Oh, look at this beauty! It’s The Home Entertainer by Sid G. Hedges, the author of my first 1930s book purchase many years ago, The Universal Book of Hobbies and Handicrafts. The chapter on self defence in that book is just the best – https://skittishlibrary.co.uk/dirty-rotters/
So when I saw this I had to get it. It’s a book full of party ideas, entertaining tips and games. And I do love a vintage game (especially on a Friday). But! Incredibly, the book arrived still in the original packaging it was posted out in, in 1935. Wow, wow, wow, as my baby daughter likes saying (although she pretty much exclusively says it while looking at light fittings). The address it was posted to was number 27 1/2, which is a bit odd.
The Home Entertainer box, 1935
The Home Entertainer, 1935
So, here’s the first Friday Fun in ages. A game called “Winking”. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible to describe something as delightfully sexist, and yet that is how I find myself thinking of this.
The Home Entertainer, 1935
(Nb – my friend Neil has just pointed out that the men and women swap places in this game after one round, which I completely missed. So, there we go, not sexist anyway.)
Happiness (for me) is a browse through what is probably my favourite online resource – the British Newspaper Archive. It’s here.
I thought I’d mention it now because it’s a subscription-based site, and there’s a discount code valid until the end of January 2015 – enter “news01” and you get a month’s unlimited browsing for just £1.
Here’s a little article I found, local to me as it’s from The Liverpool Post in 1937 (and I am all about 1937 right now). It’s what initially seems to be a fairly modern scenario, in a way. A pupil from Rock Ferry, Birkenhead, sued his teacher for caning him, and he won his case. Then everyone remembered they were still in 1937, his teacher appealed, and she was successful in getting the conviction overturned.
You’re left in no doubt as to what general opinion might be, reading the language of the article:
“On the afternoon of January 12th, she warned him several times. When she went to cane him in the ordinary way, he turned away and she hit him with the cane three times on his pants. She did not lose her temper. The boy went back to his desk and sat down, doing his work much better afterwards.
Mr Roland Thomas, K.C., for the teacher, commented, “Teachers will go in terror of punishing children, if bruising of the ordinary kind is going to be taken as excessive.”
I have a feeling things are going to get a bit 1937-y around here for a while as my latest Ebay ephemera purchase is an edition of the Mirror from May 1937. It’s not the usual daily newspaper, though, but the overseas weekly edition compiled from a week’s worth of newspapers. The date is quite portentous as it’s the week before George VI’s coronation, and there’s a huge sense of build up and excitement, with special adverts recommending food to eat whole you’re waiting for the procession to pass, endless details about visitors from other parts of the world arriving to take part in all the pageantry, and romantic asides with pictures of the recently abdicated Edward and Wallace Simpson smiling at each other.
And that’s apart from the amazing news stories and general adverts, which are reliably fascinating. One thing I have learned from the adverts I have from the 1930s and 40s – you’re never far away from a laxative ad. Not sure why this was such a huge deal at this time – I imagined everyone was eating quite a lot of vegetable matter at this point. In fact, I’ve previously written about my favourite advert ever, a laxative advert in my Grandad’s 1940 copy of the Radio Times (he was on the cover) – https://skittishlibrary.co.uk/remembrance-week-the-radio-times-1940/
So, how to capitalise on this apparent fear of constipation if you didn’t actually manufacture laxatives? Wright’s Coal Tar Soap decided to basically invent a new problem -“Skin constipation”, a kind of poisoning from your blocked pores. Luckily, this terrible affliction could be avoided with their soap, of course.
Happy Families, old-school style, is a fascinating game – mainly because of the tradition of depicting the families in Victorian caricature, all big heads and semi-human appearance. For this reason, I was equally intrigued and unnerved by the card game as a child.
For the princely sum of 99p on Ebay, I purchased this lovely Chad Valley Games pack from 1910. In pretty good condition for a pack of cards over 100 years old.
