House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.

( ArthurTheRat, Wed 4 May 2005, 19:57, archived)

there where 103 of us living in shoebox int middle of t'road

( Dill, Wed 4 May 2005, 20:00, archived)

You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank.
We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
( ArthurTheRat, Wed 4 May 2005, 20:01, archived)

Luxury.
We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
( ArthurTheRat, Wed 4 May 2005, 20:03, archived)

Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel,
worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
( ArthurTheRat, Wed 4 May 2005, 20:07, archived)

Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed,

( ArthurTheRat, Wed 4 May 2005, 20:08, archived)