Nella Last's routine

Eliza_2

I've been reading Nella Last's Peace, having read the first book a while ago, and gosh, she works so hard. I'd like to understand what her routine is but she does so much, what with cooking from scratch, bottling, meal planning etc but it's the cleaning - why does she do so much? Even before she goes out for a drive on Sundays she has a dust and vac round, and seems to do that most days as well as other cleaning, then has a cleaner in each week and they work together. With only her and her awful husband, I can't see how the house needed it. There's only one open fire, the rest are electric radiators so not much dust from that.

Were they really so much cleaner/houseproud than me in those days or was it just not necessary? No wonder she always felt she needed a rest, but still she fits masses more into the day than I ever could. I feel very ashamed at how lazy I am!

Liz

FairyPrincessk

Hi Liz,

I'm also a fan of the books taken from her MO letters. I do think cleaning was more frequent than it is now. Some of it is probably a change in standards, but some of it is also probably that she had fewer labour saving devices. Her husband also had a rather 'dirty' job so he probably brought in dirt as well on his clothes or shoes. I get the impression that her paid help helped her with heavy tasks--changing beds etc. While the rest of her tasks were on some sort of rotation. She mentions cleaning brasses on some days, but those won't be the same days she does bottling or makes cakes. Some days I think she must have only had time for a quick wipe round given her volunteering schedule and her walks to the shops.

I'm also struck by her meals. I found myself often thinking 'oh, that sounds lovely.' I realized it DOES sound nicer if you list bread and butter along with tea or coffee etc. Bear in mind she might serve the same cake and gingerbread a couple of days running.

cheerfulness4

I love the Nella Last diaries, too. It might also be a consideration that she did have nervous troubles so that might even have been a factor with the cleaning. Just a thought.


I also found her meals a joy to read and perhaps quite helpful. Her very simple meals where she included puddings with maybe a smaller main were quite enlightening.


I have all three of her books although I can't remember the 1950's one so well. I think I'll get them out later today for a re-read.


Do you know of any other diaries that are as interesting to read as Nella's? There seems a few about but I've read none.

Snorkypants

cheerfulness4 wrote: »

I love the Nella Last diaries, too. It might also be a consideration that she did have nervous troubles so that might even have been a factor with the cleaning. Just a thought.


I also found her meals a joy to read and perhaps quite helpful. Her very simple meals where she included puddings with maybe a smaller main were quite enlightening.


I have all three of her books although I can't remember the 1950's one so well. I think I'll get them out later today for a re-read.


Do you know of any other diaries that are as interesting to read as Nella's? There seems a few about but I've read none.[/QUOTE]


Cheerfulness, I'm reading Our Hidden Lives at the moment, it's 5 peoples mass observation diaries in the post war period. It's interesting but I'm not enjoying it as much as Nella Last's War. With 5 peoples diary's all mixed together I'm finding that I'm not getting attached to any of them. I'll finish it though, it holds my attention.


At the end of my (library) copy of Nella Last's War there was a list of other Mass Observation diary based books, which is how I found Our Hidden Lives.

THIRZAH

I love the books too . I can't think how she did it all even with help once a week. She did send sheets etc to the laundry and seems to have had some food delivered but she made all her own bread and cakes as well as many of her clothes. No wonder she complained of feeling tired at times!

Eliza_2

THIRZAH wrote: »

I love the books too . I can't think how she did it all even with help once a week.

That's the thing, it's not so much how she did it but why she did it that interests me. She had a vac, a fridge, a cooker, used the excellent laundry, had a cleaner and so on. I understand about the cooking and the nightmare of getting hold of the ingredients she needed - how many of us these days would be able to do all that queuing?

Having been stung into doing something after reading the book for an hour and a half this afternoon (first day off in 2 weeks - yay!) I hoovered (sorry, vac-ed) and dusted downstairs, then washed my large living/kitchen/dining floor. (on hands and knees) It didn't take long and looked no better than it did when I last did it, on Saturday after my guests had left. So what was the point? I'm thinking I might as well leave the hoover (vac) in the middle of the floor cos I'll need it again tomorrow.

