Tanners & Bobs
Can you relate to this. Say yes and you give your age away 
TANNERS & BOBS
Back in the days of tanners and bobs,
When Mothers had patience and Fathers had jobs.
When football team families wore hand me down shoes,
And T.V gave only two channels to choose.
Back in the days of three penny bits,
when schools employed nurses to search for your nits.
When snowballs were harmless; ice slides were permitted
and all of your jumpers were warm and hand knitted.
Back in the days of hot ginger beers,
when children remained so for more than six years.
When children respected what older folks said,
and pot was a thing you kept under your bed.
Back in the days of Listen with Mother,
when neighbours were friendly and talked to each other.
When cars were so rare you could play in the street.
When Doctors made house calls and Police walked the beat.
Back in the days of Milligan's Goons,
when butter was butter and songs all had tunes.
It was dumplings for dinner and trifle for tea,
and your annual break was a day by the sea.
Back in the days of Dixon's Dock Green,
Crackerjack pens and Lyons ice cream.
When children could freely wear National Health glasses,
and teachers all stood at the FRONT of their classes.
Back in the days of rocking and reeling,
when mobiles were things that you hung from the ceiling. When woodwork and pottery got taught in schools,
and everyone dreamed of a win on the pools.
Back in the days when I was a lad,
I can't help but smile for the fun that I had.
Hopscotch and roller skates; snowballs to lob.
Back in the days of tanners and bobs.
Comments
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Are you sitting comfortably?…
Yep, the good old days when war was not long over, rationing had recently ended, Mum had to clean the floors on hands and knees and do the washing by hand, Dad walked to work because petrol was too expensive to be used on a daily basis. The Suez Crisis was scary and later came the very real Cuban Missile Crisis.
I’ll not go on but I remember it well.😕
Nice poem though, even if it is only part of the story.👍🏻
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There is often this misty eyed nostelgia about the past and the truth is that it was pretty harsh, certainly as TW suggests the nearer to the end of the second world war you get. It seems to me that because we can't file the past where it belongs it prevents us moving forward not least by a lot of our politicians!!! St Marys Mead might look got in an AC story on TV but would any of us really want to go back even it it ever existed?
David
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I can remember when Norway was liberated, even though I was not quite 3 at the time, and remember later the first time I saw an orange and a banana.
My parents never had a car, we barely had roads! And my dad made our first washing machine in a wooden barrel with a small DC motor driving the paddle.
I remember when we first got mains electricity, early 50s I think, that was a great day!
However we never felt we were missing out on anything as children, that was just the way things were.
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Are food banks because some have spent their money on tattoos and designer dogs?
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After attending 11 schools I failed my 11+ (13 schools) in total I never regretted it and it certainly never held me back career wise.
I sometimes think if I had passed would I have become a cardigan with patches on the elbows type of chap, turns me cold thinking about it.😝
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Let's face it, back then most of us wouldn't have been alive to be posting on CT. (if it had existed) I had one grandparent after 10 years old. My kids had 4 at 18. Life expectancy has improved so much and we can enjoy our old age.😀
Good poem though, thanks harry.
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I'm aware of a mum of a primary age boy who moans about cost of school uniform (if the ads are anything to go by it's never been so cheap 😯) but pays more than I do for his haircuts and I'd expect a good day out for the cost of his trainers 😱😱.
That aside I think each generation has something to contend with and something to be very content about. My 89 year old mum still hankers for her childhood - much like KjNelln description. Happy and uncomplicated, fetching water from the village pump etc. But she wasn't her mum coping with 7 children and no modcons and much older hubby in a wheelchair!
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Our local food bank serves only those who have been referred by the likes of Social Services. As such, I am happy to donate without passing judgement on those who use it.
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I also donate from time to time. Usually boring stuff though like evap milk, tinned tuna, sweetcorn, tinned potatoes, baked beans.
My youngest daughter has little income and has two kiddies age 7 and 8. The small back garden is geared to producing food. She does have plenty of capital but most of this is in a series of 5 year investments now and has access to lumps of £10,000 4 times a year as bonds run to end of term with around £30k in more accessible accounts.
She does not use food banks but does use a local caring cafe from time to time which provides a friendly atmosphere and cheap meals. Makes a change for the kids. She does however donate freebies that she obtains ob the web and buys some foods there which are supplied by local supermarkets and sold cheaply.
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The big supermarkets donate all sorts of things but the food banks don't always know what that will be, it's a good system. There are many that suddenly find themselves in difficult circumstances and surplus food is a good way to help people through distressing times.
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I cannot seriously believe that I live in a country that has to have in place food banks. Something, somewhere has gone very badly wrong. I have my thoughts, but they are not for on here.
Its a good little poem, but I hope we have progressed in all the right ways. Hope is a wonderful thing and needs sharing as much as possible.....😁
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Without straying into politics the solutions to the problems is quite simple but it rather depends whether "we" by which I mean all of us who are a bit better off are willing to sacrifice a little to sort out the problem. The main cause I believe is rooted in current housing policy where we have pulled the support rug out from under a lot of people. Housing costs, especially in the rented sector, are now so high that even with housing benefits many working people don't have a lot left after paying their rent which of course drives people to use food banks.
