You can’t give a baby booze, to quote Vic and Bob.
Oh, you can with this one, it’s “temperance”, non-alcoholic “Kops Wine”. Kids wine. Edinburgh Evening News, 13th November 1924
Plus, a slagging off in 1891 for temperance “Kops Ale”, below. They are making a joke on the old phrase “a good wine needs no bush” which means, I think, that a good product doesn’t need to be advertised or promoted. “Kops” was so rubbish it didn’t only need a bush, it needed a whole copse (do you see what they did there?)
It doesn’t sound like it was much “kop”! Haha! Well, that’s a better joke than the one below anyway. Lichfield Mercury, 10th July, 1891
I’ve been hearing a lot of late about body shaming, fat shaming, and all the ways that women (well, mostly women) can be derided physically. I remember quite clearly the first time I became aware that imperfections in my appearance were apparently fair game for mockery. I was fourteen and a devotee of Mizz magazine, which I’d read ever since my mum found a copy on a bus and gave it to me, correctly thinking I would enjoy it. This was the late 80s and I loved all the 1950s revival fashions, beauty advice and mildly scandalous problem pages. Even now I still think about some of those features – a fairground fashion shoot where the models all seemed to be wearing clothes inspired by Ace from Doctor Who, a vox pop by Candida Doyle from Pulp, a tweed waistcoat I coveted and a beautiful coppery-coloured lipstick modelled (I think) by Terri Seymour (now better known as Simon Cowell’s ex).
But it was one uncharacteristically bitchy little article giving advice on how to get back on a hussy who had stolen your boyfriend that stuck with me. One of the ways in which you could do this, apparently, was to “laugh at her open pores.” Never mind that this mythical boyfriend-stealer might well have flawless skin, or that the boyfriend-less girl may not. What was certainly the case was that I had (and still have) oily skin and the accompanying open pores, and until that point it didn’t occur to me that it was something that you could (or even should?) be ashamed of. I remember it in a kind of eating-the-forbidden-fruit kind of way, in that I suddenly became negatively aware of myself physically, having been unaware and unbothered by what I looked like up until that point.
But that’s small fry compared to the gruelling grooming regime that is currently seen as the new normal among young women of today. Waxing, tanning, all manner of eyebrow atrocities. These are frankly a step too far for me to be arsed with, but girls much younger than fourteen are now exposed to such things. Ever since Heat magazine’s “Circle of Shame” a woman’s body has been fair game for general ridicule. And I am still annoyed about the episode in Friends where the perfect Rachel was disparaged for her “chubby ankles”. If Jennifer Aniston can’t escape this, then who can?
Having said that – I’ve never come across an example of “ear-shaming”. Until now, in this rather odd little piece quoted in The Lancashire Daily Post in 1929. I’m glad I didn’t read this as a fourteen-year-old as well. It would have depressed me, as I very soon became incredibly self conscious about my one weird ear. I know now that it’s called Stahl’s ear deformity – I have a extra rib on the top bit of the ear that makes it a bit pointed. Hence the other much cooler (and actual official and medical) names for it being Vulcan Ear, Spock’s Ear, or Elfin Ear. Age fourteen it was a nightmare that meant I never wanted to wear my hair up. Now I love it, although admittedly a turning point to getting to this point was when Lord of the Rings came out and I realised I was basically half-Hobbit. Short, a bit scruffy, and a weird ear that sometimes sticks out of my hair. It’s also very rare in Caucasians, apparently, so that’s interesting.
So, hang on to your ears for a wild and crazy ride into why women should ideally just manage to not have any ears at all, thank you very much. Not even weird ears like mine, just any ears. Incidentally, despite the title of the piece, men don’t escape scot-free. Men’s ears are also hideous but “in men this matters little: the majority of men have no pretensions to beauty, and one unlovely feature more or less can hardly make much difference.”
Lancashire Daily Post, 29th October, 1929
Women and Their Ears
Is there anyone who would dare to maintain that men and women would not be improved in appearance if it were possible to do away with ears, or at any rate to fix them in some less prominent part of the anatomy than the side of the head (writes W.H.U. in the “Birmingham Post”)? The modern generation of womankind, recognising that ears are rarely beautiful, sensibly hides the offensive feature from sight, and one could wish that all her elder sisters would copy her example. For at present a state of topsy-turveydom exists.
