Hard Times?

[srb7677]

I've mentioned grandma a few times; a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and a complete full blown witch, broomstick and all. Treated mum like shit and dad even worse, had nothing but praise for her son a few years older than mum, who she disinherited when he ran off to sea with the merchant navy and came back a few years later with trophy wife.

God, families !

Frankly they may have had it tough but you know what, the sheer opportunity available to a bright kid in my fathers generation means I'd swap timelines with him, rickets, national service, v1 and v2 bombers and all in an instant.

Because he died believing his kids and grandkids had the bright future the politicians lied to him that they would provide. Because it looked like they had. But the damage Blair did hadn't started to work its evil back then.

All I see is a future filled with immigrants and shit

I would say the rot really started with Thatcher. Blair was just part of the continuation.

[johnofgwent]

I've mentioned grandma a few times; a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and a complete full blown witch, broomstick and all. Treated mum like shit and dad even worse, had nothing but praise for her son a few years older than mum, who she disinherited when he ran off to sea with the merchant navy and came back a few years later with trophy wife.

God, families !

Frankly they may have had it tough but you know what, the sheer opportunity available to a bright kid in my fathers generation means I'd swap timelines with him, rickets, national service, v1 and v2 bombers and all in an instant.

Because he died believing his kids and grandkids had the bright future the politicians lied to him that they would provide. Because it looked like they had. But the damage Blair did hadn't started to work its evil back then.

All I see is a future filled with immigrants and shit

[T00ts]

It is only natural for each generation to hope for better for their kids. An easier healthier happier life I guess is every parent's hope for their child, but surely we do them a disservice in making their childhood so easy/protected that they reach their adult life unable to cope with the downturns in life. 

[srb7677]

My great grandfather was born in 1899 at the start of the Boer War. He was 15 when WWI started and 19 when it ended. So he served in the trenches in the latter half of that war. During that time he suffered a gas attack and his lungs never really fully recovered.

He was 30 when the great depression began and 40 when WW2 began, 46 when it ended. In 1940 his daughter, then 16, got strafed by an enemy fighter and had to dive for cover on the Plymouth sea front. Her soon to be husband was exempted from military service but served in the fire brigade during the blitz. When Plymouth was bombed the local hospital maternity unit took a direct hit and he had the job of climbing in amongst the rubble to recover the dead babies.

My great grandfathers daughter - my grandmother - gave birth to my father in 1943 in the middle of an air raid alert.

My grandfather on my mother's side was an American soldier who got shot in the leg in France in 1944. He returned to the States after the war, minus his wife, my grandmother, who had died of tuberculosis soon after my mum was born in 1945. My baby mum stayed in the UK to be raised by her grandparents.

Tough times.

My great grandfather was 51 when the Korean War broke out, and 63 at the time of the Cuban missile crisis. He retired as a butcher at the height of Beatlemania, and was 70 when the first moon landings took place. He was 74 at the time of the oil price shock which so devastated western economies in the 70s. He died aged 81 in 1980

[cromwell]

Everywhere I look the news is grim. Not just here but it seems world wide so as a break I decided to have a look at my family history where I have been searching for someone on a branch of my family back in the 1800s when records were fairly good, but she suddenly appears in the 1841 census but wasn't born or married or even die! What came up?

The system reminds me of an Aunt - and here is her life.  Why are we all moaning?

Born 1908

Age 6
WW1 begins
29 June 1914

Age 10
Influenza pandemic
1918-19

Age 21
Great Depression
1929-1939

Age 31
WW2
1939-45

Sounds pretty much what my mum and dad had to go through,my old man more so because his mum died in the flu epidemic and my grandad married a witch.

But to address your point why are we moaning? it's progress T00ts not long before the WW1 generation  kids were sent up chimneys,down mines,people jailed,transported or even hanged for the most trivial of offences.

[T00ts]

Doesn't display well, but I assume she was born about 1908.

Age 6
WWI Begins

(29 June 1914)

Age 10
Influenza Pandemic

(1918–1919)

Age 21
Great Depression
(1929–1939)

Age 31
World War II
(1939–1945)


My grandmother was born about the same time, and certainly struggled having very little to bring up her 6 kids which soon became 5 due to sickness.

You do make a good point, but since baby boomer times we have had more good times than bad and got used to those. We've been pampered.

Thanks Barry - I hadn't realised how the copy/paste would not work. I have retyped it now.

[Borchester]

Abraham Lincoln once said that folk were as happy or sad as they wanted to be, which has always struck me as a reasonable response. His political opponents refused to accept this however and blew his brains out.

Such is life

[Barry]

Doesn't display well, but I assume she was born about 1908.

Age 6
WWI Begins

(29 June 1914)

Age 10
Influenza Pandemic

(1918–1919)

Age 21
Great Depression
(1929–1939)

Age 31
World War II
(1939–1945)


My grandmother was born about the same time, and certainly struggled having very little to bring up her 6 kids which soon became 5 due to sickness.

You do make a good point, but since baby boomer times we have had more good times than bad and got used to those. We've been pampered.

[T00ts]

Everywhere I look the news is grim. Not just here but it seems world wide so as a break I decided to have a look at my family history where I have been searching for someone on a branch of my family back in the 1800s when records were fairly good, but she suddenly appears in the 1841 census but wasn't born or married or even die! What came up?

The system reminds me of an Aunt - and here is her life.  Why are we all moaning?

Born 1908

Age 6
WW1 begins
29 June 1914

Age 10
Influenza pandemic
1918-19

Age 21
Great Depression
1929-1939

Age 31
WW2
1939-45