This is absolutely true …… my older brother (74) went to school with a girl who sometimes wore dresses made from wallpaper! They were a very poor little family just Dad, Mum and her and they lived out in the middle of nowhere and she had to walk several miles to get to school. Her Dad was injured during the war and there were no benefits then. My brother still remembers her turning up the first time in her wallpaper dress and nobody said a word because even as kids they felt her pain and embarrassment. My Mum told me that the teacher had a quiet word with some other Mums and between them they came up with some proper outgrown clothes for the poor kid. I often wonder what happened to her.
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How sad Flower for that poor little girl
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a TV. A neighbour had one.And all us kids would hang around the front of his house.Sometimes he’d let us in to watch Children’s Hour.
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We only had bbc our next door neighbour had ITV that had Popeye on it
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A certain accent, Margot Leadbetter springs to mind 
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Carpet.
We had oilcloth flooring in our bedrooms as we couldn’t afford carpet, my Dad was a carpet weaver too! I remember when we got our room carpet, it was axminster and boy did we think we were posh.
I used to have to clean under the bed with the dusting mop.
I remember getting our first stair carpet, it was a horrid green colour and it ran in the middle of the stairs with painted sides, it cost less but I think a lot of people had stair carpet runners back then.
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Oilcloth? Luxury.
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We couldn’t afford carpets when we were kids, so we had bits of carpet glued to our slippers instead.
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Even as a child I noticed differences between my mum who had to work hard to raise two young boys and still had to live from hand to mouth and our childless neighbours where the woman didn’t have to work, had a cleaning lady, and was lying in the deckchair all day long. At the weekend hubby would take her on tours with his convertible. I knew it had to do with money and I considered them wealthy.
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Slippers? Luxury.
We could only dream of slippers. We used to shuffle around on bits of old carpet on the flagstones that were minus 10 degrees in winter. The bits of old carpet doubled as something to play with and something to chew on at mealtimes.
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We were the first people in our street to have a fridge & a TV. I always thought that people who had a car were wealthy, but when I was a kid not many families had a car!
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I didn’t really think of money (or lack of) when I was growing up. I don’t remember being envious of anyone who had something I didn’t but maybe I wasn’t paying attention 
I do remember when the kids were small, and my daughter came running up to me saying her friend had a new front door that she was showing off on, and could we have a new better front door! Out of all the things she wanted, it was a front door 
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Definitely a car, I was about 12 before dad got his first ancient old van 
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I never gave much thought, if any, to those that had something that i didnt have.
I always had a sugar sandwich which i shared with my friends.
What a disgusting thing to eat in hindsight, but hey ho,eat or go hungry.
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I made sugartoast! Grill one side, turn over, add butter & sugar, grill, eat…it was so good! 
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I used to have those too. More from laziness than poverty, I think, but maybe a bit of both.
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I am being totally honest buttescothch,if my memory serves me correctly,it was from poverty not laziness or choice.
Never heard of that one PixieK, wish i had have though lol.
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Not questioning your experience. My experience was different with the same food.
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So you had a grill did you? There’s posh.
Toasting bread using the coal fire not good enough for you eh?
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Well, I don’t like to boast about these things…I was a dab hand at putting a fire together and dragging the old rusty grill out to sit on the bricks y’know.
Snap! I did in fact do that! 
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