How We Used To Live was first produced by one of the new ITV Companies, Yorkshire Television in 1968. Three series had been produced by 1978 and the style of the series changed from a very educational-style series to a period drama. One of the best-remembered How We Used To Live series was 1936-1953 which was first shown in 1981. The series featured the Hodgkins family who had recently moved from a rented terraced house to a brand new semi. The father of the family, Arthur Hodgkins, worked as a railway clerk and the mother of the family, Mabel, had been a primary school teacher before their first child was born.

Arthur and Mabel had four children, Jimmy, Patricia, Avril and Edward. Over the course of the series, Jimmy joined the army soon after his 18th birthday and became a prisoner of war, luckily managing to escape and eventually returned home, Patricia became a nurse and eventually married an American soldier and moved to the United States, Avril joined the Women's Land Army and then became a pharmacist and Edward, who was much younger than his brother and sisters, gained a place at University at the end of the series.

The 1936-1953 series showed the reality of the Second World War, with two characters killed in air raids at various times, one of these being Patricia Hodgkins's best friend, as well as rationing, women entering the workplace to do the jobs men had done, as well as the shortages of so many items during the war – Arthur and Mabel had to make their children's Christmas presents in one episode. A number of post-war issues were also explored, such as continued food shortage, the National Health Service and the Festival of Britain.

The 1902-1926 series, first broadcast in 1984, featured a new set of characters – the working class Selbys and the upper-middle class Holroyds. The Holroyds were the mill owners and many of the Selbys worked in the mill. Victor Selby was a former miner who had to give up work due to the coal dust causing him to suffer chest problems – he later became a rag and bone man. Sarah Selby worked at the mill, as well as their older daughter Maggie and middle son Freddy. Their older son Tom was a miner who later becomes involved in politics and joins the Labour Party, eventually becoming an MP while their youngest son Albert started work at the local Co-op, as well as helping to build motor cars. Alice, the youngest daughter, worked as a servant at the Holroyds' house before the First World War, before moving to London and returning in the mid-20s as a “flapper” wearing the latest fashions. Despite the class differences, the Selby children and Holroyd children often got on well. By 1920, the parents of both families had all died and Tom had married Charlotte Holroyd, who had been imprisoned when protesting as a suffragette. Many changes in society were depicted throughout the series, as well as women gaining votes, the rise of radio, or wireless as it was then called, as well as motor cars becoming more widely available and working class homes having electric lighting were also featured. The brutal reality of the First World War was also focused on - the Holroyds' older son Maurice was killed along with Freddy Selby. A year before, Maggie's husband Patrick Brady, who had originally been a groom to the Holroyd family, was also killed in action – Albert Selby being the only one to return home.

The 1954-1970 series was first shown in 1987 and featured Maggie and Patrick Brady's son Michael, by now in his early forties, who returned to Bradley with his wife Joan and their three children, Susan, Roger and Beverley. Michael's Uncle Albert and Albert's wife Bertha were now running a bakery and café and members of the Hodgkins family from 1936-1953 also featured regularly. Jimmy and his wife Eileen ran the local sub-post office and general store while Avril and her husband Laurence Butterworth lived across the road from the Bradys. The two families from both series got to know each other well, with Roger Brady becoming friends with Jimmy's son and Beverley Brady becoming friends with Avril's daughter. The series focused in many prominent events and changes in society, such as the rise of the teenager, the threat of nuclear war, Black and Asian people moving to Britain and the popularity of The Beatles. A very dramatic scene for schools television featured in the 1965 episode when Avril and Laurence were killed in a car crash on their son's ninth birthday. Edward Hodgkins, who had returned to England two years before after working in for the German government, became guardian to his niece and nephew. The later episodes focused on the 1966 World Cup, hippie culture, with 18 year old Roger Brady becoming a hippie to the shock of his parents, the moon landings and decimalisation. The two families from the previous series were united when Susan Brady married Edward Hodgkins in 1967.

After the last repeat showing of the 1954-1970 series in Spring 1990, How We Used To Live changed considerably, with the series returning to a slightly more “educational” format, with documentary sections sometimes inserted between the drama and only ten episodes in each series, instead of twenty. By the late 1990s, How We Used To Live on Channel 4 schools had changed so much that it only resembled Yorkshire Television's original series in name.