2024 Fashion On The Ration Challenge

florianatwobob

@Cherryfudge I still have horsehair binding some of my plaster! 

Laura_Elsewhere

The whole of my parents' house is still going to have horsehair binding the plaster, throughout... 

But I *think* horsehair can only be used for stuffing things absolutely rigid, hard-packed, hence all the childhood memories in books of slipping off the horsehair sofa when their legs were too short to brace against the ground- the seats were rock-hard and slippery, not at all soft. 

PipneyJane

thriftwizard said:

It was in the ceilings, too, as we discovered when ours fell on us in bed in about 1986... one way to get me out of bed on a Sunday morning!

That must have been quite a shock @thriftwizard!

- Pip

florianatwobob

As Pip said @thriftwizard that would’ve been a shock. I had part of one of our bedroom ceilings decide to part ways with the lath whilst I was standing under it a few years ago. I jumped back about 4 feet!

The plaster in parts of my house is well and truly blown and remains standing  upright through habit but, it’s at least 87 years old, I’ll appreciate its longevity. The hall/stairs/landing has been replaced recently and the living room is up next. One of the bedrooms was overboarded pre 1965 and probably needs looking at at some point too….as do some of the floorboards. I’m certainly better acquainted with 1930s (and earlier) building techniques than I was before 2018. 

Cherryfudge

I'm surprised you weren't at least treated for shock, @thriftwizard! What a rude awakening! Hopefully the ceiling was the only thing damaged?

Lord Peter fans: I'm progressing through Clouds of Witness and discovered to my delight that a room mentioned therein is part of one of the areas I've been through at work. I was there about five minutes.   Don't crowd me now: autographs will be given in an orderly manner.  

thriftwizard

Thank you, ladies, we recovered swiftly once we'd stopped screaming, then laughing - it was all pretty lightweight, if somewhat lumpy & hairy. IIRC (it was a long time ago) we were already awake, just perusing the Sunday papers in bed with a cup of coffee.

CapricornLass

As good as the time when OH was woken up by a gentle drop on water falling on his head - one of the water pipes in the loft had sprung a (gentle) leak.....

Wraithlady

Laura_Elsewhere said:

annieb64 said:

Has anyone read Jill Paton Walsh's Lord Peter Wimsey novels ?

I have- I was tremendously excited by the first one, much of which was written by DLS, and I still do re-read it. But I don't think the estate should ahve permitted her to write subsequent ones as I think they are so poor and poorly-researched as to be unreadable. I have tried. I have tried reading, and I have tried audiobooks of them in case that was less bad, but no, they are just awful. 
Things like a village having an air-raid practice at using the pub-cellar as the bomb-shelter, yes, that's fine, that makes sense- but the idea that, when one of the choirboys pipes up with "Hitler has only got one ball," the response from Lady Peter and the Vicar's wife is that they smile and laugh as the entire village sings it through, twice, just strikes me as really off-key. Not because I think Harriet or the Vicar's wife are prudes or humourless (although
Harriet certainly is normally shown as quite reserved in public), but because both of them were women who were well aware that they were representatives of their husband's jobs, and that in a public setting, they had a public function to fulfil, a role to play, and in the early 1940s, I have not found anything to suggest that boundaries broke down in that way, and from reading DLS's books over and over, I have never found any indication that those two women- or the Vicar- would have just joined in the laughter. I think they would have tactfully withdrawn themselves and moved right away to the far end of the cellar, or gone to find something to do, fussed about with the tea-urn, checked on the sleeping children, just something so that they were not a part of the group singing, which is described as "everyone". 
Times were different then, and I do not believe JPW has done enough research to write a convincing period book, not even when she had bits of it in detailed note form from DLS' wartime 'Wimsey Papers' letters. 

I really did try- for one thing, I really *wanted* to have more books to spend more time with them. 

But no. 

But of course, others loive them- just really not for me. 

I totally agree - I read the first one and Peter and Harriet were tying themselves in knots and trying to get Bunter to be their 'social equal' in a way which was, quite frankly, incredibly and clunkily anachronistic - and completely uncharacteristic for both them and the time it was supposed to be set in. I didn't bother with the rest.

florianatwobob

I’d forgotten about that @Wraithlady but that did bug me when I attempted to read the first of the follow on books. Everyone just felt uncomfortable in their ‘new’ social positions. 

In the original books both Peter & Bunter had an appreciation of each other’s job a responsibilities to each other. It very much felt like a partnership that expanded to include Harriet and everyone had genuine respect for each other. 

All this Wimsey talk has prompted me to repurchase, secondhand, some of the books. Someone had scandalously written 20p in huge numerals in felt pen on the cover of one of the books!!!!!! I had the nail polish remover out to address that graffiti! 

florianatwobob

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