When I first went to Manchester there was no accommodation for students and we had to find our own places to stay, After a few days with a relative of a friend of my dad, I moved to a room in a house quite a way from the college. It wasn’t very satisfactory, and eventually I found a friend to move out with to share a ‘flat’.
These days people rent apartments… what we had was a room which cost us £2 each per week; it was at the top of an old Victorian villa in the suburbs of Manchester, on a bus route which was good, near shops which was also good, near pubs which was even better. The room had two single beds with mattresses but nothing else; there was a bit of carpet on some of the floor, one armchair, two dining room chairs and a tiny table, a coffee table, a two-bar electric fire we had to feed through a metre, a small cupboard for food etc on which was a Baby Belling – a small cooker with a box-like oven and a single electric ring, a small single chest of drawers and a very small wardrobe… that was it.
It was at the top of the house right beneath the eves, and the sloping ceiling above us was directly beneath the tiles on the roof. There was no double glazing on the window, and when we woke in the mornings there would be ice on the inside of the glass and frost on our blankets! I am not exaggerating! There was no insulation on the ceiling, no radiators… nothing. The bathroom and toilet were downstairs and we shared it with the other people on that floor – goodness knows how man in the two or three rooms. I’m not sure whether there were two or three storeys in the house, but there were other people on other floors below us, although we never met them.
I think we stayed there until Easter. so that was about six months of being frozen with nowhere to cook anything properly, only a shared bath to wash in… how grim it sounds now, but we just grit our teeth and made do!
PS My featured image is a photo of me at that time – I don’t look too miserable do I?!!
Lois Elsden 
I shared a basement apartment with two chums. We kept running out of food before the end of the week until I discovered one of my chums was skipping class to come home early to eat more than his share. My fridge and freezer have always been well stocked since. Amen! Bye the way you looked cute as a button and obviously well fed. Did you skip any classes?
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No… I liked the classes – great teachers! I think I might have been late a few times, travelling into Manchester on the bus we sometimes got held up, and in those days there were still smogs. I think I might have skipped some tutorials but I went to nearly everything! I didn’t ever take time off work unless I was really ill – except the day my best friend got married! I was on edge the whole time, expecting the headmaster to spring out and accuse me of ‘truanting’!
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I think my Dad got lost in one of those smogs and that’s why he ended up in Canada. Actually he got fed up with the rationing after the war and sought a better future for us kids and we didn’t let him down. He died still homesick though but was too proud to admit it even though our family did well by any standards.
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What a great guy, to put his family before his own wants and thoughts. I am sure he was also very very proud of you
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Yes, housing was very grim back in the 70s. I lived in some terrible places but we didn’t know any better. So much better now
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