New BBC2 Back in time for dinner

thriftwizard

lillibet_dripping wrote: »

My mum always referred to the weekly Friday shop as 'getting the order'. I'm supposing that in her younger days her mum 'ordered' her shopping then went to collect it from the shop?

I can remember our weekly "order" from the grocers being delivered by the boy on the bicycle in the mid-1970s! We weren't rich, far from it, it was just how everyone lived. My mother was widowed at 44 in the early 70s, with just £27 in the bank & two children still at home to provide for. She worked almost full-time but still had to go out daily for fresh bread, meat & vegetables - and the shops closed at 5.30, as she finished work, so it all had to be done before 10 am when she started work. At that time we lived in a home-counties town, and I remember the first supermarket opening, and her delight at things like fish fingers and Vesta packet curries (they'd lived in India before we were born) and other culinary delights that meant that she didn't have to shop, prep & cook daily.

She's 89 now and one of the first tasks she mastered on her laptop was ordering groceries - grocers bringing stuff to her is the natural order of things, as far as she's concerned!

Just watched the programme and couldn't help thinking that it was very slanted towards showing how awful it was & how much better everything is now. Which is a bit one-dimensional; some things are undoubtedly better, but others aren't, and which things very much depend on your own individual viewpoint! I have customers who choose to live in the 1950s; most of them do have fridges, but if they can get a still-functional 50s one they'll go for that rather than a modern one, and they re-install larders in their homes. They socialise amongst themselves, they write letters & ring people rather than use email, their kids know how to play old-fashioned board games, read jolly good books & do old-fashioned crafts, and they are lovely people - I really look forward to doing the shows & events that we find them at! OK, it's an ersatz version, but there's a reason why they like to live like this and it says something sad about the way that we're expected to live now.

Interestingly, by & large they're not people with a lot of money, but mechanics, nurses, hairdressers, etc. People with practical skills & interesting ideas...

monnagran

I loved seeing the fashions too. Especially the sticky-outy skirts. There were various ways of keeping them looking full. I had a waist slip with a spiral channel in it and a long plastic rod thing that you threaded through the channel. Voila! A hooped petticoat. One day while walking down the busy High Street of a sunny |Saturday afternoon, as you do,Iwas aware of something funny happening round my legs. To my horror this plasic rod thing had worked its way out of its confining channel and was wrapping itself affectionately around my ankles. Cue one highly embarrassed would-be follower of fashion trying to discreetly remove a length of white plastic from her petticoat and stow it away safely, probably in her gondola basket, without anyone noticing. Some of my friends stiffened their voluminous petticoats with sugar water to make them stick out. This worked well until it rained and they returned with very sticky legs.
What you don't see in films of that era is every woman constantly twisting round to look at the backs of their legs - checking that their stocking seams were straight.
I still think that the fashions of the fifties were the prettiest of the last century. Full skirts, nipped in waists, high heels and white gloves in the summer. Pretty but very high maintenance.

Good old days?
In some respects, but life is a lot easier now. Like another poster, I'm glad I lived through them but I wouldn't want them back. It makes you very grateful for duvets, steam irons, automatic washing machines, fridge freezers and vacuums.

x

[Deleted User]

Oh yes the hooped petticoats My two DDs find it hilarious that anyone wore petticoats hooped or otherwise
I too had a gondola basket and to think you would lay your purse down in almost full view of folk (can't see anyone doing that today

My late Mum was fairly old fashioned in her outlook at times ,but then she was born in 1900 and brought up during the Edwardian period, by Victorian parents .
I can clearly remember her frowning about a local neighbour whose nets were not the pristine whiteness that was expected of women at that time.
But then remarking to my Dad that 'what else can you exppect as this woman had moved her 'fancy man' in'.

Now to me a 'fancy man' was someone who made cakes that were sold in posh bakeries (This is how kids thought in those days)

Apparently this womans husband had vanished to pastures new, with possiblly whiter nets, and the chap who lived there was her 'fancy man'.
Now I believed that this chap, who was quite diminutive and rode on his bike to work, was a meter reader for the Gas Board, so I just couldn't see what was in the least bit fancy about him. he was quite an unprepossessing sort of bloke But children in those days were not as streetwise as todays kids
Sex was certainly never discussed or talked about as it is today.My Dad would only allow certain newspapers indoors, and was very cross when my eldest brother ,home on leave from his National service, brought a News of the World into the house.It was swiftly dispatched to the kitchen range.I wasn'r fussed as to me newspapers were boring anyway and I couldn't see what the fuss was about
Never did get to read one until I was grown up and married (still thought it was rubbish then ):):):)
I was such a different life back then but like Monnagran I would not want to return to it as I like central heating and the mod,cons of today

moneyistooshorttomention

Seconded to being glad of being able to take modern day amenities for granted. I do like my shower/automatic washing machine/iron (when I use it:rotfl:) and so on.

