The years before you were born

[scarby]

I am fascinated by 1950s Britain and also the 1940s.

There is something quite humbling and grounding about seeing people and society before I existed. I quite simply was nothing and it just didn't matter at all, nor (of course) did the non-existence of anyone around today, however famous.

I wasn't around in 1066 either, but there is something much more tangible about the decades just before my existence began. One very odd feeling I get when watching some films from the 1950s and 1940s, is that it seems so familiar, particularly for some reason in London. Sometimes I just gasp "wow" when seeing certain scenes. Some sounds, such as air raid sirens, or music, such as Charlie Barnet's "Skyliner" also seem incredibly familiar. I don't have an explanation for this but do any of you get these kind of feelings from eras shortly before you existed? As if you "lived" then as well?

I devour British feature films from the 1950s and 1940s and seeing these people come back to "life" on the screen is captivating. I find them just as relevant as people living today.

Whenever a railway scene comes up in a British feature film my attention always heightens. What I would give to have just an hour back in that time - almost anywhere on the railways would do.

I should stress I don't idolise these pre-existence times or wish I lived in them - despite my interest in this period I also live my life very much in the here and now. Life back then was much tougher and harsher for nearly everyone, more than we possibly can imagine. Though having watched and read so much about 1950s Britain, I do think it is often unfairly dismissed as a "grey" decade. It wasn't at all - things actually became much more colourful and it was a period of immense change.

I am interested to hear what others think and feel about the years running up to their birth, especially as for many of you those will have come in later years than they do for me - ones in which I lived. Which times came before you existed? Does it interest you? Do you feel an attraction or connection to it, or not?

 

[The exile]

What fascinated me is how one’s perspective of time changes. Growing up in the 70s, “the war” was something that happened a long time ago; detached from the era I was living in. The fall of the Berlin Wall is now 37 years ago, yet still seems “present” to me (though my brain knows it’s been a while….). 37 years back from the mid 70s takes you back to 1938.
From a railway perspective, sprinters are still “new”, but I would have had to have been riding around in pre-war stock in the mid 80s to experience something of similar age. The Drain and Isle of Wight excepted , the only place I can remember doing that was Belgium (albeit 10 years later).
EDIT: Forgot the Berlin S-Bahn (how?) with its 1928 stock still running in the late 90s.

 

[3141]

Having been born in 1939, a few weeks before the Second World War began, I have a different perspective.

No, I don't in any way feel as if I might previously have lived in an earlier age. I do find the 1930s very interesting in transport terms. There were the planned Underground extensions, some of which happened more or less to schedule, while others were delayed and some never happened at all. There were several road schemes that, without WW2, would have given us a different network from the one we have today. Terminology was different: for example "arterial roads", perhaps the most famous being the Southend Arterial Road (A127). There were the plans for three new airports around London, resulting to a Southern Railway station in Kent that was built but never opened, and discussion about a possible branch from the Central Line at Fairlop to an airport nearby.

As a child, events before I was born seemed disproportionately older than those that happened after I'd arrived, even those that occurred soon after I was born that I didn't actually remember. In 1952, when I was thirteen, my grandmother found a London General Omnibus map dated 1929 and gave it to me. It was only ten years older than I was, but it seemed ancient. This resembles the points made by The exile in post #2. I also do what he does, for example remembering the very hot summer of 1976, thinking "That was fifty years ago", and then thinking that fifty years before that was long before I was born or my parents had even met each other.

It can be amusing when younger people than me (which is almost everybody these days) talk about the 1940s, 1950s or 1960s, which are times I do remember, and they pontificate about what life was like then in ways that differ considerably from what I experienced.

To make other posters jealous, I'll mention travelling in Southern Region EMUs that had originated with the LB&SCR and the LSWR, in LNER QuadArt coaches, Oerlikon EMUs on the North London Line, pre-1938 tube stock and LT class buses with an open staircase. I just once saw the original Piccadilly Line motor coaches that operated on the Aldwych branch, and horse drawn buses in 1947 that ran from Chessington South to the Zoo.

