 16 years.... (got it this year) so i sort of know how u feel  although never that bad

The houses werent insulated at all- that didnt start until the 80's here in earnest.
Only thing that was insulated were the pipes- lagging its called, you lagged the pipes to stop them freezing- burst water [pipes in cold weather was a common problem.
Its amazing this was only 30 odd years ago.

I sit now typing in a manner only seen in my childhood on Star Trek, only a lot more advanced than that in many ways, in a flat that is heated in every room and with hot water on demand (that wasnt available as a child either- the water tank was heated by the fire- no fire no hot water- and you had to wait till it heated up, it was not on demand- and then when it was so hot it would scold the skin off our hand!) and my windows are triple glazed and the loft and walls insulated.
How quickly some things change.

It is funny looking back at all the lights and noises and tons of buttons that TV used to depict the far future. I wonder if we will be looking back at today's T.V and thinking how quaint their depiction of the future was.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:My dear Maw Halfy- she would get up first and lay the fire in the living room and fire up the paraffin heater and place it in the bathroom- and a calor gas one in the kitchen (where my brother and I would get dressed as it was too cold in winter to stay upstairs) all before she even woke us up.

   Maw - either she really loved her family or Paw snored like a banshee.

I'm also thinking from my winter camping days that you'd sleep with your next change of underclothes to keep them warm enough to pull on the next morning without shrieking.

I wonder if we will be looking back at today's T.V and thinking how quaint their depiction of the future was.- Lance

They will be thinking- "why are all these films from the early 2000's just endless scenes of really crude badly done cgi? Did people think it was good?"


"either she really loved her family or Paw snored like a banshee."- Halfwise

A bit of both.   And my brother and I would then come downstairs, cold and crabbit still wrapped in blankets and fight about who gets closest to the calor gas heater, dress from our immaculately folded respective laid out piles of school uniform, whilst Maw made our porridge at the cooker.
And we'd squabble, and complain and not appreciate a damned thing being done for us at the time, but thats been a child for you, especially crabbit ones.
Thats why if when you get older you are lucky enough to still have your Maw about you should always surprise her out of the blue every now and again with some small gesture of thanks for all those years ago when you were too young and selfish to even notice.  

That certainly sounds an improvement in the right direction, Petty.   

And makes the fact that you're parents managed to make the other situation livable all the more impressive.

 

Though often enough when you get back together with her she hits those same buttons that used to drive you crazy decades ago and somehow still do, and instead of telling her how much you cherish her, you end up storming around like a kid again...

So best to dash right in with your small gesture before she gets her steam up.

 Very true Halfy!

That last picture I posted wasn't all that interesting, so here are some others from today.




And Oslo City Center in the distance:

I remember days like that Petty, when I was a kid. I used to get dressed for school in front of the gas cooker with the door of the oven left open so the heat could keep us warm. My mum had paraffin... "boom boom boom boom, Esso Blue!" We slept in the front room when winter got very bad, as it did in the 60s, with the paraffin heater going all night as well as day, I remember the "pup pup pup" noise it made when running out. Ah, happy days !    We had to boil water on the stove for washing etc. wodge newspapers in the cracks of the sash windows to keep out draughts & selotape clear plastic bags over the windows. we did all sorts to keep warm.

yeah, i am glad technology and what not has improved the last hundred years  my grandad lived in a two-room house (kitchen where all 6-7 kids, can't remember exactly, my grandad was the youngest slept, and a bedroom where his mother and father slept) when he grew up. The house was poor and when it stormed outside they would all go and sit with the animals, because it was warmer and didn't creak. they're animals, some goats and a cow, lived in a dirt-hut (jordgamme) like this, though without the pipe and probably a bit bigger and oval (below). During summer, my dad built his own dirt-hut so he would have some privacy. They didn't have toys really, played with logs, but they made a ski-hill. There was no proper road, just a dirt road and during winter, they just traveled on the frozen river. When my grandad was six he went to boarding school, not too far away, but he had to stay there during the week. He had a flower book, where he pressed flowers and collected them. he was really interested in that. but his mother, i can't remember exactly (my mom told me this), but she either thew it away or burnd it.. i can't remember why, but she was perhaps angry or something. it was a hard life. they moved the house and built a better (two floors, more bedrooms and a living room) one when my grandad was perhaps 16, not too sure. now that he is retired, he spends alot of time in that house. doing woodwork and enjoying the silence. we go there as a family too  it's one of my favourite places, very calm. i have lots of memories from there  

That was so interesting Norc, I enjoy hearing stories of childhood & of times long ago, especially from other countries. That was a great insight to life, your story, & it makes you appreciate life today, better, cos of that.

Pettytyrant101 wrote:
Thats why if when you get older you are lucky enough to still have your Maw about you should always surprise her out of the blue every now and again with some small gesture of thanks for all those years ago when you were too young and selfish to even notice.  

Some words of wizdom right there. However cold it might have been back then, it sounds like a memory to look back on now

Norc - nice little tale I am always impressed when I hear what our grandparents' generation had to live through, times were certainly harder (leastways they were in Fjordia before oil, and undoubtedly in many other countries). They deserve all the conveniences they've worked for and earned during a lifetime.

For my sins, I have some German blood in me. My mothers mother was born and bred in a village near the eiffel mountains. People might know the area for the infamous WW1 battle of the Bulge. 

Anyway, her dad worked in Duren and where they lived, they could see the city in the distance. She often tells me of the night Duren was the target of a large bombing. Her dad had come home early for no good reason and they watched as the city got flattened, including his office and a lot of people they knew.

Hard to imagine seeing that kind of thing really.

Durin? That's Rur valley, right, Lance? I've got family stories from there too. My dad was in the 78th Infantry division during WWII. He was part of a bayonet charge on the Sigfried Line (successful, but with close to 50% casualties.) Then they slowly fought their way up the Rur that winter and spring with almost no rest. He told of freezing and starving in fox holes for days at a time with no supplies, and of stacking the frozen bodies of his friends by the road like cord wood for later recovery.

Once when intrenched above Kesternich he was so cold that he didn't care if he lived or died, and he couldn't stop thinking of a half-full coal cellar he'd discovered down in the German held town on their last attack. So he 'borrowed' a Jeep, raced down into the town and loaded it full of coal before the Germans noticed him.  Then they started shooting.... He had a particularly close call with one artillery shell, but when the second shell missed he jumped back in the Jeep and drove back to the encampment where he was received like a conquering hero.  His Lieutenant helped himself to the coal, but later reprimanded my dad for his action.

It's strange to think that our families were so close that my father may have stolen supplies from your grandfather.....

here's the second post http://bluetomorrow.blogg.no/1389534748_16012014.html

Like white fur, but a lot colder  

And loving the family tales folks.   

David - yep Ruhr valley. My grandad was stationed there in the 50s which is how he met my nan. That area is really beautiful (especially some of the castles) and hard to imagine that some of the bloodiest parts of ww1 and 2 happened there.