Friday 23 January 2015

Going back in time.... A house made of history!

Apart from the resident spiders that seem to dwell in our roof spaces, I love living in an old house. It's a 4 storey Victorian terraced house and as we work our way through the renovations, we find all sorts of bits and bobs that relate to our house's former life.

Both of my children are studying the Victorian age at school and so they are able to take some of the findings in to school to talk about them with their classmates.

We've found Victorian servant's bell wires, vintage light fittings and switches and, more recently, newspapers from the 60's stashed away in one of the loft spaces. So, being a nosey-parker, I read the newspapers from 1962! It was humorous to see the out look on life was quite different then. These are the pieces that amused me the most! Apologies for the creases.... the papers are pretty old!

1960's newspaper
'Some women, of course, don't realise that housework is as simple as ABC'
1960's newspaper
Love the 'Free Time' drawer - that's the 'junk' drawer in my house!
1960's newspaper
I didn't realise the Channel Tunnel was planned in the 1960's!

Regarding the MP's 'wage scandal' (bottom right picture, above), £1,750 in 1962 is approximately £33,000 in today's money. If they could see into the future, no wonder they were having a moan as nowadays, the average wage of an MP stands at about £74,000!! Scandalous indeed!

So, back to the normal household stuff! As we are updating things around the house, we have covered old fireplaces and bricked up chimneys and so have left behind little treasures of our own. We put together a time capsule and hidden it in the basement for a future finder to enjoy. We included a newspaper, letters from my children, drawings and a couple of small toys and trinkets which represents our children's lives in the early 2000's.

We've also allowed out children to draw on the insides of plaster-boarded internal walls - so one day, another family will hopefully have the joy of discovering our lives! Or maybe they will just think that we are crazy!

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