 

[weepingwillowb]

I was born in 1954, and my parents had an old world atlas which had Danzig (Gdansk) as being a free port, also Trieste (which still is a Free Port), and in the map of England there were the counties of Isle of Ely and the Soke of Peterborough (both existed until 1965). So things like that got me interested in maps and the history of geography.

Although rationing in the UK ended the month I was born, I remember my mum showing me her old ration cards, and the place I was born at was originally built during the war to house workers from Coldmeece munitions factory. Among the books in a bookcase in the lounge there was a guide to learning to speak Arabic, from which I guessed that my father had been based in North Africa during part of WW2, so I had some awareness of the years before my birth. And the first year I was at secondary school there was an air raid shelter in the school grounds which some of the kids would go into - it must have been blocked up during the summer of 1966, because the entrance had disappeared when the next school year began.

I can remember trains at Wetherby station. Until 1963 we lived near what was apparently known as the Devil's Toenail Junction (though I never heard it called that), and when my elder sister and I heard the whistle of a train approaching the junction from the Harrogate direction, we would race across a neighbouring field to a bridge, hoping that the train would go straight on to Wetherby Goods Station, or beyond towards Church Fenton, and we would be enveloped in smoke. Sometimes the train would turn off before the bridge for the railway station, and we'd be disappointed.

I wouldn't want to go back to those times, though I still enjoy reading about and seeing history.

 

[Sun Chariot]

I was born when the 1970s began, so my earliest still-recollectable memories are of:
- 1974-1978 sights of monastral blue Peaks and Duffs on the Midland Main Line.
- 1976 summer heatwave (parents made a "garden den", for my brother and I to sleep outside on several nights),
- 1977 the late Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee celebrations, primary school gift of a suitably-decorated HB pencil (with rubber at top) and Royal Blue notebook. Oh and a birthday gift of a silver London Transport Leyland Atlantean (Corgi or Dinky, I cannot recall).

I have no concept of "before this life"; my wife, however, has for decades felt a very strong sense of a previous life - and very palpable fear of crossing the River Itchen bridge (she has no ties to Southampton).

 

[75A]

I was born in 1959 and always felt that 'the war' had only just ended. Both my Grandfathers were good at painting pictures in my mind and one had served in Palestine a country I still take an interest in.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Both my Grandfathers were good at painting pictures in my mind and one had served in Palestine a country I still take an interest in.

My mother's early life - at WW2 end and a short while after - was in Senegal, where her Army officer father was posted.
My mother used to recount her stories of 1940s Senegalese life - truly fascinating.
I have yet to set foot in Senegal; although I have travelled the length of its neighbour, The Gambia.

 

[styles]

I was watching Goodnight Mister Tom last night. To see children doing handwritten letters, adults making clothes from scratch, men doing roof repairs, teenagers doing gardening; it reminded me of how doing things with your hands, and being connected to nature, can be so humbling and therapeutic. Naturally I did a load of gardening today, albeit with the assistance of a couple of petrol power tools.

 

[Bald Rick]

I was born when the 1970s began, so my earliest still-recollectable memories are of:
- 1974-1978 sights of monastral blue Peaks and Duffs on the Midland Main Line.
- 1976 summer heatwave (parents made a "garden den", for my brother and I to sleep outside on several nights),
- 1977 the late Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee celebrations, primary school gift of a suitably-decorated HB pencil (with rubber at top) and Royal Blue notebook. Oh and a birthday gift of a silver London Transport Leyland Atlantean (Corgi or Dinky, I cannot recall).

Very similar to me, except I’m probably a touch younger, and instead of the MML I remember vividly the last Apollo mission in 1972, and my sister being born in 1974. The 1976 heatwave went on forever (much like this one), and I still have my Silver Jubilee model bus. Might put a photo of it on the old cars thread

 

[etr221]

While my 'living memory' (what I remember myself) goes back to about 1960, while I was growing up (1960s) the grown ups around me had virtually all been through the war, and included many Victorians, and their memories and experiences came to me as 'second hand memories', so going back to about 1900, with a reality that previous periods didn't (and don't) have.

And I'm sure everyone will have their own similar break points, based on their own age, and their first and second hand memories.

