We (self, my siblings and friends) never regarded ourselves as 'poor' as children, but like many here who were children during WW2 or later in the forties and fifties, we can recall such things as newspaper toilet paper, cold water baths, dripping, one pullover and so on, as ordinary not 'poor'. For instance, very few boys had footwear for primary school (remember the bindie eye and goat thorns and prickly acacia thorns?) and those who did wore sandshoes.
My parents were decent to me which was good, but we had precious few possessions and life was a struggle, especially on a farm.
I cannot say that my school days were the best days of my life.
my school days were great, didn't learn to much as use to fart about to much, got the cane about once a month. it's a shock when you leave school to go into the real world.
I would never say we were poor - just average I suppose with five children - my younger brother and I were pretty lucky in that my three other brothers were born before the war, and we came after.
We never owned a home, but always lived in a warm, comfortable house, even though we moved around a lot (probably where I got my love of travel from) - we lived in Cairns (moved there from Sorrento in Victoria in July 1954 - boy what a difference) - on a quarter acre in what could only be called a shack, no shoes to school, but got good food and lots of fun.
The only time I would say we were "poor" would have been when my father was in hospital for three months, we had no income from him, my older brother had a fight, he left home - and we had to eat baked beans and bread (my mother stockpiled the beans, though none of us liked them) for three weeks - never eaten baked beans since!!!
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jules "Love is good for the human being!!" (Ben, aged 10)