I was pondering the other day whether the house I managed to buy when we moved to MK if 1979 could I buy the same house in 2004 (when I retired) had I been starting out as a youngster on the wage I had at retirement and the answer was no. Even more modest houses would be out of reach. We have a couple of houses on our estate which are rented at £1000+ a month which perhaps illustrates the issue.
David
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People can "crash out" of seemingly normal lives very rapidly. Food banks have helped many to cope with very difficult situations. State benefits are often slow and meagre in the worst case scenarios. We waste food too which years ago would never have happened, the poem at the beginning misses out some of the poverty families endured and still do.
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Agree the social housing issue is a huge problem. But so is the living wage, the fact that some companies pay such appalling wages that some folks have to have their income topped up! Shareholders and companies are circumventing the systems with the connivance of selective governments. There are working people that are in fact homeless. Sleeping on the streets, wherever they can, turning in for slave wages, back to bed on the streets.
The whole system of governing this country is now a shambles. We need to look back to the days of Nye Bevin, and his colleagues from all parties. If we could come out of the 2nd WW, country almost on its knees and set up the Welfare State, sharing the requirements out a bit more, then how the heck have we managed to get into this state, with a very few having so much they just don’t know what to spend it on, while the rest just muddle along as best they can, some surviving not too badly, others lurching from one catastrophe to the next. It’s like Victorian times with high tech, but hardly a philanthropist in sight!
We’re all doomed! ☹️
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We do seem to see an increasing disparity in society. Those at the 'bottom of the pile' do need some help but it takes more commitment to enable them to build a more secure future than merely the 'sticking plaster' of chipping in a bit for food banks. I worry that we are becoming so focussed on 'economic progress' that we are losing sight of the bigger picture but I'll stop there as I'm going to stray too far into a political discourse.
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Don't they say most folk are just 3 paydays from real trouble?
I really feel for folks and agree with Takethedogalong.
We have lived in our house for 34 years, it was a struggle to 'upgrade', it's only our 2nd 'own' house and it was hard getting the original deposit together. Twice joint or 3 times man's salary then and a mortgage shortage. There is no way we could buy our house today - it would be a minimum of 10, yes TEN times our last joint income 😲😲. In our area a 1 bed flat, usually a house division is between £750 and £1000 a month and that's before you start on bills. Stupid London rates for some but train fare over £6,000 so what salary do you need to earn to clear just those items?
I understand food banks here can only be assessed with authorisation from benefits/social service and then it's limited. I too try to add some staples and some luxury things as often as I can to the donations. Food waste in this country is appalling. I know at one time a large supermarket poured things over waste food in their bins to stop it being scavenged.
When our children were little I sometimes raided Peter to pay Paul but I realise we had it soooo much easier in lots of ways.
Mustn't say more for fear of political interpretation
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But so is the living wage, the fact that some companies pay such appalling wages that some folks have to have their income topped up! Shareholders and companies are circumventing the systems with the connivance of selective governments. There are working people that are in fact homeless. Sleeping on the streets, wherever they can, turning in for slave wages, back to bed on the streets.
a large chain of coffee shops has been claiming back £200 from employees in this area when they leave - training fees 😲.
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I went to 13 schools failed my 11+ never blamed my parents, the government or even Brexit. I got on with my life getting my education after leaving school. Did well in my chosen career and I put that down to self help with determination. If I had passed my 11+ I might have ended up wearing a yellow cardigan with elbow patches, god forbid😉
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I fear for any society that reveres footballers above doctors and nurses, and makes coffee making into a career. Some of our priorities in this country have become very out of kilter. The long term implications of some seemingly good political decisions are not always fully thought through. Classic example is the selling off of council housing. Great for a good number of hardworking, family orientated households. But not ring fencing the income towards more council housing was a bad decision, and has contributed to where we are now. Letting any Tom, Dick or Harry open up a Care Home is another badly managed instance as well. Peoples lives are a cheap commodity in some cases. Just so long as someone is creaming off big fat profits....
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In winter we used to put holes in a tin can,( everything came in a can) a long wire handle and light a fire in it and swing it around this was our "winter warm" so we could play outside in the cold and at 9pm copper Faraday would send any kids hanging about home, he would not clip your ears he would just tell our Dads and they would do it for him. Then our Dad won some money so we had our first telly a 9 inch black and white screen just one channel (later it had a switch fitted to the side to get the new commercial channel) we would rush home from school to watch children's hour then at 5pm tv would then close down till 7 pm so off out to play I think we had the whole street in our house for the coronation
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I was brought up in Woolwich south east London in the forties and thifties and the thing that sticks in my mind most was this new kid whos family had just moved into one of the prefabs built on the bombsites took us all in to see his bath,we just stood there amazed,a bit different to our old thing hanging up in the back alley in my house and who remembers accumelaters so you could listen to the wireless, when you had no leccie, and gas mantles, and Journey into space with doc jet lemmy and mich, had more nightmares cos of that I can remember.cor the good old days..
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