Post-war poverty, rock and roll – music and everybody has a great new car. You can see and hear these kinds of things in films, on TV and the Internet. But is it all true?

In the 1950’s families were bigger than today. There were a lot of children. In those days more children were died, because there were no drugs for every sickness. The health care wasn’t as good as it is today. There wasn’t much free time, because housework took a lot of time. Lot of clothes, home textiles and utilities were handmade. Dishes, home textiles, clothes and others were washed by hand, because there were no washing machines or dishwashers. Agriculture was everyday for someone. Most of children didn’t have a room of their own. Some of the children could sleep all in the same bed.

As we said, good jobs were not available to all. Somebody had to build up the gas pipeline in Finland, but some had to work almost all day. One relative of the author, a woman, had to work as spray painter until she had thinner intoxication. This work did not suit her, especially when she had to do it in addition to other low-paid work almost around the clock.

My grandmother attended school in the 1950’s. She lived in the countryside. The school was really small. There were only two teachers and classes in the whole school. That’s why she was in the same class with her little brother. Most of the people didn’t have cars or bicycles in those days. Almost everybody went to school on foot. School food was very simple: usually porridge or soup. Many people didn’t go to high school. There were a lot of housework and teenagers had to look after younger children. Parents didn’t appreciate education as much as people do today. “I did my homework if I had time for it”, my granny told me.

There weren’t enough cars for everyone, and people bought cars from Russia, like Moskvitsh, which two of our group members’ grandparents owned. Moskvitsh was a small and cheap car, it didn’t have any heating like any other car in that time. Walking was common and using public transport was common too. You could see some motorbikes too.

Although the war was over in Finland, and the World War II had been over five years ago, the whole world was not the same. Finland had to pay for war reparations to the Soviet Union, and the Korean War was raging, surprise, surprise, in Korea. Life wasn’t easy, there were not too many good jobs available.