Pensioner says young people should ‘stop whinging’ about rising cost of mortgage

A pensioner said young people need to “stop whinging” and “work harder” to pay their mortgages like people did in the old days. Brian Meek, 76, said he and wife Rosemary, 70, put in extra hours at weekends and evenings when interest rates soared in the late 70s.

The couple barely saw each other as they juggled his long shifts in engineering and hers in the civil service around their growing family to pay for their home. Brian believes homeowners should knuckle down to get through the current interest-rate hikes.

Brian, from Plymstock, said: “We just did whatever we had to so we could keep paying our mortgage. We worked all the hours God sent – we had to.

“If you want to keep what you’ve got, you have to keep working for it. You’ve never had it so good – we had it a lot worse than it is now.

“People need to stop whinging about it. Especially younger people – just get on with it if you can, you have to to pay the bills.

“We worked to pay our mortgage because we wanted to. Younger people just don’t have the same work ethic – they just wait for things to be put in their hands.

“1979 was our financial crisis to live through – it was huge, and very hard, but we got on with it and got through it. It was such a relief when the rates dropped again.”

The couple moved to the home in Plymstock, Plymouth, where they still live before having their first daughter in 1978 and their second in 1982. They borrowed £6,000 over 25 years and together just managed their £25-a-month repayments on their variable-rate mortgage, Brian says.

But in 1979 interest rates soared to a wapping 17% – so the couple had to dig deep. Interest rates had fluctuated between 5 and 10% for most of the 20th century, and Brian thinks they were at 5% before the 17% sky-rocket.

Brian thinks their mortgage payments were hiked up to over £30-a-month for around eight months. He said: “My wages weren’t high at all – I think about £14-a-week.

“Our mortgage might not seem large in comparison to today’s figures, but it’s important to remember the pound has been devalued since then – it was equivalently high for us. We liked the house and wanted to stay in it, so we put in the extra hours when interest rates went sky high, we had to because we wanted to keep our home.

“We were like ships in the night – I worked 8 to 5, then looked after our daughters while Rosemary worked in the evenings. If she had to start earlier I’d finish early and make up the hours.

“I worked every Saturday and Sunday until the interest rates dropped again. It was hard on us as a couple, but we got through – you do what you have to if you want something.”

Interest-rate short history:
– 1900-1979: between 5 and 10%
– 1979: soared to 17%
– 1982: Dropped to 9%
– 1989: back up to 14.9%
– 1992: (Black Wednesday) hopped from 10 to 12% when UK left the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, then fell back to 10%
– July 2007: 5.75%
– 2008: Interest rates kept low during the global financial crisis:
– March 2009: low of 0.5
– August 2016: all-time low, 0.25%
– 2020: After the Covid-19 pandemic kept at extreme low of 0.10 by bank of England
– The Bank raised rates to 5% from 4.5%, the highest level in 15 years