The mend and make do generation - saved the planet one darned sock at a time

We grew our own food, used hankies not tissues, hitchhiked between towns and never locked the back door. Bernard Salt revisits a very different time in Australia’s past.

How 1960s Australians mastered sustainable living by necessity. Picture: Getty Images

I am impressed by the determination of the environmental movement to save the planet with maxims like “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”. And while most Australians are on board with this philosophy, I can’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu – that we’ve been in this space before. Not so much in order to save the planet, but to save money!

When I was growing up in the ’60s in Terang, everyone was an environmentalist of sorts. In winter we were reminded to always close the door to keep the heat in; in summer we didn’t use electric fans, let alone aircon. If we’d been told about the concept of aircon the first question would have been, How much does that cost?

On our quarter-acre block we kept chooks for eggs and meat. We happily gutted and plucked chooks in the washhouse trough. This did not seem odd or the least bit unsanitary at the time.

We grew our own tomatoes, peas, corn, carrots, lettuce, pumpkin and more. We hand-shelled peas. Fruit trees yielded plums for jam as well as apricots, nectarines, apples. Home-made preserved fruit was our Sunday night dessert, which we called pudding. Interestingly, we never ate outside. Not even for a barbeque.

Fruit trees yielded plums for jam. Picture: The Australian

In autumn we would gather mushrooms. These would be fried with butter on top of our combustion stove. Bread would be toasted on a toasting fork at the door of the stove.

Our household had a single clapped-out second-hand Chevrolet – without seatbelts, of course. We walked to school. Socks were darned. Clothes were handed down within the family. Jumpers were hand-knitted.

My older brothers, as young teenagers, would hitchhike to and from neighbouring towns on a Saturday for something to do. My parents didn’t think this was a security risk.

We did not use tissues; instead we used washable handkerchiefs (aka hankies). Dresses were made to a reusable paper pattern using a Singer pedal sewing machine. Washing was done once a week, and clothes were line-dried in the back yard; we hadn’t heard of tumble dryers. We did not have showers; we had baths filled to maybe 7cm by a kettle heated on a combustion stove. Water wasn’t changed but rather topped up between kids.

Families grew their own produce. Picture: Getty Images

There were mice in the cupboard under the kitchen sink, rats in the makeshift garage, and birds nesting in the roof space. We kept cats and, at one stage, a lamb in the back yard.

Rubbish, including tins and bottles, went into a battered tin garbage can. Green waste went in the compost heap. Paper waste was burned in a back-yard incinerator made from a 44-gallon drum. Hard rubbish was taken to the local tip maybe once a year.

Households often had only one single clapped-out second-hand car. Picture: Getty Images

There’s much to admire about the generation that flourished at this time. People worked together – as families, and as communities. Sometimes they got things wrong, but on other fronts they excelled, such as being mindful about the use of resources.

The other thing I like, looking back, is that in our country town such was the sense of security that no one bothered to lock their houses or cars. Maybe regaining that level of security is unrealistic – but achieving some level of progress in that direction, as well as mindfulness about the environment, might create a safer and more sustainable Australia.

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