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 always love a problem page, and it doesn’t matter if it’s from the latest issue of a magazine or a publication 100 years ago. I’m not the only one – my post on a Victorian problem page still gets views every week.
So here’s another one, this time from 99 years ago. In the same tradition of the Victorian problem page, it consists of answers only. The actual questions are discreetly never mentioned – sometimes on such pages they’re obvious, but they can also be annoyingly impossible to figure out. The agony aunt here is “Aunt Kate” and she says (if she’s a real person) “if you are ever worried over anything or in difficulty, write to me, and I shall do my best to advise you.”
The People’s Journal, 4th November 1916
Dot had a couple of questions. The first was apparently to ask whether she might be able to get a job as a lady’s companion. Aunt Kate says no. Dot is too young for such a role, which involves being educated, capable and accomplished and an all-round housekeeper to boot. And, in any case, paid companions were becoming few and far between these days. Dot would do better to set her sights at secretarial or nursing work instead.
Dot’s second question involves her legs – the thinness of them, in particular. Aunt Kate dismisses this worry – “There is really no remedy for thin legs. As a matter of fact, most girls long to have thin legs. Why not wear boots with long uppers? These are the latest fashion, and would serve to make the legs a better shape.”
Iris – ah, I feel for Iris. She’s written in to ask how to manage her shyness. As I was a shy child myself, I recognise Aunt Kate’s advice as the same kind of thing I heard many times, from people who have no idea what it is to be shy. “Just get over it,” it boils down to. I had one teacher at school who was an outgoing, bouncing puppy of a man, and who had never experienced a moment’s shyness in his life, I’m sure. At the start of the year, he promised that anyone who started off shy in his class wouldn’t end up so. What he meant by this was that he would be loud at all times, put people on the spot with questions, and there would be a lot of interaction and role play exercises. Maybe this would help some people to miraculously eradicate any feelings of reserve, but I think that for many genuinely shy teenagers, this is actually close to your worst nightmare instead. I think that age is the best cure in the end, Clockwork-Orange-style.
Aunt Kate’s advice on shyness isn’t bad, it’s just easier said than done. I hope it helped Iris, anyway. “Dear child, you must try to fight down this shyness of which you complain. When in other people’s presence try not to be self-conscious – to imagine that all eyes are on you. Try to think about the other people in the room, and how you can make things more agreeable for them. If you are to cure yourself of shyness, go out amongst other people as much as possible, and very soon you will learn how to conduct yourself properly. Although you are only 16 you are not a bit too young to rid yourself of this complaint – the sooner the better!”
I wonder what “M.W” was asking for – it seems to refer to whether a certain type of institution existed in relation to looking after her child. Aunt Kate says that there is no such institution anyway, but that she could leave her child at a day nursery, enabling her to go to work. I get the impression there’s a sad and hard story lurking behind that one.
This is The Young Ladies Journal from the 1st of February 1870:
The Young Ladies Journal, February 1870
It’s an early women’s magazine consisting of a very closely-typed few pages that includes fiction, puzzles and needlework patterns:
Crochet pattern, The Young Ladies Journal, February 1870
Crochet pattern, The Young Ladies Journal, February 1870
And (sexist) clips from other publications:
The Young Ladies Journal, February 1870
A little pop at Lydia Becker from “Fun” magazine, there. She was an inspirational early “suffragist” and I’d like to think that this perhaps goaded her on to change the title of her publication from “The Home” to the magazine she did go on to found in 1870 – the “Women’s Suffrage Journal”. At least, I can’t find any other reference to her “The Home” magazine anyway.
But by far the most interesting section is its problem page, as is usually the way with magazines. The young ladies would write in about all manner of things that we can still identify strongly with now – love issues, of course, but also how to pronounce words, general knowledge, information on fashion and tips on how to stop blushing. And the Journal would answer all these questions, and throw in some critique of the senders handwriting to boot – “Your writing needs firmness”. I always enjoy seeing Victorian references to using Rimmel products. It really bridges the gap in time even though the actual products are very different.
The most intriguing aspect of this is that they didn’t print the questions, only the answers. Some of the things asked are obvious, others remain forever a mystery. But across 144 years, I still find myself concerned about the woman writing about what happens if you drink eau-de-cologne…
Some examples here:
And the full, small-print pages here:
The Young Ladies Journal problem page, February 1870
I love a spot of history surfing. Looking through some old book or piece of ephemera, coming across something I’ve never heard of, and then going investigating. (With extra points awarded if I somehow manage to cross-reference this with another old book I already have).
I was reading the problem page of The Young Ladies Journal from February 1870, which is enduringly interesting as problem pages always are, no matter if they’re from 100 years ago, or last week. This one is especially intriguing on account of the fact that only the answers to the questions appear, which sometimes involves a bit of imagination as to what the questions might have been – more of this in another post I’ll be putting up shortly.
One of the young ladies had asked about “The Grecian bend”, which elicited the following sensible response:
The Young Ladies Journal, February 1870
M.J.D.- Every age has its absurd fashion. The Grecian bend, as it is now called, is the present one. Avoid it, and anything else that has a tendency to deformity. You cannot walk too upright to widen the chest and give free play to the lungs.
It turns out that, much like wearing your trousers so low that you reveal most of your underpants (or like one bloke I saw, with his trousers belted right under his bum, all of his pants on show, and only able to shuffle along Pingu-style), the Grecian bend was a stupid fashion of the time. It involved pushing lots of skirt fabric into your bustle and bending your body forwards while walking. It was also known as a dance move. The reasoning behind the name is generally considered to be that it refers to the depiction of dancers on friezes from Ancient Greece, although historian David McCullough has a much ruder explanation – that it comes from “Greek” or anal sex.
This is what it looked like:
The Grecian Bend
There were even special corsets made to keep your back in the correct bent position, which must have been incredibly painful. It was widely ridiculed as an absurdity, and music hall songs were sung to much amusement.
Here’s a few verses of a song called “Grecian Bend’:
‘Tis fun to see a lass so tall,
Lean forward ’till you’d think she’d fall,
Or pitch against a tree or wall,
Because of her Grecian bend.
E’en bashful girls are forward now,
So forward that the people vow,
They’ve been all day behind a plow-
To give them a Grecian bend.
What next we’ll have we do not know,
For novelty is all the go;
And when designs begin to flow,
Where will the follies end?
Perhaps you’ll see them by the scores,
Down on their knees upon your floors.
To try to get upon all fours,
And cut the Grecian bend.
Interestingly, as with all good history surfing sessions, it also uncovered another unknown fact for me. Widespread cases of decompression sickness were first seen during the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge – it was termed “caisson disease” in 1873, after the underwater structures used while building its foundations. But at some point during the project, caisson disease became popularly known as “the bends” because sufferers looked like they were doing the Grecian bend themselves.
