I am from Ireland, and much the same as you all remember the 'good old days'
No tap water, no electricity, no toilet.
We had a water spring from where we got all our water needs every day. The spring was beside a little stream beside our house, and the water was delicious. There was a little area by the stream where the milk bottles were kept cool, especially in the summer - summers were always warm!!
Water from the well was fetched daily for washing - ourselves/laundry/cleaning the house. My father cleaned the well at least once a year - the well was emptied as much as possible, and he would sprinkle ?lime around it, and then it would fill again as usual. The spring never dried up.
We had an open fire with cast iron cooking pots that would be hung over the fire to use. Our lighting was paraffin lamps. I don't remember being cold, the fire kept the home cosy. Toilet facilities were outside in a small outbuilding, along with a tin bath. My mum had a singer hand crank, and we all learned to knit. We earned some money in the summers fruit picking - strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants. My mum kept chickens, and 'brought on' turkeys in the autumn to sell for christmas. We always foraged for firewood, mushrooms, apples, blackberries.
We had electricity put in our house when I was 13 or 14, and a B&W TV some months later. It was only on a few hours each evening. Around that time we had a small Aga (range) installed instead of the fire, and a gas oven (cylinder). There was always a radio - batteries - that we had to take somewhere to get charged. I still prefer to listen to the radio now.
My father worked on a farm, and part of his wages was our supply of milk, butter and buttermilk. He bought the milk home in a bottle, and it wold sit in the stream to keep cool. On Sunday afternoon one of us would cycle about 6 miles to collect the milk. The butter was a creamy colour, and slightly salted, sometimes more salted - depending on the farmer's wife (I think). My mother used the buttermilk to make soda bread every second day, we never had shop bread when we were young - probably I was 11 or 12 before I saw shop bread.
Catholic family, so a lot of stuff was ruled by the church calender. A lot of hell fire and damnation, I remember. We could not have anything to eat before church on Sunday mornings. We either walked or cycled to church - about 3 miles, and were starving when we got home. Cycled or walked to school (3 miles), school was not a friendly place, and corporal punishment was the norm if we got things wrong or made mistakes.
As we got older my father somehow managed to cobble together bicycles for us, and taught us how to ride them. I remember chasing one of my sisters (on our bikes) down the road, and she could not take a corner and ended up in the ditch full of nettles - must have been on the way to school or church. Another time we were going fast and she went head over handlebar into a car - she was fine, the driver was worried about his car!!!
We had a large extended family within about 20 miles or more, and always travelled on our bikes to visit. My mother's bike had 3 gears, ours only 1 gear! Very occasionally my mum would allow us to borrow hers. My father could drive, and I was well in my teens before we had a car.
I never remember feeling poor or neglected, and of course we were poor, but we had lots of fun at home. We made our own entertainment. Christmas was always lovely; crisp, frosty mornings, biking to midnight mass. Christmas dinner was always good, either a large chicken or a turkey (dispatched by my dad); a christmas cake and christmas pudding, and apple juice as a treat. There was always something in our wellies that we had polished on christmas eve, I remember being devastated when my mum explained about santa claus!! And, being tempted to tell my younger siblings, but not doing so. Lots of card games, dominoes etc. Halloween was always fun; we would dress up and walk to neighbours ( close by, and a couple of miles), home made costumes, moonlit night, never any fear or worry.
I don't remember being ill, but I do remember being force fed cod liver oil and an iron tonic!! My siblings loved it but I hated it. My father was in charge of dosing us with it, and there was no getting away from it. One of my sisters needed to go to hospital - she was there for about 6 weeks, my mum and dad could visit on sundays only for an hour - miles to cycle there and back.
Now, I meet up with all the family once a year in Ireland, and many memories and laughs are relived, and much wine drank! Most of my siblings still live in Ireland, within a radius of 40 miles or so of each other, and it is lovely each year to have a reunion. My mum died in 1999, and my dad in 2006, and they were dearly loved.