Young girls, whose ears, if not actually pretty, are at least tolerable, invariably hide them under their hair, whilst grandmothers and great-aunts display theirs with the utmost abandonment. And it is unfortunately true that the human ear, like the human nose, tends to get larger and more fleshy as it gets older. In men this matters little: the majority of men have no pretensions to beauty, and one unlovely feature more or less can hardly make much difference. But women are the ornamental sex and it is a shame to see old ladies of handsome and dignified mien spoiling their appearance by exposing their ears when they might just as easily train their hair to cover them up.
And how useless, too, is the ear as a feature. Admittedly it provides a useful support for spectacles and equestrian bowler hats, but otherwise what useful purpose does it serve? It is capable of showing no emotions, save shyness and embarrassment, and this only in the young (whoever heard of an elderly man’s ears turning pink?)
It is not event expert at the job for which it is intended by Nature, for when a man desires to listen with unusual intentness he generally finds it necessary to enlist the help of his open mouth. And everyone knows how much keener hearing a dog has than a man.
The ears do not even denote character to any great extent. If they stick out prominently they make a man look foolish; if they are flat and inclined to bulge in at a certain point they encourage the suspicion that their owner was once a prize-fighter in a boxing booth. Moreover, does not the ear contain the projection called “Darwin’s Point,” an ever-present, and perhaps a little humiliating, reminder that in some remote age it tapered in the manner of those of most animals?
Brighten up your lino by painting it with “Darkaline” stain.
Hull Daily Mail, 4th May 1932
Judging by a number of posts about attempting to remove 1930s “Darkaline” stain from wooden beams and the like, on DIY talk boards, it seems it did indeed provide a very lasting, highly-polished finish. It possibly contained shellac to give the hard-wearing shininess.
For other shiny floor options, why not just spray some wax on your floor?
Yorkshire Post, 30th December 1949
The modern equivalent for me is attempting to cover shoes with “protector spray” from the shoe shop, which provides a helpfully lethal, friction-free surface coating for the floor.
Anyway – no wonder a public information film had to be circulated about the dangers of the “fatal floor”. “Polish a floor? You may as well set a man trap.”
A public information advert on how to get rid of rats during the Second World War. They were eating food supplies and so “were doing Hitler’s work”
Aberdeen Journal, 19th March 1941
I find myself quite uncomfortable with this advert. I suppose because this wasn’t a million miles away from German anti-Jewish propaganda itself, which used the rat analogy. The fact that the rat has a little Hitler face instead almost emphasizes that for me. I wonder if that reference was intentional at all?
I was rather taken by this advert for Seigel’s Syrup. It’s from 1902, but the swirling shapes and squidgy font could easily fit in with the design on a 1960s music poster.
Nottingham Evening Post, 24th December 1902
The book Patent Medicines and Secret Formula analysed branded pharmaceuticals and revealed the previously top-secret formula of Seigel’s Syrup consisted mainly aloe and borax. Aloe is still a very popular soothing ingredient of course, but Borax is more familiar to us now as an ingredient in cleaning products and insecticides. In fact, Wikipedia lists quite an interesting range of uses for borax – everything from mothproofing, making flames burn green, treatment for thrush in horses hooves, as a curing agent for snake skins and to clean the brain cavity of a skull for mounting. Useful stuff.
The text of that Patent Medicines book is fascinating. I especially like the particularly potent-sounding Grandmother’s Own Cough Remedy. That apparently involved rubbing liquid tar with hemlock (eek) and sugar, then adding alcohol and chloroform. I suppose the cough would be the least of your worries after that.
It’s another entry for my series of historical marital advice articles today.
This time – advice from an Austrian newspaper, as reprinted in The Berwickshire News in 1939, a few months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. It’s almost the counter advice to a previous post of mine – a policeman’s advice to wives from 1912. There, the policeman counsels a wife to “Have your own way by letting him think he is having his.” Here, it says that the husband should let his wife think she is in control of his life, without actually being so.
