As our low wartime birthrate soared
after World War II the hasty building
of school and hospitals ensued.
The government wanted this birth
rate well educated, granted
bursaries for university fees and
books in an economy full of
part time and summer time jobs
for sons and daughters.
Not all parents wanted their
daughters educated past school.
A working class daughter with
excellent grades through to
seventeen was sent to full time
work. University evening
lectures gave way to pregnancy
and early motherhood at home.
The farmer’s daughter achieving
so well at a state city boarding
school was sent to work in a
local town bank, then married
within that community.
The brilliant daughter of British
immigrants was allowed to accept
a higher teacher student bursary
after school staff rigorously
persuaded her puzzled parents.
The Chinese greengrocer’s daughter
impressed teachers and classmates
with her brilliant achievements, yet
by nineteen she was married with
child housekeeping at home, staying
within family and culture confines.
Though university students were all
self supporting while studying, they
brought in no income, mingled in city life.
Some parents kept them within home bounds.
Children to be seen and not heard … Cheers Jamie
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History of that era. Some did pave the way and be role models for the current generation and beyond. Thank goodness, and thank you, to them.
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Yes, many of us did. I hope these women found their opportunities later on.
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boy, can I relate to this. My teachers begged my parents to keep me on at school, but I was one of six children so was sent out to earn my keep..
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I do hope you have found satisfaction in your writing, certainly you write very well. I think too that bursaries for people going to university from school only started for those born from 1945 onwards. I was born 1946. I started working in my summer school holidays after I sat School Certificate, and paid board when I was working. Once I started university was fed and housed in term time, and paid board in all the holidays, when I was working. I also paid board in my third year when bursaries doubled. There were only three of us, and Mum did managed to convince Dad to do this.
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I was born in 1944, and did my School Cert year, but then told I had to leave school. Not blaming my parents. They had to work hard for everything they had. Thanks for the encouragement.
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Certainly our parents had to deal with what life dealt them, and consequently so did we. I do enjoy your photographs, and the way your poems link in with them. I look forward to your future posts.
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Thank you
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J > How even the best laid plans go awry! It’s a democratic necessity that all are offered education so that the few (whether deserving or lucky or more likely both) succeed.
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Very true !
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When i went to university in the 1980s, i was the only woman in my degree subject. Overall the proportion of women attending university was much less then men. Now, in the UK, more women go to university than men……….
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It is good that more women are going, but I wonder if we will end up with and “us and them” situation ?
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We all paid board to our parents when we started work. In my case when I was fifteen and ten months. It helped pay off the mortgage after arriving in Australia in 1956.
I doubt teenage children do that now.
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I don’t know that they would. My nieces and nephews are still at school or pre school.
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Glad I read this. I’m also glad to see that those in other parts of the world have had many of the same experiences. I started work at age 12 part time and got drafted into the Army in 1966. Education seemed important then but today it seems that all the young people go to college for is to learn how to protest for things they don’t understand and demand everything free of charge….
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Thank you. My parents and my friends’ parents mostly expected- and got – better paying jobs for their children through their continued education. It will be interesting to see how the job market and education interact with each other as time goes on.
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