Was life in the Fifties better than today?

THE BBC’s Back In Time programme depicted life exactly as it was for most young girls in the Fifties. Marie O’Brien (Letters) must have been a lot luckier than most young people like me and my friends who lived in and around London after the bombing of World War II. I kept a record of my life in that period, including daily chores before and after school. Freedom, fun and hope aren’t words I would use to describe those times. We had no bathroom, no hot water, no central heating or inside toilet and only a gas mantel for lighting. The outside toilet was lit by a small paraffin lamp, as were our bedrooms. The toilet didn’t flush: until 1955 we had to take a bucket of water with us to the loo. Before school I had to clean out the grate, riddle the ashes, light the fire and fill the coal buckets. After school, I had to take a sack to collect clover, groundsel and dandelions from fields and allotments nearby to feed our rabbits, which were kept for food. Potato peelings were cooked with bran to feed our chickens and any vegetable peelings or scraps burnt for fuel. Most young people growing up in the Forties and Fifties did not have freedom, but drudgery and despair. No wonder we embraced the Sixties in the way we did. Mrs LESLEY SNAPE,

Sheffield, S. Yorks.

I Didn’t find the Fifties restrictive or bleak. We lived on a farm, Mum was a great cook and won prizes for her fruit cakes at the WI. she and my aunts wore pretty dresses in the summer, dad played cricket. We went to family parties, the seaside, fetes and sunday school outings. One newly married aunt and uncle had a bungalow with a black bathroom and red kitchen. It was a time of new beginnings and great fun. CHERRY GREEN, Aylsham, Norfolk.