The phrase – “A woman’s happiness always wears the face of a man,” stands out for me here. What I have deduced so far from all this marital advice is that the wife wants to be in charge and the husband wants his ego boosted, and that each should act in such a manner as to let the other think they are getting what they want, without really letting them have it. Exhausting, this battle of the sexes.
Berwickshire News, 2nd May 1939
If your wife is unbearable, take it with a smile and remember that the woman who never nags you or reproaches you for anything most certainly does not love you any more. If your wife is pretty don’t tell her so, because she knows it. But if she isn’t – and this is often the case – insist that she is and she will think; “He has the soul of an artist.”
If you are on a little holiday with your men friends and you have a good time, don’t admit it in your letters. On the contrary, say that you think of her all the time, that you miss her and are bored without her. Women do not believe that men have the right to be happy with something because they can only be happy with somebody. A woman’s happiness always wears the face of a man.
Let a woman think she regulates and directs your life, but do not let her do it.
A husband should not compare his wife’s looks with those of slimmer and richer women – for that matter not even with her own in the dear days of their engagement.
Nor should he neglect using the hair tonic she’s bought at great expense to prevent a threatening baldness on her darling’s head. And he must never say “I won’t have to shave to-day. It’s going to be just the two of us so I guess it’s all right.”
Never forget the fundamental truth: you will only be happy if your wife is happy.
This August the most zeitgeisty thing you could be doing was voting in the Labour Party leadership election. Specifically, voting for Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour Party leadership election, if the “Jez We Can” polls are to be believed.
That his campaign has steadily grown in strength while press coverage for him has been relentlessly negative is fascinating – even The Guardian of all papers ran article after article warning of the disaster to come if he was elected. But who knows what will happen? We learned how unreliable polls could be a few months ago on the day of the General Election. And if Corbyn does win, maybe it will be a disaster, maybe it will be the start of a new era, or maybe it will be less interesting than anyone currently thinks. As far as I’m concerned though, this is an exciting time for grass-roots Labour supporters right now.
As we’ve seen though, the press is overwhelmingly against Corbyn. And I can’t see that changing if he is elected leader. The furore of the last few days over the idea of reinstating women-only train carriages reminds me of the 1980s, where “looney left” was thrown around as a conversation-ending, ridicule-inducing tactic for left wing policy ideas. Notice how there wasn’t this furore when Tory Transport Minister Claire Perry mooted the idea herself not too long ago?
“Some women have raised with me that a solution to the rise in assault and harassment on public transport could be to introduce women only carriages. My intention would be to make public transport safer for everyone from the train platform, to the bus stop to on the mode of transport itself. However, I would consult with women and open it up to hear their views on whether women-only carriages would be welcome – and also if piloting this at times and modes of transport where harassment is reported most frequently would be of interest.”
It wasn’t his idea, and it’s not even something he’s definitely proposing. He’s simply listened to women giving their opinions and offered a consultation process on their brainstormed ideas to solve a problem.
It might well be decided to be an ineffective idea, in the end, but shouting down the debate before it even starts, well, it’s doesn’t feel very helpful – a sign of a media that is encouraged to be full of fully-formed, strongly-held opinions on everything, immediately. If we don’t have the space to consider new ideas without ridicule, then nothing much will change.
Well, I say “new ideas”, but this isn’t new, as has been repeatedly stated by opponent of the concept, worried that the way forward wouldn’t involve such a retrograde move. Railway carriages marked “Ladies Only” were finally withdrawn in 1977, when the old type of corridor-less train became obsolete. The old-style train was made up of a series of compartments with no access between them, and so was potentially a dangerous trap for a woman alone with a predatory man. Because of this style of carriage, and an increasing number of assaults suffered by female travellers on the trains, the concept of the women-only carriage was discussed from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards.
This article from 1874 shows that the Metropolitan railways had already introduced ladies’ carriages – but there was some debate as to whether this was legal. This was the first mention I found of women eschewing the ladies’ carriages in favour of sitting in the smoking compartments instead – an issue that men complained about for the next half century at least. I don’t know why women intuitively flocked to the smoking carriages for fifty years or more, but I would guess that it was because they were popular and so routinely full of travellers. Perhaps there may have been both less chance of being left alone with an unknown man, and a higher likelihood of other women travellers there as well. If not all train companies designated separate carriages for women, then it may have been easier to adopt this method instead.