A side thought - when I think 'the war', by default that's WW2: is that still the case for the youngest amongst us? If, so perhaps we should grateful. A sobering thought: my parents were in it, at school, being before it, they would have thought the 'Great War' (WW1), for my (Victorian) grandmother, the Great War she learned about was that against the French corporal (Napoleon), a century before.

 

[Western Lord]

A side thought - when I think 'the war', by default that's WW2: is that still the case for the youngest amongst us? If, so perhaps we should grateful. A sobering thought: my parents were in it, at school, being before it, they would have thought the 'Great War' (WW1), for my (Victorian) grandmother, the Great War she learned about was that against the French corporal (Napoleon), a century before.

The practice of adding numbers to things always amuses me. Before World War 2 there was no such thing as World War 1, Before Queen Elizanbeth the Second, there was no Elizabeth the First (anymore than we would refer to Victoria as Victoria the First). Between 1962 and 1966 nobody bought a Mark One Ford Cortina (only known as such after the Mark Two came out and in any case Ford just referred to that as the "New Cortina"). So you won't find some historical tome published in, say, the 1920s referring to WW1 or Elizabeth the First.

 

[scarby]

When I watch films from the 1940s and 1950s I am fascinated to see the actors in close-up - their eyes darting around and their mouth opening and closing; it is then as if they are alive in front of me.

I also look at the website Reelstreets, which is an incredible resource of film scenes in the "then" and "now". Some locations have changed beyond recognition but others surprisingly haven't. Next time you walk in a place that hasn't hugely changed, which you may do every day, think of the millions of people who walked in that place before you; their lives were just as authentic as ours now, their thoughts and words just as valid. Where did they go and what did they do? For example, you can stand at the entrance to a tube station where people hurried back and forth in that very same place in the 1940s.

 

[Merle Haggard]

The practice of adding numbers to things always amuses me. Before World War 2 there was no such thing as World War 1, Before Queen Elizanbeth the Second, there was no Elizabeth the First (anymore than we would refer to Victoria as Victoria the First). Between 1962 and 1966 nobody bought a Mark One Ford Cortina (only known as such after the Mark Two came out and in any case Ford just referred to that as the "New Cortina"). So you won't find some historical tome published in, say, the 1920s referring to WW1 or Elizabeth the First.

A railway example is what are now called 'BR Mk1 coaches' ...

 

[Sun Chariot]

For example, you can stand at the entrance to a tube station where people hurried back and forth in that very same place in the 1940s.

My 18 years of working in various parts of London zones 1 and 2, I used to do exactly that; particularly in the old spiral stairwells (I used them in preference to lifts) . I also used to imagine the scenes in the stations used as bomb shelters during The Blitz.

 

[DerekC]

The practice of adding numbers to things always amuses me. Before World War 2 there was no such thing as World War 1, Before Queen Elizanbeth the Second, there was no Elizabeth the First (anymore than we would refer to Victoria as Victoria the First). Between 1962 and 1966 nobody bought a Mark One Ford Cortina (only known as such after the Mark Two came out and in any case Ford just referred to that as the "New Cortina"). So you won't find some historical tome published in, say, the 1920s referring to WW1 or Elizabeth the First.

As I understand it, the royal convention is that if there has only been one monarch of the relevant name they are referred to by the name with no number (so it's King John, King Stephen, Queen Anne, Queen Victoria). But when another with the same name comes along, the first one gets a number to distinguish them from the second. (e.g. Queen Elizabeth I and II). And much the same applies to Fords. The World Wars are similar. What we now call World War I seems mostly to have been called "The Great War" immediately afterwards, with "The World War" coming along later - and then differentiated from the first by numbers, I don't see anything new in any of those

 

[Sun Chariot]

Follow-on from @DerekC post - the late Queen Elizabeth took to the throne before I was born. My paternal side was from Alloa in Scotland; but I cannot remember if they called her Elizabeth II or merely Elizabeth*.

* Scotland has no EIIR cyphered Royal Mail post boxes; it is because Elizabeth II was actually their first Queen Elizabeth.
While Elizabeth I ruled over England, Scotland's monarch was James VI (son of Mary, Queen of Scots - Mary was cousin to Elizabeth I). Upon Elizabeth I's death in 1603, James took the English throne as James I.
So, Elizabeth Windsor was Scotland's first ruler named thus.

