1940’s general | Yesterday Remembered

1940S WEEKEND AT HUGHENDEN MANOR

Scrapbook it Comment

Janet Toms got a grey wooden kangaroo for Christmas in 1942. The story behind it concerns Polish battleships, Cowes harbour, and great heroism. When it comes to regrets, I am definitely with Frank Sinatra rather than Edith Piaf; regrets, I have a few. Mostly they aren’t of the life-changing variety but from time to time […]

KANGAROO FOR CHRISTMAS

Scrapbook it Comment

The practice of squatting – people taking over and occupying empty premises – goes back for centuries, sometimes through desperation for a home and sometimes as a political protest. The highly publicised squats of the 1960s and 1970s were simply a revival of a longstanding British tradition, previously seen on a large scale in 1946. […]

Squatting in the cold

Scrapbook it Comment

One night over Berlin

Scrapbook it Comment

Jimmy Ryan knocked upon our front door one morning just before Christmas in 1947, snow clinging to his black moustache like icing on a cake. “Room to rent have you, me darlin’s?” he said, taking off his shiny leather cap and winking at me as I clung on to Ma’s apron. Ma quickly pushed me […]

The new arrival

Scrapbook it Comment

AS A child born in Crewe at the end of WWII, we didn’t have many toys to play with, and a lot was left to our imagination. We would make what we called ‘winter warmers’. These were made from a brick-sized block of clay that was readily found in all our gardens. The centre was […]

Winter warmers

Scrapbook it Comment

A Childhood in the East End

Scrapbook it Comment

Hot Pants Ahead of Fashion

Scrapbook it Comment

When you look at snapshots and films of the 1940s it’s immediately apparent that most of the population was lean. Arguably this was due to the way we then lived, devoid of the technology which came later. Manual work, even house chores were taken on with the perverbial ‘elbow grease’ still in fitting with the […]

The Lean Forties

Scrapbook it Comment

Round about Christmas time 1943 I found an advertisement for “Educated women with yachting experience and a knowledge of engines” to apply to Bristol, where I then went for an interview and was told that it was “to learn to cox the power boats in Poole Harbour as it was expected that the male coxswains […]

Sea Time with BOAC 1944-45

Scrapbook it Comment

Cosy Kitchen Memories

Scrapbook it Comment

Christmas -a time for the family

Scrapbook it Comment

When walking around any High Street chemist’s store these days, it’s easy to become confused with the vast array of hair care products available. From the basic shampoo and conditioner to the more mystifying gels and volumisers, there are hundreds of preparations promising to colour, repair, enhance or transform our crowning glory. Likewise, when visiting […]

I can’t – I’m washing my hair!

Scrapbook it Comment

After leaving school in 1943, I was apprenticed to my uncle, the proprietor of a ladies and gentlemen’s’ hairdressing salon in London’s Piccadilly Hotel. For my starting wage of 2/6d per week, my many duties included manicuring (both ladies and gents); shampooing (ladies only) and assisting the ladies’ hairdressers in pin-curling – an obsolete method […]

Commuting with Niven

Scrapbook it Comment

DAD’S HOME-COMING

Scrapbook it Comment

There were 26 rooms in the old vicarage without counting dairy, outhouses, stables, pigscot, hen houses and the pumping house. It has been tidied up now, bought by a developer, with the lead stripped from 19th century outbuildings and only the original early 18th century elegance remaining. But, way back, when we shared it, all […]

A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE

Scrapbook it Comment

MY PIPE SMOKING ‘SHAWLIE’

Scrapbook it Comment

WASTE NOT, WANT NOT

Scrapbook it Comment

MY VERY FIRST JOB

Scrapbook it Comment

I found myself alone in a crowd. It was late November, 1943. I don’t remember the exact date but will never be able to forget the experience. I was making my first ever visit to war-time London. It was cold and misty and I was feeling very apprehensive. Everything was in sharp contrast. I had […]

A POIGNANT INVlTATlON

Scrapbook it Comment