'A Woman's Place....'

I love looking through old books, especially those based on home and lifestyle with fascinating photographs accompanying the text. I recently bought a large 1950's book entitled 'The Happy Home', which is 'An indispensable guide for all housewives and home lovers who are best served by choosing GAS for domestic purposes'!

Its fun to see how some things have changed within our homes over the decades, but also how much has stayed the same. (I would quite like a pair of those pink flamingo curtains myself!)

We don't have a dishwasher at home - I still prefer to do the dishes in the sink with my trusty bristle brush and wooden drainer!

And red gingham features pretty heavily too! I love how my own mother's first kitchen had red gingham curtians and a red formica dining table and here I am with the same look.

Above this mother's fridge hangs a 'Memory Tickler' to make grocery shopping lists easy to remember.

I think my old rusty version is a Victorian one, going by some of the items on the list: black lead, suet, tapioca, soda, dripping, coal, boot polish and oil! So I don't use it and usually walk up and down the isles of the supermarket, hoping my memory will be tickled that way!!

And I do have a cream coloured cooker, but it's not as smart as this one...
A fabulous gas cooker with plenty of space for the Christmas dinner and gleaming copper saucepans bubbling away on the hob.

Of course every housewife needed a pinny or housecoat to protect her clothes beneath, with hair tied up out of the way in a gaily printed headscarf.

'The housewife can 'look her best' when acting as her own cook'.

(They were always in high-heeled shoes, weren't they?!)

Its good to see that some things have changed though. I don't think I would still like to be doing the family laundry using a gas washing machine with attached wringer....even if my kitchen did look this pretty.....

But it looks like we have always washed eiderdowns at home, drying them on the washing line outside.

And I still look out for these PVC hanging wardrobes to add to my website catalogue when I can. The 1950's printed covers are always so cheerful.

Finally, although this book does have 'jobs for the boys', I was quite pleased to see that it was the woman of the house who was hanging the polka dot wallpaper!

(Even if she is wearing high-heeled shoes!)

Niki x

Updated 9.30am Friday. I have received an email this morning bringing to my attention that 'real life' in the 50's may not have been this perfect.

It wasn't my intention to make light of or to offend anyone with this post. I am all too aware that things were very hard for most during the 1940's/50's.

My paternal grandmother lived in Lancashire where life was particularly hard and my maternal grandmother lived in Hertfordshire, where she actually had an even tougher life.

My Nanna still lives in a similar way to the book, in the same house that she has lived in all her life; she is in her 90’s. I am, of course, very aware that things were hard for her when she was bringing up my mother and my uncle who had polio, on her own during the war.

My blog is there as a light-hearted accompaniment to my website. I deal in vintage goods and like to reflect some of the items I have on my website, on my blog.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to recycle goods from the past, especially when we live in a far from perfect, throw away world today......
I am sorry that things were so hard for many growing up during this era, and still can be today for people all around the world.

This blog post was only meant as a fun report of an old book that I recently purchased (certainly not written with envy – I’m sorry if it came across that way) – please don’t think that I am not aware of what really went on for most of the population.

Niki