 

[3141]

A side thought - when I think 'the war', by default that's WW2: is that still the case for the youngest amongst us? If, so perhaps we should grateful. A sobering thought: my parents were in it, at school, being before it, they would have thought the 'Great War' (WW1), for my (Victorian) grandmother, the Great War she learned about was that against the French corporal (Napoleon), a century before.

Reading your post reminded me that during WW2 my parents referred to WW1 as "the last war", and I remember an occasion when I was talking about that to my mother and she said "I suppose that when this war is over, we will refer to this one as 'the last war'".

It's many years since I last thought about that conversation. Interesting how something such as your post can bring a memory to mind again.

 

[Bevan Price]

I have few, vague memories of when I was very young. We lived about 5 minutes walk from Moss Bank station (St. Helens/Rainford line), but rarely used it because the trains were infrequent and often inconveniently timed. Nearby was the terminus and turning circle of a St. Helens Corporation trolleybus route. The line to Rainford ran behind the houses on the opposite side of our road. Passenger trains were mostly worked by Webb 2-4-2T, until Sutton Oak shed received a batch of 5 Ivatt 2-6-2Ts -- soon reduced to 3 when the Rainford & Widnes lines lost their passenger services.

I recall than even in the 1950s, my father, a local government worker, was paid £4.10s0d (£4.50) per week, but we managed to live comfortably (but not lavishly).
My own first wage in 1963 was just over £15 per week, of which tax took almost a quarter, and I paid £4 per week for a flat not far from Harringay (West) station whikst working in London. Unfortunately Kings Cross shed had closed to steam a month before I started work in London.

Although mostly interested in steam, I managed to travel several lines before they were closed by Marples/Beeching.

 

[Falcon1200]

I was born in 1959 and always felt that 'the war' had only just ended.

I was born in 1959 too, and it still amazes me to recall that I knew, very well, someone born in 1896, my maternal grandmother. So she was 18 when the Great War, as it was then, started, and 22 when it ended, and she lived through pre-air travel times to the Moon landings! I wish I had asked her so much more about her life and experiences but she died in 1972, long before I thought of doing so. It has however made me think of recording my life, for the benefit of my offspring, and anyone else interested, given that even in my time the world has changed so much, as well shown in Posts above.

 

[swt_passenger]

I was born in 1959 too, and it still amazes me to recall that I knew, very well, someone born in 1896, my maternal grandmother. So she was 18 when the Great War, as it was then, started, and 22 when it ended, and she lived through pre-air travel times to the Moon landings! I wish I had asked her so much more about her life and experiences but she died in 1972, long before I thought of doing so. It has however made me think of recording my life, for the benefit of my offspring, and anyone else interested, given that even in my time the world has changed so much, as well shown in Posts above.

I think that’s always the problem. I’ve been deep into family tree research for about 10 years now, and it’s about 15 years since I had a parent alive - if only I’d known the questions to ask back then.

But I was born 1955, and overlapped with two greatgrandmothers, (ggms), one of which I only just remember, born 1877 she died in 1959, aged 82, I was of course far too young to ask her about her early life. Then another ggm, born 1876 died in 1968, aged 92. So although I remember having conversations with her, for some reason they didn’t really dwell on the past. I wonder what she thought of the moon landings?

Of course those 2 were outliers, the other two ggms both died in 1917. One great-grandfather had died in 1899, and the rest by 1936. One grandfather was just the right age to miss the first war, and for the second he was in a reserved occupation but in his late 30s. But each time he was heavily involved in war work.

 

[Farang]

So she was 18 when the Great War, as it was then, started, and 22 when it ended, and she lived through pre-air travel times to the Moon landings!

I remember one of my profs at uni back in the eighties arguing that the pace of technological change had definitely slowed down. The previous generation's lives had been transformed out of all recognition, but in his words "That hasn't been my experience."
 