Staffordshire Sentinel, 16th November 1874
There were a lot of reports of assaults on women on the railways in the nineteenth century, and the debate on ladies’ only carriages became a hot topic of the day. Here’s a letter from 1876 referring to recent attacks and calling for ladies’ carriages to be introduced in all trains.
Dundee Evening Telegraph, 5th September 1887
And another, where Ellen Johnson was saved from attempting to jump from the train to escape her attacker, by another passenger walking along the outside footboard to reach her carriage.
Huddersfield Chronicle, 6th June 1891
This is a fantastic piece, quoted from the Queen – this wasn’t Queen Victoria wading into the debate, that wouldn’t have been quite her style. It’s Queen magazine – which is still around, although these days it’s called Harper’s Bazaar. It points out that the cases of assault on women that the public hears about are the dramatic ones – where the woman has fought off her assailant, or else felt forced to take the dramatic step of jumping from the train to escape. But “We hear nothing of the cases, probably far more numerous, where the woman, whether successful or not in keeping off her assailant, has afterwards from dread of publicity kept silent….The risk that a woman travelling by herself runs is not one whit less to-day than it was yesterday; indeed it is rather greater, for the opportunities for attack are greater.”
This piece describes how the Victorian communication cord used to work – it consisted of a cord on the outside of the train linked to the guard’s van. So a woman, mid-attack, would need to open the window, and attempt to reach the cord far above her head on the outside of the train, then pull it hard enough to attract the attention of the guard. The article calls for other means of instantaneous communication to be introduced, which could now be electrically-powered, and that this should be enforced by Parliament if the train companies did not agree of their own volition.
Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser, 16th April 1892
This article in The Morning Post from 1896 says that ladies didn’t tend to make use of specially-designated carriages very often, when they were available. Although there was apparently a litle known, and therefore little-used, policy of the railway staff being obliged to provide any women who asked with a suitable carriage to sit in which would then become a carriage where only women would be allowed to be admitted.
Morning Post, 5th August 1896
Morning Post, 5th August 1896
An MP, Mr Ritchie, confirms to a correspondent that The Board of Trade has written to all railway companies to encourage the introduction of women-only carriages on all their trains, in 1897.
Edinburgh Evening News, 26th March 1897
Commercial travellers complain about the long-standing “problem” of women sitting in the smoking compartments. This was evidently the Victorian and Edwardian equivalent of the person having a loud conversation on their phone in the “quiet carriage” today. Here, the problem is that “Travellers could walk up and down a train, and find every compartment labelled “smoking” packed with women and children, who gleefully looked out of the windows and smiled at those who wanted to smoke.” Smiling and gleefully looking out of the window – the cheek of it! Mr R. Mitchell, making the complaint, says that “he knew women often preferred to travel in smoking compartments because they said they felt safer; but he thought railway companies should prohibit women or children travelling in smoking compartments unless they were accompanied by a male adult.” Priorities, there.
Nottingham Evening Post, 28th October 1912
In 1924, the introduction of women-only carriages on all trains is still being discussed in the House of Commons – showing that it was still a far from widespread practice. Again, the issue of women in smoking compartments is raised, but this time it’s stated that this is quite likely to be on account of the lack of aforementioned ladies’ carriages. Mr “Not All Men” Becker was standing up for men’s rights here with his “May I ask whether carriages could be provided for men only?”
Gloucester Journal, 26th July 1924
As the old-style trains were replaced with the new designs, so the debate lessened. The issue has raised its head again now, because of the increased number of attacks on women on the railways – the number of sex offences on UK railways rose by a quarter last year. The idea of women-only carriages is still a current one in some countries – Japan, Brazil and India still have them, after all. My twopenn’orth is that this could only really be enforced, particularly on night trains, by guards on the train, and if there’s guards on the train, then why do you need the separate carriage? But I’m open to the discussion.