Happy Families game box, 1910Happy Families card game, 1910
Here’s the rules: Happy Families rules, 1910
If you’re a comedy fan like me, a fun game with Happy Families is to decide which League of Gentleman would play each role, if Happy Families was a film (please do this, Mark Gatiss).
So for example, deffo Steve Pemberton for the terrifying Mr Drug the Doctor and Mr Blonde the Barber. Reece Shearsmith for Master Groats the Grocer’s Son and Master Putty the Painter’s Son (and Mrs Putty too), and Mark Gatiss for Mrs Howler the Singer’s wife and Mr Clamp the Carpenter. You’re allowed Jeremy Dyson.
However, I am having trouble imagining anyone but Michael Palin as Mr ‘Arris the Aristocrat. This is a good pun, ‘Arris being the first part of Aristocrat and also a slang word for arse. I love the tortured way this became Cockney rhyming slang – arse was firstly “bottle and glass”, then just “bottle”, which, via a new rhyme, became “Aristotle” and then “Aris”.
Anyway, here are the families. Creepy, aren’t they? Look at the cold, dead eyes of Master Bull, the Butcher’s Son.
Inspired by my mum handing me an envelope recently which contained a lock of hair from my very first haircut in about 1975 (a family hairloom, I suppose you could call it), I’ve been thinking about the little bits of history that surround me day to day. I didn’t know this lock of hair existed until a few weeks ago so to suddenly be presented with my hair (pale, gingery brown and wavy, entirely unlike my hair now) from 40 years ago was a slightly strange experience. Especially as I now have a one-year-old daughter myself and her hair is redder but much the same.
Baby hair from my first haircut
I can never quite understand those Cash in the Attic type programmes that zoom round someone’s house, gathering up armfuls of family heirlooms to sell at auction so they can put £400 towards going on a holiday that they were probably going on anyway. Firstly, the surprise that people emit from being presented with their own possessions, as if they knew nothing about them beforehand. I can only imagine most of these things were inherited by a largely disinterested family who shoved the house-clearanced bits in a cupboard and feel utterly unattached to them. Because, secondly, they are pretty happy to just get rid of this stuff for £10 a pop at an auction house.
Me, if I owned those antiquey odds and ends, I would know about it and I certainly wouldn’t flog them for buttons just so I could stand next to Angela Rippon (delightful as I’m sure she is) and get on daytime telly.
The programme of that ilk that I still think about, and which continues to annoy me, concerned some parents who wanted to sell their heirlooms in order to buy a new heirloom for their children. Which is a pretty strange thing to do in the first place, but hey ho. What was incomprehensible though, was that the heirlooms they sold were a large set of family silver cutlery pieces, with an incredible history. They came from some Jewish ancestors who had escaped Fascist Italy during World War Two with only these bits of silver, stashed all over their body. They were lovely old pieces, and I especially loved some long spoons used for ice cream floats, with a straw incorporated in the handle. Now, the family had three children, and you’d think this would be an ideal heirloom to share around fairly, what with there being lots of separate pieces. But no, they sold them to buy one (ONE) modern art painting that the parents obviously just wanted to buy anyway. I’m not a mega fan of a lot of modern art (unless it makes me laugh) so disregard my opinion…….but it was complete rubbish. Good luck kids, sharing that.
I also have what is probably the most common 100-year-old-thing generally owned now – a brass Princess Mary tin given to the troops as a Christmas present in 1914. My Grandad carried it in World War Two to keep his tobacco and spare uniform patches in, so he probably got it from his step-dad, who’d been in the First World War. Household tip – some brown sauce polishes old brass up a treat.
Princess Mary’s brass tin
Some various wartime ephemera – a handkerchief sent to my Grandma, uniform patches and badges:
While I am in France, my heart is with you
Patches and badges
This made me realise that there must have been a brand new industry in wartime France – manufacturing souvenirs and tokens for the soldiers stationed there to send home. Although possibly only for a short time during the phony war period, I presume.
