Hi Mike Yeah point taken on "modern conveniences!!!" but I was talking in general about the style buildings and lanes, I've just driven? Some of them today and they ain't wide enough for a bike yet alone a car, still lovely country though. The other point you rightly make is the living standards of then as opposed to now, they lived well and enjoyed it in their own way, and I think were a lot healthier than we are now, but I stand to be corrected!! Regards Pat W Bruton Somerset Researching Somerset -BEALE-KEEN-BRISTER-WILLIAMS-STOCK-HAWKEY Dorset - KEECH-DUNHAM-ACKERMAN-IRONSIDE-LEA-WALLIS-HOUNSELL-SAINT-RUSSELL-WOODSFO RD Durham - WARDELL-CHAPMAN-METHLEY Yorkshire - JEFFREY-DOBSON-DOYLE-MAUGHAN-CLIFFORD-BARKER-WADE-SWALE-ENGLAND-BECK-WAR DMAN -CARMALT -----Original Message----- From: Mike Allen [mailto:mike@g8ifu.f9.co.uk] Sent: 28 September 2003 09:38 To: ENG-DORSET-LIFE-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [DOR-LIFE] Deary me! ----- Original Message ----- From: pat.williams <pat.williams14@ukonline.co.uk> > Awgh come on, there is very little change in most of rural Dorset, tis > only place like Weymouth that have had big changes. Go out to places > like Little or Long Bredy, Swyre, Netherbury, Beaminster and the like > and they are still much as they were in Granfers day. Hi Pat Not quite the same , unless your Granfers more recent than mine . They have modern conviences like mains water & electric , and the very mixed blessing of a car . My Allen grandparents lived in a block of cottages just off Hatch Pond Road , Poole . The Council regularly tried to have them demolished as unfit for habitation , but the landlords held them off untill c 1920 when a mains water standpipe was installed at the end of the lane . Everybody was happy then ,the Council had done their bit for public health , the landlords put the rent up , and the cottagers carried on as before - paying rent as seldom as they could get away with , and using water from their (contaminated) wells , which was much softer and tasted better . In the mid 1930s the water supply was extended to the individual cottages , and mains gas arrived for lighting , cooking and heating water for laundry & baths , which must have become more frequent . Electricity & mains sewage arrived in the mid 1950s. Untill then the sanitary arrangements were an earth-closet across the lane . The contents were dug out 3-4 times a year and mixed with the compost heap for use on the large vegetable garden (hence the contaminated well) . I lived with my other grandparents , but I remember that cottage as a dingy smokey 2 up 2 down , with a dank front extension that was Kichen , Laundry , Bathroom & Cycle Shed all in one . 7 of their 8 children (born 1907/22) lived to draw their old age pensions , which leads to me taking a fairly robust view of the latest health scares . Mike Allen ==== ENG-DORSET-LIFE Mailing List ==== For old maps, see the Landmark Map site http://www.old-maps.co.uk/ ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237