When we were young, families like ours would live in a two bedroom house, seldom with a bathroom, and this would accommodate two families. I remember that our rent was five shillings and a penny half penny a week! There was a great deal of scrubbing and polishing to be done including whitening the front doorsteps. The rooms often had bare boards.
There was no heating apart from a coal fire and so that only a little fuel was used. Fire bricks were put in the grate. The cooking was often done on the coal fire, as not everyone had gas. Rooms were lit with oil lamps - or even candles - if there was no gas light.
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Only rich people had bathrooms, the poor washed in the kitchen, and had a tin bath brought in about once a week. This was a big night! For the likes of us the toilet was always outside, which was not very nice on a cold winter’s night.
There was some beautiful houses in the Redcliffe area, with big rooms and very nice furniture. By contrast some of the really poor had to make do with orange boxes for chairs, and a few even drank out of jam jars.
Housing