Make do and mend

"Waste not, want not," the older generation were frequently told. Your Rubbish Your Choice went along to St Mary's Residential Care Home at Crostwick, in Norfolk, to ask them about the good old days

When George and Emma Outten were first married nearly 70 years ago it was often a struggle to make ends meet.

Dick Harper, 88

As a civil engineer, George, now 89, didn't earn a huge wage and when the weather was bad, preventing him from working, he didn't get paid at all.

"It was always a case of making do," he explained.

"Everything had to be repaired rather than thrown away if it broke - and as much as possible was homemade."

Emma, now 90, would knit clothes for the couple and their daughter, frequently using ends of wool. Clothes that were too worn to be repaired were saved for cleaning rags or kept to be made into rugs.

"We made rugs from scraps of material and from old pieces of wool tied together," Emma remembered. "They were lovely."

In those days, newspapers weren't collected by councils for recycling - but they were often reused at home.

"We kept ours to put on the walls underneath the paper," said George. "The plaster wasn't smooth and so it was like a lining."

And if bed sheets tore in the middle, Emma would cut the hole out, half the sheet and stitch it back together with the good edges in the middle. "That way they would last for years," said George.

Marjorie Cooke, 83

Alfie Groom, 72: “We would save old clothes and use the material to make rag rugs. Kitchen scraps were also kept and a man would go from door to door with a pail, collecting them up for the pigs.”

Phyllis Browne, 84: “Throughout the year we would save pieces of paper, then just before Christmas we would use them to make decorations.”

Mabs Parker, 89: “I’ll always remember my mother buying a pig’s head or a sheep’s head and then boiling it up. Almost all of it would be eaten - the only thing we’d thrown away would be the bones.”

Dick Harper, 88: “My Dad had a sweet stall on Norwich market. Everyone would save their newspapers and give them to him to wrap the sweets in.”

Stella King, 91: “My husband Alfred grew all our own vegetables. We would save the peelings and he'd put them on the compost pile. The next year we would have beautiful compost.”

Marjorie Cooke, 83: “My mother would make dressing gowns from old coats. Once she made my children kilts using old trousers belonging to my husband.”