I had one pair of stockings (even at age 13). They were woollen of course, and used to wear holes through quite quickly. I didn't have the panache at that age to carry off a big tater showing on my heel, (these days I am more confident), and so I would darn them myself. Very soon the darned part would wear through, so I would darn the darn. Eventually there was very little left of the original stockings. I thought it rather interesting.
This is one of my favourite stories to tell at cocktail parties....When I wor a lad, we wor so poor that....

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-57

Current location (optional) USA

I was hoping to get some reaction to this post. This is not a joke, it is absolutely true.
We were poor but so was everybody else. I always had the basic necessities of life. I'm not complaining. It gave me a sense of value, a valuable gift.
I used to gauge the relative wealth of the kids at school by observing, when we were shuffling up the stairs back to our cells, how worn down the heels of their shoes were. I used to derive some small comfort from seeing some heels more worn than mine. Most kids wore pants made from that cheap, thick grey flannel. One or two kids with "rich" parents wore worsted wool pants. I envied them.
On the whole, I was happy and contented, and I certainly appreciated everything I had.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-57

Current location (optional) USA

Does anyone have/know a link to the Monty Python sketch about this subject header? It was so funny to me as an expat yorky who could well relate to it. cheers.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 47-51

Current location (optional) Auckland,NZ

Go on youtube and search for "four Yourkshiremen". Must go, or me dad'll thrash us to death wi' 'is belt.

When I wer a lad, we were so poor we couldn't even afford a pole for our posser.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-61

Current location (optional) Haworth now Blue Mountains in Australia

Thanks for that IW--------- why didn't I think of that? Found it ok. Cheers.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 47-51

Current location (optional) Auckland,NZ

.. . . .and I should be publicly flogged for the speling error.

"Yorkshiremen x 10" as it would have said, in red ink.

When I wor a lad, we had bloody cold winters and nooan so much coil. We din't light fire in winter till teatime - in summer nivver! Me Dad browt 'ooam ends of packing wood that I chopped up for kindling. I got good at that - but it wouldn't have impressed Bill Midge.Me mother sometimes found, by accident, the odd reeling bobbin that had dropped by chance into her shopping bag. By gow, but the did glow and spit. Of a morning, specially in't'back end and beyond, I'd be dragged out o' bed, before it woh light,given me breakfast and sent off upto't North Eastern Gas yard off t'bus station to join in't queue for coak. I nivver found out what "Elco Fabrics" woh. I had to stand in line wi kids from all ower Keighley. By gow, but ah learnt some language. My "modus transportandi" (Ah dint learn words like that in t'queue for coak. I had to wait for that till ah went to't traid schooil) was a pushchair. I could get on it - easy - a 28 lb bag (2 stone before decimalisation)of coak. That would keep us lit up for about 3 nights. I could balance on top of that another 28lb bag which meant I could stay in bed a few mornings more - until it got round t'street that me Mam would looan me out to't needy cases in t'street. Old ladies, widowed by t'Great (?) War and so on.The woh bloody cowd mornings. I do think I liked helping out.They were allus grateful and paid handsomely wi bits o'baking and t'odd thruppence (cash in t'ond - I didn't want any bookwork). I had an uncle who drove lorries to t'pits and if he were through Keighley, he would stop off for a cuppa tea - and chuck some big cobs o' coil down t'cellar that had got "stuck" in his tailgate. When I browt me "news book" 'ooam from schooil, telling t'tale about me uncle, me Mam went barmy."You'll gerrim sacked," she said. I learnt to count, checking t'coil man dropping our ration down t'cellar grate. " Go sit on t'front step and count t'bags," me Mam said. "What yer dooin 'ere?" said coil man. "Countin t'bags. What d'yer think?". He said nowt. He worra maungy sod. You could also buy (off ration but legal) Lion briquettes - which were compressed wet coil dust. "Sweepings up," me Dad said. I think they were cobbled up on some coal field where dioxin was a side product. But we dint want ony o'that. Any alternative to coak and early mornings at gas works woh welcome. We woh poor - but we knew it. Global warmin'? - it wont init.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-60

With me it was shoes! I was growing like a bean plant on Miraclegro and my feet ( now a comfortable size 11) felt like canal boats on the end of my legs and I could go through shoes like nobody's business. Always had a hole in them and the heels always worn to an acute angle. The shoes were always tight , cruelly so, and my feet would throb inside the torture of them.
This is part of the same tale but those of you who will remember Old Nick and his bat-winged shadow as it passed along echoing corridors will remember the sharp intake of breath as he entered your classroom and said,
'Is Seeley here?'
or some other miscreant's name.
The said offender would be taken into the doubtful privacy of the corridor and there would be an inquisition of gathering volume that culminated in a ringing, stentorian blast, 'It's not good enough, boy.' accompanied, no doubt , by the painful application of a finger into the soft flesh of your upper chest. Yes. I have been there.
Well this particular day (and now I return to the tight shoes and a somnolent forty five minutes of History) I was in excrutiating agony and I had slipped the offending shoes from my feet and they were throbbing with liberated joy, singing hymns of rejoicing at the end of my feet when the door opened and .....Enter the Dragon...... a sharp intake of collective breath and the voice enquired 'Is Seeley here?'.
You are left to imagine, if you will, for I cannot describe, the embarrassment, the agony, the humiliation as I stuttered and slurred and stumbled and shuffled like some demented cripple who had recently been struck with lightning down the endless aisle that led to the dim passage where my inquistor waited.
I wouldn't have minded if it was for some misdemeanour,( God knows it was possible to break a rule without turning around in those days,) but it was merely to enquire whether I was still serious about entering the speaking competition.
Affirmation left me to shuffle and clop back to my place through a red mist of embarrassment. You think you had it bad ? Huh! try small shoes and big feet.

When I worra lad, we wor so poor that we couldn't afford a joint fot t'Sunday dinner, so we would scrape t'fly of t'fly paper and 'ave 'em wi' mashed taties.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-57

Current location (optional) USA

An' when I worra lad (1960's) we couldn't afford joints either so (like Terry) we 'ad to sniff coak

Fly paper. Not seen it over here for years, but still in use in many a house in rural Ireland. Not pleasant to walk into on a dark night aftr a rake of Guinness

When I worra lad we were so poor we couldn't even afford a proper lavatory brush. We had to tie my pet hedgehog to a stick and tell him to hold his breath!!

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 45-50

Current location (optional) Keighley

What! You had a lavatory? We thought people who had tipplers were posh.

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 52-57

Current location (optional) USA

My wife is tight enough to be a Tyke, she went to Ireland on a holiday and discovered flypaper, she bought a carton home and strung them up on the verandah rather than use expensive electricity on the "bug zapper". The problem was that she didn't bother to tell me about them, I went out to take a leak on the lemon tree that night and managed to entangle myself in them. Have any of you ever had flypaper wrapped around your face?

Years at KBGS e.g. 1958-1964 (optional) 58-61