Changes in our housing lifestyles since 1940..... (Alex R Cook FRICS, Consultant)

As the move is made into the new century it is timely to reflect on the massive changes that have taken place in our living conditions over the last sixty years.

During the Second World War many houses still retained gas lighting, for some it was the sole source of light. A few still had oil lamps. With a number of power cuts during this period the ability to have gas light was a bonus while listening to ITMA, the News, Henry Hall and Children's Hour with Uncle Mac (on a battery powered "wireless") -and even doing school homework, or reading the Cambridge Daily News. In the decades that followed electricity took over completely for lighting and power, but it is only in the last two or three decades that one or more twin power sockets per room became the norm and the change from round 5, 10 and 15 amp points to the 13 amp square sockets of to-day.

Few homes had refrigerators in the 40's. Washing machines did not really feature until the late 50's. Most homes did not have a TV with which to watch the 1953 Coronation, yet alone the Queen's marriage in 1947. Roof and wall insulation was virtually non-existent in pre-war and early post-war housing.

As for central heating this was the exception rather than the rule sixty years ago and most homes relied on open coal fires for heat during the War. A proportion had enclosed stoves, boilers or back boilers to provide hot water whilst many homes still had to place their kettles above, or beside, their inter-oven stoves to obtain hot water, quite frequently to place in galvanised portable bath tubs in front of the kitchen stove for the weekly bath. With the advent of gas and oil fired water filled radiator central heating the old solid fuel boilers, fed on coke or anthracite, gave way, by the sixties, to smaller improved floor standing gas or oil fired boilers, which are now so small that most can be wall mounted.

In the rural areas EC's (Earth closets) were still to be found in the early part of the second half of the century and many small Cambridge homes still had their WC's (fondly called "thunder boxes") at the bottom of their gardens as opposed to the "comfort" of present day internal toilet facilities. Many still lacked bathrooms well into the eighties. The occasional house still comes to the market lacking a bathroom.

Within the short space of just sixty years the living conditions of the average Cambridge family have improved dramatically, far more rapidly than in any previous generation. Owner occupation in Cambridge in the war probably accounted for no more than 25% of the housing stock (as against around 70% today), there was an appreciable number of rented houses in the private sector, a number owned by Housing Societies, with the remainder being City Council owned rented housing. Squatting was not a fate that befell vacant houses in the early post-war years but great care needed to be taken when moving house as vacant properties were rapidly requisitioned.

In the still developing area of conservation one notes that many home owners are restoring and decorating their properties to match the period when they were built -and this move has now reached the typical three bedroom 1930's semi-detached houses which proliferate in Cambridge. As against this the move to internal stripped pine woodwork which reached a peak in the late eighties in Victorian housing is now beginning to recede. The slab tiled fireplaces of the 50's and 60's are "out" and, for Victorian homes replica original styled register grates are "in". The manufacturers of kitchen fittings should have done well in the period; the writer is aware of one house where three kitchens were fitted within a space of just over ten years. The same applies to bathroom fittings which, as with kitchen fittings, are now renewed to keep up with the fashion pressures of the day and well prior to the end of their natural life.