A letter from The Liverpool Echo, 1918, deploring the racism evident in pubs, preventing black customers from getting served. However, it wasn’t until the Race Relations Act of 1965 that it became illegal to refuse to serve someone on the basis of their skin colour.
Liverpool Echo, 3rd September 1918
“Coloured Men and Drink
In many public houses in Liverpool if a coloured man asks for a drink, he is told “I am sorry, I am not allowed to serve coloured men!” In the name of justice and right, why? Can the Liverpool authorities say that the percentage of convictions for offences through drink of black men exceeds that of white men? If not, why is he denied a drink? – G.C.”
At the bottom of the clipping are some more of my favourite “problem page” correspondances – the ones where the question asked is never revealed, only the answer printed.
I had to double-check the date of this newspaper because 1912 seemed very early to be giving advice to women on what to wear in the workplace.
But then again, the invention of the typewriter had opened up a new field of jobs for women, and I found out that in 1901, 25% of office workers were women. And that meant there was a new market for appropriate women’s work-wear. It’s interesting reading this, as the proscribed new “uniform” for women in business is still relevant today – white shirts, black skirts, simple hairstyles…not much has changed in office-wear in 100 years.
Sheffield Evening Telegraph, 17th September 1912
A Dress Revolution
The Business Girl to Wear a Uniform
There are indications that a revolution in dress is imminent in the world of business women. The “gaudy typist” whose large hat, coloured stockings, suede shoes, jewellery and scent, have been the subject of adverse comment, will shortly be seen no more. Her place will be taken by the girl robed in black, dark blue, grey, or some other quiet colour, with skirt of decorous length, says the “Standard”. In short, the idea of office uniform for women is becoming increasingly popular amongst the heads of business houses where women typists and secretaries are extensively employed. Quite recently a large City firm drew up a code of dress regulations, to which every employee is expected to conform, and from which every dress accessory generally supposed to be dear to the heart of a typist is rigorously excluded.
Blouses of the “Peek-a-boo” type, against which American business men lately waged ruthless war to the disgust of the wearers, are strictly forbidden. These garments are to be of the shirt order and make of white silk.
A profusion of stray locks and curls not being considered conducive to concentrated thought, any attempt to dress the hair outside the plainest and simplest fashion is sternly repressed.
At first it seemed as if the new order of things would lead to open rebellion amongst those concerned, but the tact of the superintendent and the good sense of the girls themselves prevailed and the scheme is working quite well.
“Every office that employs women typists to any extent should insist on a uniform style of dress,” said the head of a large business establishment yesterday; “it looks more businesslike, and in my opinion, tend towards the increase of efficiency amongst the workers themselves. The girl who knows that her neighbour’s dress is precisely similar to her own is spared the temptation of studying its possible points of superiority, and my experience is that office dress helps to inculcate a businesslike frame of mind.”
An aside – these aren’t examples of work-wear as these ladies are at the races, but I do think these are absolutely beautiful examples of fashion from 1910. I would definitely wear the black and white fringed one (and her fabulous boots) right now.
Most of my assumptions about what visiting time at hospitals used to be like I’ve gleaned from the Carry On films. That, and the 1959 episode of Hancock’s Half Hour I was listening to on the bus earlier, “Hancock in Hospital”, where the lad is kept in for weeks with a broken leg and visiting time lasted for a mere two hours, once a week.
The most I’ve been in hospital was for 3 nights after a cesarean section and that felt like plenty long enough, quite apart from the insane situation of having major surgery, which you recover from by immediately having to look after and feed a newborn all through the night. And in fact I first listened to that Hancock episode while I was in hospital for another operation three years ago, but it turns out morphine injections rather hamper your concentration and I couldn’t remember any of it, so it was nice to listen to it again while I was in sound mind.
Anyway, in short, I don’t really know how visiting time worked for sure. But I have become fascinated by the infectious patient reports in old newspapers. Local newspapers used to print information about such patients, who presumably weren’t allowed visitors at all as a general rule – each patient had a number and their friends and family could consult the paper to check their progress.
So many stories there, reduced to the bare bones of information. I find myself worrying about the dangerously ill patients. Considering the information needed to be with the paper to be printed the day before, did the friends and family find out and get to the hospital in time?