Thank goodness I was too young for 50s fashions at the time as the nylons and suspender belts I remember were bad enough. So thank goodness for tights and the hugely high prevalence of just living in trousers and jeans these days anyway.

Thank goodness the mindset of acting differently because of being a woman is dying (not dead and buried yet unfortunately imo) but I just go ahead and live my life/express my opinions as a "person" and forget what sex my body is (as that's just totally irrelevant to me now that I'm past my Dating Days as I call them and the shock of finding that I had to put up with "that time of the month" for years any more). I can still remember a friend of mine (back in my teen years) telling me to "hang back" about expressing my opinions to men or even having any opinions of my own - eek!

I was talking to a woman young enough to be my daughter yesterday and she surprised me by saying she had been brought up as a "woman", rather than "a person" and I was shocked, as I thought everyone was being brought up as a "person" in the next generation down from mine by now....but we have made a lot of progress towards it and Rome wasn't built in a day as they say.

I would like to see back the widespread "taking it for granted" of getting on the housing ladder/job for life and retirement at Retirement Age and those are big losses.

maman

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I was talking to a woman young enough to be my daughter yesterday and she surprised me by saying she had been brought up as a "woman", rather than "a person" and I was shocked, as I thought everyone was being brought up as a "person" in the next generation down from mine by now....but we have made a lot of progress towards it and Rome wasn't built in a day as they say.

Like you it disappoints me when I meet young women like that and there is a surprising number that post on the various mse boards. I really hate it when they start posts with 'I work full time.....' but I do have a little sympathy when they explain that they have partners who don't lift a finger. Men have worked full time for generations. We can't expect equality of education and opportunity and at the same time expect partners to be the breadwinners while we work for a bit of 'pin' money or not at all. I'm fortunate in that my late MIL was ahead of her time and brought up her sons in the same way as her daughters. So my DH can do all sorts of domestic stuff and insists on pulling his weight so when we both worked full time we just shared all the chores (and still do).

moneyistooshorttomention

Maman,

This particular young woman that I met recently had rejected that aspect of her upbringing and was clearly intent on being a "person in her own right". Good luck to her...

Sounds like you got a good husband there - and good MIL:T

I cant speak for the next generation down of men...and hopefully things have improved noticeably. For my own generation of men, I suspected the majority of my boyfriends I had had rather traditional ideas about things but, even if my heart was involved, my brain was still checking them out to see if they would have "done their share" before I would contemplate them as a serious prospect for the long-term. I would imagine their way was/is pretty typical of men of my generation.

The best marriage I know of in my own generation is a couple I am friends with that I think have it well worked out between them. I watch them talking to each other totally as equals/never see her trying to get him to do or think anything in anything other than a straightforward manner/when it comes to Major Decisions where they cant both have what they want I note they "take turns" on this. I've told them both I can see what a good relationship they obviously have with each other - pleased for them:)

But a lot I come across aren't like that...

maman

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Maman,

This particular young woman that I met recently had rejected that aspect of her upbringing and was clearly intent on being a "person in her own right". Good luck to her...

Sounds like you got a good husband there - and good MIL:T
...

I'm so glad she's thought it through. And I know I've got a good un....34 years and counting!!!:)

Lynplatinum

Hiya

I watched this programme today (whoops - now yesterday - intended to go to bed @12 but your recollections of that time were just so interesting!!)

I tried to feel sorry for the lady as she had clearly had no education in kitchen matters but I ended up feeling annoyed with her for being so gormless!! if you dont know how you ask for help - esp from those delightful older ladies! I too wondered why there were more veg from the allotment featured in her food!

Also there was little reflection of the man's world - no power tools for example - I still have my father in laws old hand drill!! And I use it. No bloke digging allotment or cycling back from work! Or making things from scratch - such as a shed from old pallets! (which I have done! - Im female btw but single parent for 20 years due to divorce)

Thriftwizard - there is a reason that folks still choose to live a simpler life (I have no mixer or food processor for example!) It is easier in the long run - nothing to breakdown or go wrong!! tho I love my central heating :rotfl:
Got a txt from my sons to say, in effect, that we didnt have much more than that when they grew up, I worked full time, yet we managed! The thing they were most annoyed about was that the children didnt have chores to 'entertain' them - my boys certainly had chores (and are now grateful as they can manage on low budgets; clean loos; use washing machines; hoover; cook etc - but they had to show housemates at Uni how to do those things)

Its a mad world - for most folk I hope the electric never stops working - theyd never survive!