 

[Ashley Hill]

It always amazes me that my Paternal grandparents, both born in 1900 lived through six monarchs.
I clearly remember as a child the class 52s going past the bottom of their garden. As a nipper I would run away from the noise, didn’t take me much longer to enjoy running towards them. It’s strange that I do not remember the class 25s on the WR.
When I joined the railway in 1987 there were still plenty of former pre-nationalisation drivers and guards around. They themselves would have worked with pre-grouping staff some of whom had probably known people who had worked on the broad gauge.

 

[Harpo]

I wondered about this sort of stuff from a different perspective a week ago, while explaining to two teenagers in our family what this large red booth called a telephone box was used for.

 

[Tom B]

I was born 44 years after the end of WWII and growing up, although it was clearly a long time ago, there were plenty of people around who had experienced it - either indirectly as children, or those who had served. Indeed I recall there would always be a local veteran or two who would come and talk to us at primary school, around November time, about the meaning of remembrance etc and often give an insight into history classes etc as somebody who had lived through the era. I found it fascinating to hear their stories.
Although it sounds obvious to say it, it struck me recently that the number of people still around who remember the war will be much smaller now (30 years later).

 

[Jimini]

My old next door neighbour, Bob, is a local legend. He's 92. Born and bred in Coventry. He was only six when the blitz struck Cov. His older sister jumped on top of him as the bombs rained down. She surrendered her life that day protecting him. Some of his tales of WW2 Coventry are incredible, and he's often shared them at school talks in the past, and helped some of the local kids with their homework / research.

 

[Falcon1200]

Although it sounds obvious to say it, it struck me recently that the number of people still around who remember the war will be much smaller now (30 years later).

Indeed; My Mum, born in 1930, died earlier this year. She of course lived through WW2 and still had the habit of rinsing almost-empty milk cartons to get the last drops out, a habit picked up during the war!

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Neil Armstrong landing on the moon; John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King being assassinated, devolution of the pound; Harold Wilson becoming UK prime minister and a rented black and white television where my parents had to get up and change channels on the wall by the window where the cable came in. I think we only had BBC1, 2 and ATV (later ITV?)

 

[TheSmiths82]

I was born 43 years after WW2 started and I remember lots of people including my grandparents who where directly involved in WW2. My grandma was only ten years old when the war started though. Growing up the second world war still felt like something fairly that happened in recent memory, where now it feels like a thing very much in the past and I think that is why are now getting much more divisive politics. Even most elderly people now won't remember the war itself. By time I was born computers where just making their way into homes in the UK, but of course a Commodore 64 or a ZX Spectrum is very different to what we now consider as computers. I am also old enough to remember a time when computers were not apart of day to day life. (They actually were, it was just invisible).

 

[Western Lord]

I was born 43 years after WW2 started and I remember lots of people including my grandparents who where directly involved in WW2. My grandma was only ten years old when the war started though. Growing up the second world war still felt like something fairly that happened in recent memory, where now it feels like a thing very much in the past and I think that is why are now getting much more divisive politics. Even most elderly people now won't remember the war itself. By time I was born computers where just making their way into homes in the UK, but of course a Commodore 64 or a ZX Spectrum is very different to what we now consider as computers. I am also old enough to remember a time when computers were not apart of day to day life. (They actually were, it was just invisible).

When I started work in the late sixties, the computer took up half of the second floor. If you wanted any information from it you had to submit a request and you got it the next morning after the overnight run. You could submit a late request but you had to do your own punch card.There was big room with about hafl a dozen machines called "cardveyors" which had rotating trays full of index cards with customer details on, You had to go to the appropriate machine and tell the lady operator (it was always a lady) the name you wanted and the trays would rotate until the one with the correct initial letters came up. If there was no one around you could play with it yourself and hope you didn't break it.

 

[The exile]

I remember one of my profs at uni back in the eighties arguing that the pace of technological change had definitely slowed down. The previous generation's lives had been transformed out of all recognition, but in his words "That hasn't been my experience."
 

At the time, in respect of the effects on people’s daily lives, he was probably not that far out. Mobile telephony, the internet and most importantly the combination of the two, wasn’t on the average person’s radar at the time. However, it reminds me of the seminar led by professors of West Berlin’s Freie Universitaet solemnly pronouncing that it was time to accept that the division of the city and of Germany was here to stay - the date? February 1989.