Category: Women

Miss Perfect – Christine McVie, 1970

Post author By Estelle
Post date January 10, 2015

Christine McVie has recently rejoined Fleetwood Mac, and here’s a little post about her. The story of that band is like the quintessential story of a rock band, it’s got everything – early different band line up, fortuitous meetings, relationships, break-ups, drugs, fall outs, huge success and longevity against the odds. Plus, some damn good songs.

This is from the Pelham Pop Annual of 1970 (and the only year it was published as far as I can tell). Before Christine McVie married John McVie, she was Christine Perfect (her real name), a blues musician and member of the band Chicken Shack.

This is a lovely late 60s cool girl photo of her in a cafe, along with pics of other singers Marsha Hunt, Clodagh Rogers and Pat Arnold.

Tags 1970, 1970s, Christine McVie, Christine Perfect, Fleetwood Mac, Pelham Pop Annual, Pop music, pop stars

1950-1999 Women

Barbara Cartland’s Powdered Brain, 1974

Post author By Estelle
Post date January 1, 2015

The late, great Russell Harty. I love him as an interviewer – he’s funny yet gently probing. This 1974 book, Russell Harty Plus, is a transcript of a number of his interviews. I can’t quite imagine transcripts of chat shows being published now. But then, celebrities wouldn’t always be plugging things in those days, it really could be all about the chat.

Here’s Barbara Cartland, talking about her love of glamour, vitamin pills and eating powdered brain (what?). She got her Damehood in the end.

Tags 1974, Barbara Cartland, interview, pharmaceuticals, Russell Harty Plus

Victorian Women

Victorian Child-Rearing Theory, 1891

Post author By Estelle
Post date October 29, 2014

The Victorians attitude to children could be pretty strict, as seen in a rather heart-breaking little section of The Mother’s Companion of 1891. It’s written with a loving tone – these parents adored their kids. And yet how far removed from today is the idea that a parent should withhold all praise from their children, for fear of making them conceited?

The heart-breaking bit isn’t really the piece itself, which is pretty cuddly. But it’s the fact that it actually needs to tell parents to admire their children’s achievements that is shocking to a twenty-first century parent – “Of course, I do not mean too much praise, but a little now and then is good for everyone.”

And I do like this sentimental childhood bit – “Flood them with sunshine from your own hearts, and they will give it back to you with interest.”

Tags 1891, childhood, The Mother's Companion, Victorian, Victorian children

1900-1949 Food & Drink War Women

Steady, Girls, Steady! Wild times in 1940.

Post author By Estelle
Post date October 24, 2014

It’s a woman’s life in the Frontier Nursing Service of Kentucky. In 1940 they held a cocktail party ON HORSEBACK. And not only that, but Mrs Edwin Allen Locke jumped her horse over a table after four of said cocktails. Rock and very much Roll.

Tags 1940, PTO magazine

1900-1949 Women

How to Do Your Laundry, 1938

Post author By Estelle
Post date October 17, 2014
1 Comment on How to Do Your Laundry, 1938

My washing machine is slightly on the blink at the minute. The drying cycle keeps stopping every 20 minutes so you have to keep pushing the button again. And sometimes I forget that I need to do this so it can take hours to get a load dry. Plus, since having a second child my laundry pile has grown so fast! I’m washing every day and yet there’s still a full basket of towels, babygros and felt-tip covered school shirts pretty much all the time.

“Well, boo bloody hoo!” I can hear a 1930s housewife called Elsie saying to me, quite tetchily.

These were the days when you had to have an entire day a week to get your washing sorted – Tuesday is recommended as you’re clearing up after the weekend on a Monday. Soap flakes, blue to get the whites white, cracked hands and all, this is how to do it 1938-style, from Titbits Book of Wrinkles.

Not that they’re grumbling – this is a positive piece emphasising how things have got so much easier for the housewife these days. I dread to think how much harder it must have been before their “labour-savers” were developed. Although reading the piece I’m not entirely sure what they are – soap? A mangle? I remember my Grandma’s mangle, sat on the end of the worktop in her tiny kitchen in Morecambe. I was fascinated by it, and I wish I had it now. But, oh, my RSI-impaired wrist is aching just at the thought of all this effort…

Tags 1938, housework, laundry, Titbits Book of Wrinkles

1950-1999 Women

The Daily Mail Annual for Girls, 1959

Post author By Estelle
Post date October 4, 2014

Before the Sidebar of Shame, the Daily Mail had a sideline in annuals for boys and girls. Enid Blyton was a regular contributor of stories to them, and they ran from the 1940s to the 60s.

