Categories
1900-1949 Women

Suffragette Tea Shop, 1913

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act, most famously giving some women the right to vote, on a number of conditions. But it wasn’t just women that benefitted from the heroism of the suffragettes and voting reform campaigners – the Act also opened up the enfranchisement of all men aged 21 and over, resulting in 5.6 million more men able to vote, alongside the newly-enfranchised 8.4 million women.

The conditions for women allowed those 30 years old and older to vote, if they were a member or else married to a member of the Local Government Register, a property owner, or a graduate voting in a University constituency. Overnight, even under these conditions, women became 43% of the electorate. Due to the loss of so many young men in the First World War, had women also been enfranchised from age 21, they would have made up the majority, which was probably a key reason for the age difference. Women eventually received the vote on the same terms as men in 1928.

I remain in awe of the bravery of the suffragettes. These were women deciding to break the law and suffer the harsh consequences in support of their cause, while societal pressures built up all around them. This small article from 1913 is a tiny glimpse into the day to day pressures of being a suffragist at this time. Dated 4th March 1913, it immediately precedes momentous events – the Cat and Mouse Act was passed in April 1913, following outcries at the brutal force feeding of imprisoned women on hunger strike. Now hunger-striking women were allowed to be released when their health deteriorated, and rearrested after they had recovered. And in June 1913, Emily Wilding Davison died a few days after being trampled by the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby, receiving hate mail in hospital as she lay unconscious.

The Westminster Tea Shop was run by the Women’s Social and Political Union (W.S.P.U.), the militant suffragette organisation led by Emmeline Pankhurst. The headline plays up the student high jinks and the “amusing scenes” that resulted, although it’s hard to see the humour in forty to fifty male students descending on two young women running a small tea shop and behaving in a threatening manner, no matter how amusing they may have thought themselves at the time. The women stood up for themselves and come across so well as to surprisingly earn a rather approving write up of their manner.

Nottingham Evening Post, 4th March 1913
Nottingham Evening Post, 4th March 1913

UPROARIOUS STUDENTS

AMUSING SCENES IN A SUFFRAGIST TEA SHOP

A number of students made a hostile demonstration yesterday afternoon at the Westminster Tea Shop, a small café carried on under the auspices of the W.S.P.U. in Toothill Street, Westminster.

Forty or fifty in number, the students approached the café shouting and booing, and on entering the premises created a disturbance by banging walking sticks upon the tables and shouting “Do you women want the vote?” a question which they answered with an emphatic “No.” There were only two young women in charge of the tea shop at the time, but they appear to have dealt with the situation in a remarkably cool manner, one of them informing the students that they must calm themselves or they would not get the tea they asked for.

Eventually tea was served, but the students still behaved uproariously, and threatened to smash the windows. Meanwhile a message had been telephoned to the police, and the arrival of a body of about 20 police had the effect of quelling the disorder, without any damage being inflicted on the property. Before the young men left, the young lady in charge of the shop ventured to address them in a few words in support of women’s suffrage, and her remarks were punctuated with cheers and boos. A large crowd gathered round the premises.

Categories
1900-1949 Food & Drink

Mince on toast, 1935

You may have heard about this week’s light-hearted thing – the concept of mince on toast, alleged by an American site, Eater.com, to be a quintessential British comfort food classic, here – Mince on toast.

It’s not, obviously, although it is a New Zealand thing, apparently.

I mean, it sounds OK, especially with some melted cheese, and anything on toast is pretty British to be honest. As is anything to do with mince. But a classic it’s not, or even an actual meal you planned to make, rather than improvised on the spot in a way that you wouldn’t tell anyone else about. We’ve only just got over Delia’s tinned mince too. Still, though, it sounds old-fashioned and a bit wartime and frugal, so maybe it’s inadvertently just the thing for post-Brexit Britain to adopt. And, luckily, here we are, already provided with a recipe fresh from the good old days.

It’s a recipe for invalids – my favourite genre of historical recipe, as the reader of this blog will know.

Obviously, obviously, no invalid recipe section is complete without at least one nauseating dish. May I present Liver Soup:

And just to make this extra topical, given the new Doctor Who announcement tomorrow (Ben Willbond, Ben Willbond, Ben Willbond), there’s fish with custard too:

And here’s the mince on toast we all know and love. Doesn’t sound too bad, if you don’t actually mince the steak, and replace the toast with a nice baguette like the unrepentant Remoaner that I am.

Of course, the obvious serving suggestion is to surround it with boiled rice. Of course.

Categories
1900-1949

July 1st, 1790

If you look back throughout history there’s always people nostalgic about “the good old days”. They’re usually found about 50 years ago, within living memory for the older generation, yet not too far away for those younger ones to imagine a simpler time. The British summer though, no matter what you remember about 1976, has generally always been a bit of a disappointment, and/or a confusing mish mash of all the weathers.

Having just spent a full week of digging winter jumpers out, endless drizzle and bad hair days, I consulted my Weather Calendar book from 1919, a compendium of quotes about weather for every day of the year. July 1st focussed on Walpole (as do around a quarter of the other days of the year, he was evidently a prolific weather-commenter in the great British tradition).

Climate change aside, it’s quite comforting to see the continuity of British weather. “Surely it was some traveller that first propagated the idea of summer,” is a quote for the ages.

Categories
1900-1949

Experiment to Last 90 Years, 1930

In the mid-80s I went on a school trip to Hastings, as we were learning about 1066 and all that. One thing which captured my imagination and stuck in my memory (or, at least, I think it did) was visiting a cave with an arrow sticking out of the wall. The guide told us it marked the spot where a chronicle (a copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle perhaps?) was hidden, one which marked the Battle of Hastings and the death of King Harold. The hole in the wall would be opened in the year 2000 – very carefully, as the contents could crumble into dust once the air was let in.

How frustrating this was. 2000 was over 15 years away, an impossibly long time for an 8 year old to wait. But not as frustrating as the fact that, looking over the internet now, I can find no trace of this great opening, or reference to the cave at all. Did it really happen? Was it invented especially for kids on school trips? Was it like that time I went on a ghost tour of Chester, which actually consisted of the guide quite obviously making his own stories up as we went round. Challenged by one of our party at the end, he was happy to admit it, “Just a bit of fun, isn’t it?” He thought, well, ghosts aren’t real so what does it matter what I tell them? But he missed the point. Taking such a tour is really all about learning about real events that happened in local history, to discover and imagine moments which took place where you are standing right now. The ghosts are merely a garnish, and you don’t need to believe in them to enjoy the history and atmosphere. Unless someone has the ghost story skills of M. R. James, paying for a man to lead you around saying whatever nonsense pops into his head is just a waste of time.

Anyway, that’s all a bit of a digression by way of explaining how interested I was to read the below article. A very long-term experiment was due to begin in 1930 at Rothamsted, I saw in a copy of the Dundee Courier from the 6th August of that year. Meaning it was due to finish in the very near future of 2020. No waiting for years to find out the result!

Dundee Courier, 6th August 1930
Dundee Courier, 6th August 1930

Rothampstead agricultural experimental station, or Rothamsted Research as it’s now called,  is one of the oldest agricultural research institutions in the world, dating its origin to 1843. They run long term experiments, very long term in some cases – the Park Grass Experiment, measuring the effects of fertiliser on hay yields has been running since 1856. This 90-year experiment was to cover the effects of 15 different types of fertiliser on 5 different crops, all the combinations of which would account for the long timescale.

I wrote to Rothamsted to ask them about it. They were fantastic in their fast response, but it turned out that not only was the experiment no longer running, but no scientists there could even find out what the experiment was that this article was referring to. I guess this means that it was stopped a long time ago, maybe disrupted by the Second World War or for some other reason it turned out not to be viable. The reason, anyway, now lost in time.

Categories
1900-1949 Food & Drink

Lobscouse and Witches, 1936

Today is the day for “Lobscouse and Witches” as I discovered from this magical-sounding 1936 article. The 11th January 1936 being a Saturday, it’s talking about Tuesday 7th January, the day after Twelfth Night. The day when an old-fashioned Northern tradition apparently meant that people ate lobscouse, drank lamb’s wool and set fire to their wheat to scare witches away.

Bath Chronicle, 11th January 1936
Bath Chronicle, 11th January 1936

Living in Liverpool, I am well acquainted with lobscouse. These days it’s simply called scouse, a beef or lamb (or both) stew for which every family had their own recipe. Being an adopted Liverpudlian, I had to create my own, and after a few attempts, this is now my family recipe. I prefer the old-fashioned taste of an oxo cube here.

Scouse
350g each of cubed beef and lamb
2 onions
Squirt of brown sauce
Squirt of tomato ketchup
5 large carrots, chopped
1.5-2 kg King Edward potatoes, in small and larger chunks
Dash of Worcestershire sauce
4 oxo cubes
Water to cover

  • Brown the meat in oil, add the onions and soften slightly.
  • Stir in a good squirt of both ketchup and brown sauce.
  • Add the rest of the vegetables, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, crumble the Oxo cubes on top and add enough water to cover.
  • Simmer for two hours, adding more water if needed. The smaller pieces of potato will have disintegrated to thicken the stew.
  • Serve with pickled red cabbage and bread and butter.
Bowl of Scouse
Bowl of Scouse

Lamb’s Wool is something I’ve never tried before – it’s spiced apple pulp mulled with sugar and ale. I used the recipe from the Oakden recipe archive. The origin of its name is a matter of debate. In the article above, it comes from “Lamb of God”.  But other explanations suggest it comes from either the wooly-looking froth on top of the ale, or as a derivative of the ancient Celtic pagan festival of La mas ubal, meaning ‘Day of the Apple Fruit’.

I used Ghost Ship ale for this, the name appeals to me ever since my investigations into the Ourang Medan. I also made a non-alcoholic version using ginger ale, but you don’t need the extra sugar for that. Together the scouse and the lamb’s wool are quite a combination to keep the winter chill out.

Lamb’s Wool
1.5 Litres of real ale or cider
6 small cooking apples, cored
1 nutmeg freshly grated
1 tsp ground ginger
150g brown sugar

  • Preheat the oven to 120C, core the apples and bake for about an hour on a lightly greased baking tray, until pulpy and the skins come easily away.
  • In a large saucepan add the sugar, cover in a small amount of the ale or cider and heat gently. Stir continuously until the sugar has dissolved. Then add in the ground ginger and grate in the whole of the nutmeg. Stir, and keeping the pan on a gentle simmer, slowly add in all the rest of the ale. Leave for 10 minutes on a gentle heat.
  • Take the baked apples out of the oven to cool slightly for 10 minutes – they should now be soft and pulpy. Scoop out the baked flesh into a bowl, discarding the skin. Then take a fork and mash this apple pulp up, while it is still warm, into a smooth purée with no lumps. Add the apple purée into the ale, mixing it in with a whisk.
  • Let the saucepan continue to warm everything through for thirty minutes, on a very gentle heat, until ready to drink. When warmed through use the whisk again for a couple of minutes (or use a stick blender) to briskly and vigorously froth the drink up and mix everything together. The apple and light froth will float to the surface, and depending on how much you have whisked it, the more it looks like lamb’s wool. Note: to traditionally froth drinks up they were normally poured continuously between two large serving jugs to get air into the drink.
  • Ladle the hot Lambswool into heat-proof mugs or glasses and grate over some nutmeg, or pour the drink into a communal bowl (with several thick pieces of toast in the bottom) to pass around if wassailing.
And a glass of Lamb’s Wool
Categories
1900-1949 Adverts Food & Drink

Cadbury’s “99”, 1936

Today’s post began through a fit of annoyance that literally every flavour of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream contains eggs, thereby making a trip to the cinema with my egg-allergic little girl an ice-cream free zone. And it ended with a minor dairy-based historical discovery and an ultimately unfulfilled quest.

So, I was looking up which ice creams contained eggs when I stumbled on the website for The Ice Cream Alliance, and an interesting little section on the wonder that is the Cadbury’s “99”. The “99” being a delicacy that Wikipedia tells me is enjoyed not only in Britain, but also Ireland, South Africa and Australia, and, I need hardly say for British readers, consists of a cone of soft-serve ice-cream, garnished with a specially-sized flake chocolate bar.

I was forced to go to the park and buy one for illustrative purposes at this point.

Yes, it was nice, thank you
Yes, it was very nice, thank you

Here’s the facts, as we know them. Why is a “99” called a “99”? Good question. It’s a Cadbury’s trademark to describe “a scoop or swirl of soft serve ice cream with a Cadbury chocolate flake in it,” yet no one is clear about the original meaning of the name, including, apparently, Cadbury’s.

From www.ice-cream.org
From www.ice-cream.org

What’s that? A tiny historical mystery, you say? I’m on the case!

The Ice Cream Alliance says Cadbury’s is cagey about the origins of the “99”. Wikipedia at least gives some dates, stating that the “99” as we know it now, cone, ice cream and Flake and all, has been served since 1922.

Although, come on, the Screwball isn’t really a “99” in a plastic cone. There’s a crucial ball of bubblegum at the bottom, and definitely sauce and/or sherbet involved.

From Wikipedia
From Wikipedia

 

An aside – red sauce on a “99”, Wikipedia tells me, is called “monkey blood” in some regions, which is exciting. This is my reference point for sauce on an ice-cream though – “I didn’t ask for sauce.” “I didn’t give you sauce.”

Anyway. Both Wikipedia and Cadbury’s own website date the origin of the Flake itself from 1920, when a Cadbury’s employee shrewdly noted how excess chocolate fell off the moulds in a drizzly, thin, flakey layer. Unfortunately I can find no evidence of adverts in any archives until the 1930s and even Cadbury’s website illustrates the invention of the Flake with a 1960s ad.

What I did find, though, was this. Brand new information – to me at least, and also apparently to Wikipedia and the Ice Cream Alliance, seeing as there’s no mention of it anywhere else I’ve seen. From the British Newspaper Archive, a fairly extensive campaign in 1936 advertising the new invention of the “99”, within adverts for Flake.

Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 8th July 1936
Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 8th July 1936

It’s obviously a newish thing in 1936 because the hook line is “Have you tried a 99?” Importantly, though, this 99 is not a 99! It’s an ice cream wafer sandwich with two strips of ice cream and a Flake in the middle. Your confectioner will be happy to provide.

Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 8th July 1936
Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 8th July 1936

Now it seems unlikely to me that in 1922 the “99” came into being, fully formed as we know it today, only to be replaced by something different in 1936, presented as new, and then reverted back at some unspecified point. PLUS, there wasn’t even soft-serve ice cream in the UK until the 1940s, hence this 1936 concoction consisting of ice cream blocks. Depending on who you believe, Maggie Thatcher may or may not have had a hand in developing soft serve for the British market. Which has put me off it a bit.

Still, though, I can’t find mention of this anywhere else, and, you know, maybe Cadbury’s has even forgotten it themselves. I still haven’t got to the bottom of it, but if any readers have any memories of “99” which are different to today, please let me know.

Sussex Agricultural Express, 3rd July 1936
Sussex Agricultural Express, 3rd July 1936
Sussex Agricultural Express, 3rd July 1936
Sussex Agricultural Express, 3rd July 1936
Categories
1900-1949

A Burglary Comedy, 1933

Do people still have “spirit guides”? They used to be pretty popular among fraudulent Victorian mediums, stage psychics and Jim Morrison in that film about The Doors.

They’re usually supposed to be helpful, I thought, but not this one, who encouraged the excitingly named phrenologist Cosmo Leon Kendal to reveal his previous conviction for shooting at a police officer during his trial for inciting to cheat an insurance company. His counsel advised him not to reveal he’d been in prison for 14 years for the former offence, but “he said he had been guided by the spirit world to lay his past frankly before the jury.” His argument was that the policeman investigating knew fine well of his past offence and he was being harassed on account of it – “I am a marked man.”

I suppose you could commend him for his honesty, but it was enough to help convince the jury he must be a wrong ‘un and he was convicted and sentenced to 12 months hard labour.

Edinburgh Evening News, 10th February 1933
Edinburgh Evening News, 10th February 1933

HIS SPIRIT GUIDE
——
PROMPTS MAN TO REVEAL PAST CONVICTION
——
A BURGLARY COMEDY

Cosmo Leon Kendal (43), described as a phrenologist, of Streatham, London, revealed in evidence at the Old Bailey today, that in 1911 he was sentenced to 14 years penal servitude for shooting at a police officer.

He was now charged with inciting another man to conspire with him to cheat and defraud an insurance company.

Mr S. T. T. James, defending, said that Kendal had revealed his 14 years sentence against the advice of counsel and solicitor. Mr James added: “He said he had been guided by the spirit world to lay his past frankly before the jury.”

It was alleged that Kendal asked another man to commit a burglary at his house, and promised him £10 when a claim was made on the insurance company. While Kendal was away expecting the man to commit the burglary, somebody else got in and removed a considerable quantity of goods. Kendal put in a claim for £514. The other man read of the burglary and told the police.

Kendal, after being sentenced to twelve months hard labour, made a statement. “On November 8,” he said “when Inspector Roberts called on me in reference to the burglary, he knew I was the man who shot Detective-Inspector Askew and had received a sentence of 14 years penal servitude. He was prejudiced and suspicious. I am a marked man.”

The Common Serjeant, Mr Holman Gregory, K.C., said that it was wholly untrue that a man who had been convicted was harassed by the police. “It was your own stupid conceit,” he added “which led you to tell the jury you had been previously convicted. Had you taken the legal advice given you, the jury would have known nothing about it.”

Kendal: Can I appeal?

The Common Serjeant: Yes.

Categories
1900-1949 Food & Drink Victorian

Allergies in the Past

Allergic reactions are on the increase in all parts of the developed world – asthma, hay-fever and food allergies are all more common than they used to be, although no-one has a definitive answer as to why this is. Increased use of antibiotics, the more processed nature of the food we eat, the general changes occurring in our natural environment – these are all put forward as potentially playing their part in making our immune system more sensitive to allergies.

Despite the higher visibility of allergies, such as the new nut-free policies developed in schools, there’s still a sense among some people that this is all a lot of old nonsense, that there weren’t allergies in the old days, and it’s the same thing as people self-diagnosing intolerances to various foodstuffs. As the mother of a little girl with alarming allergies to egg and mustard, people not taking the consequences of exposure to allergens seriously is terrifying. Going out to eat is a minefield – ask most serving staff about which food contains mustard in their menu and I guarantee they will tell you that they don’t have mustard in their food, unless something is specifically described as such – a ham and mustard sandwich, for example. Whereas, if you check their allergy information (if they indeed have it), you’ll find egg and mustard everywhere in the dressings and the flavourings.

This talk of allergies barely existing in the past got me thinking. It may be more common now, but I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t always there, in some way. By chance, I saw a newspaper article in the British Newspaper Archive which mentioned “nettle rash” and I almost passed over it, thinking it referred to an actual rash caused by stinging nettles. But it goes on to clarify that it refers to “some kind of food that disagrees with the sufferer” – so what would be called hives or uticaria now. “Opening medicine” is advised to be given, which I now know is another name for laxatives. Makes sense – it seems like everything could be cured by laxatives if you look at old adverts. But I can see the logic here in that the aim is to expel the offending foodstuff from the body as fast as you can.

The Sunderland Echo, 7th August 1934
The Sunderland Echo, 7th August 1934

“Nettle rash is often very alarming” this article says, and allergic reactions like this are scary to see. “This affection is almost invariably due to mistakes in diet, such as giving a child unripe fruit,” it says, which isn’t a cause of an allergic reaction that I’ve heard before. It sounds like the causes of the reaction were still very misunderstood.

Dundee People's Journal, 7th April 1917
Dundee People’s Journal, 7th April 1917

It is curious how certain articles of diet affect different individuals; food which is freely partaken of by all the members of the family results in a nettle-rash for only one member.” This 1913 article identifies fish and shellfish as one of the possible causes, which is true – both are allergens that need to be listed by law on food ingredients lists now. The reality of living with severe allergies at a time when this wasn’t properly understood or widely known sounds stressful – “Experience is the only guide…..no one can help you, you must look after yourself.”

Coventry Herald, 5th December 1913
Coventry Herald, 5th December 1913

A soothing lotion for the nettle rash here – lead lotion. Terrifying.

Coventry Herald, 5th December 1913
Coventry Herald, 5th December 1913

This 1930 article mixes together food allergy and contact dermatitis resulting from skin contact with various materials. They can be related (I have heard that an allergy to latex can accompany an allergy to kiwi fruit) but not always.

Gloucester Citizen, 8th Juky 1930
Gloucester Citizen, 8th July 1930

This article is a bit strange. It finally gets onto the correct cause – food allergies such as shellfish and strawberries, but only after a moralising digression that also blames indigestion, over-feeding, lack of cleanliness and the taking of drink such as claret cup – “this latter leads many a young girl to drink and ruin. It is so nicely flavoured; so cooling (?) they think, that a mere sip cannot do any harm. In that mere sip they too often sign away their future happiness or their very souls.”  Or it could be strawberries.

Taunton Courier, 24th July 1907
Taunton Courier, 24th July 1907

In the last resort “a complete change of air will effect an immediate cure” this isn’t prescribed much these days, is it? From reading old books, it seems like people were constantly moving to boarding houses on the coast for a change of air to improve their health. If you’re undergoing an allergic reaction, quickly arrange a holiday.

Dundee Evening Telegraph, 3rd April 1930
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 3rd April 1930

This is spot on, and from 1899 too. “Poisoning by eggs” is a “curious personal idiosyncrasy.” This is a good description of egg allergy, which can result in severe symptoms even by the smallest amount consumed, “even when the egg is disguised in other food” and only a tiny amount of food containing egg on the skin can produce swelling. This is what I recognise from my daughter’s egg allergy.

Whitby Gazette, 29th December 1899
Whitby Gazette, 29th December 1899

This article makes clear that anything could potentially be an allergen to an individual person. “There are certain people to whom practically anything is poisonous.”

Framlingham Weekly News, 13th June 1925
Framlingham Weekly News, 13th June 1925

It’s a relief really, reading these articles from another age, and realising that allergies still existed then. It’s a pretty exhausting way to live, checking absolutely every ingredient list on everything, spending a long time going through the allergy folder in a restaurant and even then sometimes suffering a sudden attack which could have been caused by cross-contamination. But what a relief that at least it’s a lot easier now, now the law’s on our side, and there’s more awareness and information available.

Categories
1900-1949 Adverts Food & Drink

Barclay’s Lager, 1926

It’s been a strange kind of summer in a strange kind of year. The approach of September usually gives me a feeling of normality being restored – working for a university I still feel tied to the academic calendar, and September always feels more like new year to me than January ever does. After the uproar of the Brexit result, the weird hiatus while our new Prime Minister promptly went on holiday for five weeks has made the referendum result seem like a strange dream while real life was on hold. With the government reconvening (and why was the referendum decided to coincide with that political period when it feels like no one is in charge?) Brexit’s on the real life agenda again and normality is very much not restored in September this year.

I’ve been having a bit of a holiday from the blog too – a huge queue of scanning materials have been building up and I hope to actually get on with it shortly. In the meantime, here’s an advert for Barclay’s British Lager from 1926. Averse as I currently feel to anything overtly flying the flag for British nationalism, I like this advert.

Hartlepool Mail, 21st May 1926
Hartlepool Mail, 21st May 1926

A seaman’s thirst is quenched by British Lager, Barclay’s being one of the British pioneers in brewing lager. They took advantage of world events – Germany and Austria were the prime source of lager prior to the First World War, but such imports became impossible during the war and Barclay’s set to experimenting with their own brews. They brewed it at 5%, stronger than most beers at the time. After the war they developed a successful export trade in it too – Germany and Austria’s trade being incapacitated and the other big lager producer, the USA, being hobbled by the era of prohibition.

In 1921, the Brewer’s Journal reported on Barclay’s lager in this way (from this link):

“Doubtless they do not imagine that any large trade in this type of beer can at present be looked for from the working classes. The potentiality of trade lies with the middle and upper classes, and with that floating population from the ends of the earth which the Metropolis always embraces.”

Turns out they were wrong about the popularity of lager with the working classes. And the reference to London accepting, “embracing“, people from all “ends of the earth” brings me depressingly back to a time when it feels like the march of history has got a bit lost and is going back on itself, in well-trodden footsteps that lead to nowhere you really want to go.

Categories
1900-1949

Your Face Needs Exercise, 1937

I think there’s something in facial exercises. I had a sheet of such exercises printed off from an Indian newspaper some years ago and, during the stretches that I remembered to actually do them every night, I did notice a difference to my face, to my surprise.

That was before kids entered by life and now with less sleep and in my 40s, I’m starting to think I could do with starting up again. Although it’s a lot more of a challenge this time. I’m going to try these ones from 1937, and I’ll report back. As long as I remember.

The Western Gazette, 1937
The Western Gazette, 1937

YOUR FACE NEEDS EXERCISE
BY JOAN MAY

Most of us put in five or ten minutes doing our daily dozen every morning, but how many of us even think of exercising our faces? Yet facial muscles need exercise just like any other muscles, to keep them supple and in good working order.
The contours of the face depends largely on the muscles, and all the creams and lotions in the world will not fill out hollows or tighten sagging cheeks; you must strengthen the relaxed muscles behind them, under the skin.
One of the best exercises for filling out thin cheeks and getting rid of those ugly lines from nose to mouth is simply – blowing! Purse your lips, throw back your head, and pretend that you are blowing a feather over an imaginary line. Puff out your cheeks and blow hard, until you can feel all your cheek muscles pressing against the skin. Do this at odd moments during the day, and notice what a “lift” it gives to your face.
Our grandmothers were advised to murmur “prunes and prism” to acquire small and beautiful mouths. To-day we are told that whistling will make and keep our mouths well-shaped and flexible. Even if you cannot whistle, purse up your lips and then, whilst holding this position, pinch in the corners of the mouth with your fingers. This will prevent their drooping – a very common fault.
Exercise your eyes, too. Normally you move them very little. Try looking sideways, then look up, look down, roll them round and round. So simple; yet what extra life and vivacity it gives to them!
Your chin and throat come last but by no means least, for they are usually the first to show signs of age. Keep them young and firm by these movements. Drop the head forward, then with chin outthrust, lift the head, and let it fall slowly backward as far as it will go. Bring it gradually back to normal position, then turn the neck, looking first over the right shoulder, then over the left, so that the muscles are gently stretched. Each movement should always be smooth and rhythmic.