I even scrubbed one of the shelves in the kitchen cupboard and cleaned the fridge. I made several containers of soup and a little tea of 2 sausages, sweet apple slices and broccoli from the garden with a good onion gravy. No semolina or steamed pud sadly. None of that took long in itself and the soup cooked as I vac-ed.

I spoke with my 89 yr old mother the other day and she laughed when she remembered all the pointless housework she did. Scrubbing the bath when someone was coming to coffee - if they needed the loo they could use the downstairs one and certainly wouldn't be taking a bath. Which was spotless anyway as we were all taught to swish it round after using it so it hardly needed cleaning ever. As a child I could never understand it, and in retrospect neither can she now!

I love Nella's philosophising on the role of women and marriage etc. Really modern thinking, I'd love to see some of her original entries.

GreyQueen

I remember reading about the Scottish lady from the How Clean is Your House duo in an intro to one of their books reminiscing about how her mother used to spend hours cleaning their family home, even unto daily polishing of the lino. As if it was a virtue instead of unbalanced.

I think a lot of housework was in fact busywork, more about keeping the women occupied than doing anything to contribute to the appearance or utility of the home. Yes, there would have been more and harder housework with coal fires making a lot of soot and dust, and laundry was much much harder than it is now with automatic washing machines. But a lot of it had to have been nothing more than busywork.

Heavens, imagine that women might have spent a couple of hours a day with their feet up reading, how outrageous would that have been?

I'm always amused by the remark that someone's kitchen floor was clean enough to eat off; we have had plates wherever I've been, no matter how poor we were.;)

Mr_Singleton

GreyQueen wrote: »

Heavens, imagine that women might have spent a couple of hours a day with their feet up reading, how outrageous would that have been?

Exactly the man would be thinking "I knew I shouldn't have bought her that dishwasher!"

Eliza_2

Mr_Singleton wrote: »

Exactly the man would be thinking "I knew I shouldn't have bought her that dishwasher!"

Haha! Love it. When you think of how hard we women work now, we've somehow managed to fill the gap caused by less cleaning. After all we work full time, we study, we raise our lovely children and grandchildren, we support aged parents, we dig our allotments, we care for our chickens, we maintain our cars, we are queens of flatpack kitchen units and Billy bookcases, we watch telly and spend hours on our laptops etc - and still our floors are clean enough to eat semolina off and of course, many of us on here like to do things the 'old way'. And still statistics show women do most of the childrearing, cleaning, household management in general!

I'm thinking of writing my own diary for publication in 50 years time - I wonder what women - and men - would think of that? Would they look back on me with the same fondness that I have for Nella? I can't imagine it but neither could Nella imagine why anyone would want to read about an ordinary housewife, 49.

I'll start - It is a truth universally acknowledged that as a single woman in possession of big boobs in 1966 I burnt my bra.

50 years later - has it made any difference to men and women's lives? Discuss.

GreyQueen

I'm 50. And it pleases me greatly when I hear women in their twenties and thirties declare that they've never ironed anything in their life. I feel like jumping with joy whenever I hear that, or see a posting of a donation of iron and ironing board on Freegle and wonder if another Slave to Flatness is casting-off her shackles.

Housework expands to fill the time you have to do it. If you don't have much time, you have to be more efficient, or more slovenly. A very hardworking woman I know(career nurse, no children, many voluntary activities) has managed to keep a spotless home by being ruthlessly decluttered. Even in retirement, she doesn't spend much time on housework and her place is always spotless and orderly and she's nearly always gadding about with friends.

If you don't own it, you don't have to dust it, maintain it, fret about it. When I had a water leak last month my non-existant carpet wasn't figuring in the clean up. The more Stuff, the more elabourate furnishings we have, the more work we condemn ourselves do doing.

You only live once, so don't spend it fretting about cleaning; idleness isn't a sin, it's the natural state of human beans.

Floss

Don't forget that Nella's books were written before the Clean Air Act, so there would have been much more airborne dust from smoke and non-tarmac roads than nowadays. Houses were generally heated by coal or coke, not gas.