Back In time For Tea

phizzimum

Did anyone else watch Back In Time For Tea on the BBC this week?

It’s the same format as Back In Time For Dinner but focusing on the diet of working class families in the North.

This week they took the family from 1918 to 1939

Farway

I watched, seemed a bit rushed from the previous format, not a lot of background details.

The oft repeated "Northern grit" also got on my nerves

nanto3girls

I watched it. it was interesting.


The bacon,onion and suet roly poly looked gross.

lucyhope

I watched it and really enjoyed it (a northener!) The Mum seemed more clued up regarding cooking as the Mum in Back In Time for Dinner, and the family seemed to enjoy it more. I agree nanto3girls the roly poly did look gross, I've never had it but my OH said he did as a child and it tasted as gross as it looked! Tripe is absolutly NOT on my bucket list of foods to try though, I would rather have gone hungry.

Siebrie

I'm Dutch and I really enjoy these 'Back in Time for ...' series. This family seems lovely, lots of laughter and working together.

phizzimum

I thought that too Farway - didnt they take it a year at a time before?

The only time I made rolypoly pudding it was a slimy mess too!

PasturesNew

I watched it. It was a more rushed format, without further lifestyle detailing that the FBINFD series showed.

I was surprised that they had a whole house to themselves and it was quite "lower middle class" looking to me. I bet the real working class were living in smaller grotty houses and without so many of the extras in life, like getting a radio so early, or cupboards full of branded goods.

As for the bacon/onion roly poly, that should've been steamed to be better than it was.

They did say that men and women worked full-time and the woman still had to come home and do all the shopping/cooking. What they didn't say was that she'd have probably had some help from children collecting groceries, or grocery boys delivering groceries, or family/neighbours helping out. Back then I bet your sister lived 2 doors up, brother 3 doors down, aunt across the road, gran round the corner, other uncle 2 streets away .... and there was a lot more "mucking in" as everybody was local and so they'd have had a lot more inter-dependence for borrowing things, doing things for each other, collecting/delivering things etc.

We weren't northerners, but I know my mum (brought up by her gran, as was her cousin) had her aunt/cousins living next door, her mother/step-father/kids living round the corner, 6 other uncles/aunts living within one mile, 6 great aunts living within half a mile, 6 more a mile away .... and all their families of 6-8 kids in the area too working/passing and available for errands. If you stepped outside the door, too, all the neighbours had lived in the houses 20-30 years so you knew all of them and their kids and their relations (who were probably related as your grandfather's sister married their granny).

Everybody used to run errands back then for everybody else, it's how you lived and got things done. "Run this down to ..." "Go and pick up...."

My mum used to run the pies across to the bakehouse for her aunts/gran and then pick them up as they didn't have an oven.

Owain_Moneysaver

I liked tripe and onions as a child, and that roly poly should have been steamed not boiled.

That's not a pasta maker, that's a mangle.

blackcatsx2

I enjoyed it too and I thought the family were very nice with a sense of fun but some attempt to understand how tough times could be. The format didn’t really allow enough time for the bigger context to be explored - we didn’t see how busy a mum would be just keeping the family fed and clothed.
I felt it sort of implied that it was tough in the north but much, much easier in the south which is probably not completely accurate.
I’d rather have had the roly poly than the tripe or the rabbit!

Floss

The family were working class this time, so experienced being on the Dole and being means tested.

Their home was typical of 10% housing costs - 2 up, 2 down - as can be seen at Beamish, St Fagans or Ironbridge museums. Front room with 2 chairs, a clippy rug, grandma's china dogs & grandfather's clock, a back kitchen & privy.

I guess things like no local jobs for the girls during the Depression, and 40% unemployment in Durham were things that would not have been on the radar of the middle class southern family with their (northern) domestic servant.

skintmumof3

This programme irked me a little as it was no different for the working classes down south.....the depression hit everywhere
Two up/down houses were the norm, my grandmother was sent up to Cheshire (from Swindon) to enter into service at the age of 14.., tales of my grandad having to put newspaper in his shoes when they had holes in, having little food on the table etc. Southern grit existed exactly the same as northern grit also everybody rallying around with close knit communites.....my family hail from the Swindon area and things for the working classes were exactly the same..........tough!!!
For a social history programme I felt this was a little biased.....