FairyPrincessk

I actually felt a bit sorry for the woman. I got the impression she was told what to cook and how it was served in the diaries and was meant to stick to it. I know I'd prefer to be told what my ration options were and find menus that played to our tastes and my strengths.

Honestly, I think there is a tension in the show between looking at food history and how diets changed and looking at lifestyle history. If they want to look at food history, then they should have had the man cooking as whoever did the cooking would have been relatively more experienced and adaptable---and they should have done a week with each year as things like eating all of the meat ration in one go just doesn't have the same impact if you're only doing it for a day. While women did most of the cooking then, you get a weird view of what food was like by having it prepared by someone who is inexperienced. Trying to also demonstrate the strict gender roles at the time didn't give a clear picture of how the cooking would have gone as a woman with two children that age would have had vastly more experience in the kitchen.

I also thought it was a bit unfair that the man just walked onto the pre-prepared allotment and harvested some veg. So much work would have gone into it up until that point. It was all well and good for him to not bother accounting for the fact that no matter how it tasted his wife had put a lot of work into the food when he was putting considerably less into the 'challenge' with far more results than she was.

As for the tin opener..at 31 I wouldn't have known what to do with it and I've used a fair amount of old time gadgets. I give her credit for keeping at it and asking other family members to have a go instead of throwing up her hands and just saying 'we'll just eat the dripping.' In bygone days she may have had neighbours to ask (and may well have asked the older ladies who came to tea) but she didn't have that option in the artificially reconstructed programme.

I did find it amusing how much they all complained about the national loaf. White flour must have been available for things like pastry and cakes--recipes for using as little fat as possible for those things exist, but I'm not sure it would have been easy to get enough of it for regular baking. Since the national loaf was subsidized and fuel was in short supply, and many women were taking on extra war work I suspect it took a lot of determination to bake your own. Nella Last does in her accounts, but she doesn't mention what sort of flour she uses and she regularly hints that she manages better than many women.

I'll keep watching, as I'm very interested in the topic, but I don't think the show has the same appeal as things like Wartime Kitchen.

[Deleted User]

Indeed chores were given to all the children in those days and you wern't paid for them, you were expected to 'help' Mum or Dad
My brothers dug the garden and chopped the firewood for the kitchen range.
I wound the mangle handle which I really didn't mind doing as it made me feel very grown up for some reason and held out my arms for my Mum to wind her wool on from hanks.

My eldest brothers job every night was to clean and polish the shoes.
My Dad did the windows with methylated spirits and scrunched up newspapers.I learned to knit before I ever went to school, and both my brothers and I learned to read and write before starting school as well.
Our Mother was insistant that we all had our jobs to do, and we did them

The one job I hated was cleaning her brassware stuff on a Saturday afternoon. Not so bad in the winter but in the summer I'd have rather been outside playing She had a round brass table covered with small brass ornaments, and I swore as a child when I grew up I would never ever have a bit of brass in my house and I never have :):) The smell of Brasso or later Duraglit send shivers down my spine

Mum black-leaded the range to a dark gleam with Zebra and 'donkey-stoned' the step outside the front door to a pristine whiteness.God help the child that trekked mud on it :)
My pocket money as such was 9d a week(not always regular though,depending on how well I had behaved) with this I could go to Saturday morning cinema 6d and have 3d left over for a Palm Toffe bar which is the reason so many of my generation have fillings:) or worse missing knashers.The school dentist was to be avoided at all costs as he was of the 'One yank and they're out 'school of dentristy.Perhaps he got paid on the amount pulled.

We had no trainers ,we had black plimsolls:) we had no games consoles ,we had Ludo,cards or domino's, we certainly had no t.v. we had a wireless or library books, and you had to walk about a mile and a bit to borrow them as well, then a mile and a bit home again.
Presents ,such as they were arrived on birthdays or Christmas and often were home made as after the war factories were used for more important things than toy making.My eldest brother made me a dolls house from orange box wood and I kept it for years until it eventually fell apart.Most boys toys were made by hand from any available scrap wood begged or borrowed.Both my brothers had a go-cart made from pram wheels and old wooden boxes, and I had a tiny scooter and the wheels were old casters of a sofa that had been found on a bomb site.
Still I never felt deprived or unloved and OK the food may have been a bit 'samey' at times but we never went hungry or without ,unless you had been naughty and were sent to bed with no supper.I wonder how todays children would cope with it They seem to have everthing, yet often are never satisfied and want more