Oh, and what appears to be a live bullet Grandad brought back with him at the end of the war. Not too sure what to do with that. Or if I’m even allowed to own it.
What’s great is finding things in your house, though. Not in a Cash in the Attic way, I mean things actually as part of your house. Like when we found a newspaper from 1986 lining the shower base when we redid the bathroom. Or the general oddness of discovering a still-unexplained small bone in the plaster of the bedroom wall. And best of all, taking off some wallpaper to discover the previous, previous owners the Doyle family had written their family tree on the wall, and scribbled “The Doyles are the best!” in big letters before covering it up like a living room time capsule. This was especially great as I was captivated by a similar thing in Hancock’s Half Hour when I first saw it as a kid, when he “finds” poems by Lord Byron on his walls in East Cheam:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eAhd1Xs0kb0
What’s fascinating is that there’s so much stuff hidden away, things that may be of great importance, just unknown, in people’s houses. What do you have passed from the past?
A bit more from Motor Runs from Merseyside – published by the Liverpool Post in 1932 to capitalise on people starting to become car owners, with advice on places accessible within one or two days from Liverpool.
I found this section, with information on the tolls of the Mersey Ferries, fascinating. There’s a lot of measurements of vehicles involved – I wonder if they got a measuring stick out to check if your chassis was 12 feet or under. Sorry for the wobbly scanning, the old book just couldn’t take much bending.
Motor Runs from Merseyside, 1932
Motor Runs from Merseyside, 1932
Motor Runs from Merseyside, 1932
Motor Runs from Merseyside, 1932
I like the little map – you’d think nothing much has changed in 80 years looking at it. Except my adopted district, Norris Green, is yet to make it on the maps, being a newly built estate around this time. The library here is still in the 1930s Art Deco original building.
I have become slightly obsessed with charabancs since reading this, and having to look them up to see exactly what they were. An open-topped cross between a car and a bus, jammed full of people on a day trip, only safe because they went around 12 miles an hour by the looks of it.
Here’s a nice pic of Liverpool FC, in the 1920s, on their way to a match.
Here’s a 1932 book produced by the Liverpool Daily Post, “Motor runs from Merseyside”. It’s in a fairly delicate condition and so I couldnt quite scan everything flat. I’ll post up some more of this book later. For now, here’s some of the adverts it contains.
My favourite bit is this advert for Mel-O-Ade, a “Summer health drink”, “in convenient cubes for motorists”. Mel-O-Ade was a locally produced drink, made in Dale Street, Liverpool. Mel-0-Ade drink advert, 1932
Buy a book now and then, and refresh your mind! A great phrase from an advert from the stationer and bookseller Philip Son and Nephew, Ltd on Church Street.
Adverts for where to buy cars in Liverpool. I just love that 1930s Art Deco aesthetic.
Motor Runs from Merseyside, Liverpool Daily Post, 1932
Motor Runs from Merseyside, Liverpool Daily Post, 1932
Motor Runs from Merseyside, Liverpool Daily Post, 1932
Motor Runs from Merseyside, Liverpool Daily Post, 1932
Motor Runs from Merseyside, Liverpool Daily Post, 1932
A beautiful old advert for cookers and pans, from the very excellent Mrs Dora Rea’s Cookery Book, 1910.
Incidentally, a descendant of Mrs Rea’s has been in touch to correct my joke about Dora Rea being almost unfortunately named. Because “Rea” is pronounced “Ray”, not “Rear”. I am chastened and also honoured, thank you, Karen! Karen has kindly provided more information about Mrs Rea’s life in the comments here – https://skittishlibrary.co.uk/the-good-the-bad-and-the-calfs-head/
*Holds back from making a “Dora, Rea, Me, Fah, Soh, Lah, Tee, Doh” joke*
A lovely clipping about the astronomer Herschel (most famous for his Uranus, of course). This is his supposed last wish on his death-bed, which was in Slough, 1822. All he wanted was to see the dark side of the moon.