This is a feature from the 1959 edition, on Fashion for Girls, tips for a teenager’s guide to stylish dressing. Well, not tips so much as a kind of stern bossiness about what the girl of 1959 should be looking like. But what’s new?

Remember, “This tomboy stuff is really rather silly….” And, “In no time, you will find that you are a tidier girl, and one whom people will like much more than before.” And don’t forget, “You must learn to hold in your tummy…”

It was the age of the manmade material, and mentions “the wonder fabric….orlon”, which was the original term for what we now call acrylic.

I love the 1950s design aesthetic and it is beautifully illustrated by its author, Dora Shackell. Looking her up, she also wrote the book Young Girl’s Guide to Intelligent Living. Well, that sounds entirely up my street. Hello, book wishlist!

On balance, I love the 50s look of this so much that I think I’m just going to forget its provenance…

Tags 1959, fashion, The Daily Mail Annual for Girls, Wishlist

Victorian Women

Victorian Childcare, 1891

A subject close to home for me right now – childcare and nurseries. Today it’s my first day back at work as the beautiful dream that is maternity leave has come to an end. My baby daughter and I are beginning the wrenching apart process as she starts nursery for the first time and I inevitably spend the morning phoning up to check she’s ok.

But reading this 1891 account in The Mother’s Companion by children’s author Jennie Chappell about Mrs Hilton’s crèche, a day nursery that had been running in the East End of London since 1871, rather puts things in perspective. The highly emotive descriptions of poor, neglected babies is very Victorian in its sentimentality, but I’m sure also contains a good deal of truth. The crèche was catering for infants who would otherwise be left alone in the house while their mothers had to go to work, or were unfit in some way, or else perhaps left in the care of their only slightly older siblings.

A beautiful picture of the day nursery is included, which must have seemed a wonderfully warm and safe alternative to the overcrowded living spaces a lot of working class people lived in in the East End (apart from the one kid who’s alarmingly looking half throttled by a loop of material).

Mrs Hilton inspired people in other big towns across the country to start their own day nurseries and “public cradles”. And on her top floor she kept a kind of sanitarium for sick and dying children, where their parents could visit by night. I think she deserves to be better known than she is. We’ve heard of the big shot Victorian male philanthropists but some people like Mrs Hilton were also doing work than must have added immeasurably to peoples lives. I’m all emotional right now anyway, but I think I have something in my eye…..

Tags 1891, The Mother's Companion, Victorian children

Ephemera Victorian Women

What Is There To Prevent a Woman From Enjoying a Good Book, 1891

Post author By Estelle
Post date September 22, 2014
1 Comment on What Is There To Prevent a Woman From Enjoying a Good Book, 1891

A woman after my own heart, sodding off the darning for a bit of a read.

A beautiful picture from The Mother’s Companion, 1891. I’m 40 and I bet she’s around that age too. Although with about 10 more children, I expect.

I feel like this should be my avatar for everything from now on.

Tags 1891, Mother's Companion

Victorian Victorian Slang Women

Victorian Slang of the Week – Gander month

Post author By Estelle
Post date August 18, 2014
3 Comments on Victorian Slang of the Week – Gander month

Today, a slang phrase that actually rather shocked me. In 1865, what was good for the gander wasn’t good for the goose.

GANDER MONTH, the period when the monthly nurse is in the ascendancy, and the husband has to shift for himself.

This refers to the four weeks “lying-in period” following childbirth, when the new mother was kept in confinement to recover. And when the poor neglected husband of the house was allowed to go and seek his fun elsewhere for the duration.

Grose’s “Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue” from 1811 also refers to it, describing it as the time when “husbands plead a sort of indulgence in matters of gallantry”.

Although later, elsewhere, E. Cobham Brewer’s “Dictionary of Phrase and Fable” from 1898 gives it a much milder description, as a time when the husband is ignored or, rather, – “…the master is made a goose of.” Possibly the meaning of the phrase had changed by that point and attitudes had changed.

Tags 1865, childbirth, sex, sexism, The slang dictionary

1950-1999 Women

Cilla Black Likes Being Skinny, 1970

Post author By Estelle
Post date July 24, 2014
1 Comment on Cilla Black Likes Being Skinny, 1970

The Pelham Pop Annual of 1970 was strangely weight-obsessed. So much so, that there’d be serious Twitter outrage if this kind of thing was printed now.

It’s even the headline on a Cilla Black interview:

Every pop profile contains the exact weight of the stars. If you want to know how heavy Dusty Springfield, The Tremeloes, The Marmalade and Fleetwood Mac were, you’ve come to the right place: