I remember reading about the slum clearances in London. At the time, most women rhapsodisedabout their brand new tower block flat with plumbing, central heating, running hot water etc, so easy to keep clean. Familiarity always breeds contempt of course, but it took some time for the drawbacks to dawn, such as nowhere to play, nowhere to hang out the washing or plant a few daffs. And other people's insanitary habits had followed you, they still used the staircases as toilets, other people's dogs messed on your doorstep and so on. The developers were long gone of course and there was an official attitude that tenants should be grateful for what they had got.
Contrast that with a friend's parents mansion flat in Finchley. Built grandly in the 1920s it was very spacious with elegant proportions and the block had a live in janitor which made people mind their manners. The rent was about the same as a council flat because they were sitting tenants.
As a child I always lived in either new or modern houses yet my mother's life was consumed by housework. She did neither less nor more than my old aunties, who all lived in unmodern properties. Although my mum had a primitive washing machine, the laundry took all day. Today we just bung it in and go away and do something else.
I am guilty of the "good old days" fantasy though. One set of 3 x ggps lived in what appears to have been an idyllic farmhouse where the family had lived for 300 years at least. Yet in the mid 1800s they upped sticks and moved into a slummy area of Manchester. I thought the move must have broken their hearts, but of course I don't know how hard their life was as farmers.
I have seen many a family history fantasy on the internet. Huge unfounded assumptions about their ancestors status, always favourable of course. The man whose wife died of tb while he was busy making another woman pregnant had done so, according to his descendent, because the wife had someone else and thrown him out, poor man.
Some things were better in the past. Some things were worse. We need to remember that we shouldn't look at yesterday with today's eyes.
OC
|