Family Matters

[LizG]

Mums care home has a dog too. He's a poodle cross so no hair loss. His name is Fred and he just wanders in and out of the residents rooms visiting. Everyone loves him.

[Stanley]

I always remember the research that showed that stroking a pet reduces blood pressure and stress. The pets enjoy it as well! Perhaps they are more in tune with their bodies than we are.....
A friend once told me that the way to a dog's affection was to scratch them in places they can't reach. Perhaps the same applies to us as well so next time you go into a care home offer a back scratch or a foot rub!

[PanBiker]

Interring Sally's mum Louise's ashes today at Carleton, flowers have just been delivered, just a small family affair with tea out afterwards. We are going to the Bay Horse at Snaygill, I don't think its called that now but that's what it is to me.

[Stanley]

Another milestone Ian.......

[PanBiker]

Another today as well, it's 3 years since Dan died but for us it seems like yesterday.

Jack took the day off as has days in hand but for Carla it is a teaching day. Sally and I had intended going up Penyghent but it's not been fit. We downgraded to Weets but by the time we got to Standridge that wasn't fit either, so we stayed on Folly (which was bracing enough) and went right up to the top to Duckpond and then back down Lister Well, Colne Road, Ouzledale and Clough. A lot of water in the beck but the screen at Clough is clear and its getting away.

Jack is keeping busy going to see his solicitor and handing over the deposit and fees for his first house. We are all meeting up and going out for tea tonight.

[Stanley]

They say that time heals all Ian. The hurt gets less immediate but it never goes away.... I have a picture of Big Harry on the wall and think of him every day...
Do you find, like me, that when your kids (in my case two of my grandchildren!) buy houses you are suddenly reminded that you are getting old?

[Cathy]

Yes, and isn't it frightening the prices they have to pay.

[Stanley]

It's normal for them Cathy. Gone are the days when you could buy seven acres and a good house for £2000!

[LizG]

It's normal for them Cathy. Gone are the days when you could buy seven acres and a good house for £2000!

But that would have been an enormous price at the time. The problem with kids these days is that they want to spend their money on overseas trips and then complain that they can't afford a house. My advice is stay home and save your money, it's called sacrifice for something you really want. You can only spend your money once, make it count.

[Cathy]

Yes Stanley I know it appears to be normal to them, but to parents who have been thru 'a thing or two', it is frightening.
Just
as it was for our parents watching us go thru it.

[PanBiker]

My first house was just less than £3000, I remember taking the deposit (£300) from the Yorkshire Bank at the bottom of Newtown up to Walkers at the top. It was the most money I had ever had in my pocket and I convinced myself that I would probably get mugged somewhere on the 100yards to the solicitors! I am minded that the deposit Jack paid yesterday was over three times the price of my entire house, how times have changed.

[Moh]

Our first house was a two bedroom terrace and it cost us £600 in 1958, our second was a semi .overlloking Alkincoats park in Colne in 1967 which cost us £1750.

[Stanley]

Liz, you're right it was a lot of money but was affordable on a very basic wage. It must have been because we never missed a payment and eventually paid the loan off. What is more significant to me is the fact that Vera never had to go out to regular work and had three babies in the first six years while we were paying for the farm. Today both partners have to work and having babies is delayed in many cases because they can't afford to lose a wage and this in turn can lead to problems with fertility. That's the big difference and so fundamental to what I would call a good family life.

[LizG]

I think that the kids of today (I can only speak for this country) aren't prepared to do without a home with all the mod cons that's close in to the city so they can go out to dinner many times a week instead of cooking. That means they pay premium price. We have some perfectly nice suburbs some km away from the CBD but that would mean spending time traveling to work.

I'm amazed how many of my nieces and nephews either go out to eat or order the ingredients to be delivered on the days they eat at home. What's wrong with going to the supermarket? All of them have at least one overseas trip each year and then cry poor. No-one is prepared to give up 'their rights'. As you can tell I have no sympathy.

Like you Stanley we bought a home we could afford, and sometimes struggled for a few days before pay day. I went back to work when both my kids were at school.

It's all to do with priorities. Theirs are clearly different to mine.

[Sue]

My first house was £3500 in 1971. My in laws helped withe deposit as they didn't want us living in a flat or renting. I was still at university, Bob had graduated and worked for Ferranti. We married that year. When I graduated a year later we sold it for £5500. The housing boom had started. We bought our house in Rochdale for £8250, and have stayed here. We have extended the house twice, and put a conservatory on. We love the countryside here and the convenience for getting to other places.at the time we were the only daily commuters to Manchester from our estate, now we are Manchester overspill!

[Stanley]

Sue, that's one danger Barlick has escaped largely due (funnily enough) to the closure of the railway!
Liz, I'm with you all the way. Thank God my kids took notice of the way we lived when we were struggling and all have what I call sensible habits like cooking at home and cutting their coats to suit the cloth.....

[Sue]

I think that year all houses shot up in price.

[Cathy]

I would imagine that a lot of these 'young ones' who want everything at once are just 1 paypacket away from disaster if they lose their job.

[Tizer]

I hope they are prepared for an increase in interest rates. Many have only experienced the present unusually low rates. A quote from an economics article: "Interest rate in the United Kingdom averaged 7.90 percent from 1971 until 2015, reaching an all time high of 17 percent in November of 1979 and a record low of 0.50 percent in March of 2009." It was between 8% and 15% for much of the 1980s but it's been close to zero since 2009.

[Stanley]

You're quite right Cathy. Another fear is of the woman getting pregnant and ceasing to be a wage earner. A terrible pressure on a young couple who naturally want kids....
You're right about interest rates Tiz. We were repaying our bank loan on Hey Farm at the time but I can never remember the pressure of high interest causing us serious problems. The repayment was £15 a month which was almost half my total wage but somehow we managed.... It was a different world. Today a rise of only 2 or 3% would spell disaster because the disparity between the scale of the debt and domestic income is far worse. And that doesn't take into account different spending habits and lifestyle driven by the all consuming dictat of today's consumer society. The 'Economic Miracle' is on a knife edge. As we have seen this week, even the government can't control their debt but they are 'too big to fail'. I fear this won't apply to over-extended house buyers....
Things were so much more simple 50 years ago.....

[Cathy]

Things aren't based on 1 wage any more. Also the cost of land has gone up so much, that even if you just want a modest house it's now out of reach for many people to buy their own homes.

[Sue]

When we bought our house in Rochdale, I was a professional bacteriologist, and Bob a professional engineer, but they would not consider my income in the calculations for a mortgage. You are a woman I was told. How things have changed, thank goodness.

[Stanley]

But in many ways they have not changed enough Sue. Women are still generally disadvantaged despite all the protests to the contrary.

[Marilyn]

I found that banks were throwing credit cards at me, "pre approved", though I had not applied for them. (and did not want them). Their offers all went in the bin...
It became a running joke between my husband and I because they never offered him any!

[Stanley]

Perhaps they thought you were fresh meat Maz. I am always surprised by the fact that so many databases have me down as Mrs Graham instead of Mr S Graham.