1 1 Family roles in 1950s. 1.1 The ideal 1950s wife - podcast. 1.1 1950s wives and shopping - podcast. 1.1 1950s housewives - Timewarp wives. By Diana Appleyard Updated: 09:06 GMT, 8 August 2008 The credit crunch, a knife crime epidemic - no wonder so many of us are sick of the 21st century.
Most of us just grumble, but some women have taken radical action to escape what they see as the soulless grind of modern life. Meet the 'Time Warp Wives', who believe that life, especially marriage, was far more straightforward in the Thirties, Forties and Fifties. 1950s Joanne Massey, 35, lives in a recreation of a 1950s home in Stafford with her husband Kevin, 42, who works as a graphics application designer. I love nothing better than fastening my pinny round my waist and baking a cake for Kevin in my 1950s kitchen.
I put on some lovely Frank Sinatra music and am completely lost in my own little fantasy world. Enlarge. 1.1 Time Warp Wives - 1950s housewife. 1.1 Retro Housewife Magazine - Raising Children In The 1950s. Raising Children in the 1950s What was it like to have children in the 1950s?
What was it like to be a kid in the 1950s? NORTH ANSON, Me. April 5, 1951 (INS) Thirty-five-year-old Mrs. William C. Here is a column I found in The Bridgeport Post1 (April 5th, 1951, Page 35) which I thought gave not only sound advice, but to some extent contrasts sharply with today's practices, and is, at the very least, food for thought! Understanding CHILDREN by Angelo Patri.
1.1 The joy of a 1950s childhood. CLASSROOM CALORIES: All children were given a daily bottle of milk [] Despite the difficulties of day-to-day living people had great pride in and loyalty to their country and seemed to share a common purpose in life.
Families stayed together through the hard times and everybody knew their neighbours and had a sense of belonging. They would routinely leave their street door on the latch and hang a key on a piece of string behind the letterbox when they were out for their children to come and go as they pleased. Children waking up on Christmas morning in 1952 had experienced rationing of food and clothes all of their lives. It was quite normal to go without the sweets, biscuits, crisps and fizzy drinks that would be taken for granted by future generations . You probably didn’t get your first black and white television set until the late Fifties. Outside, the larger urban areas suffered with dense, yellowish smogs – known as pea-soupers – caused by fog combining with coalfire emissions. 1.1 The 1950s Housewife. For a woman, were the 1950s and 1960s the best of times or the worst of times?
The life of the average married woman in the 1950s and 60s was very different from that of today’s woman. This was the age of respectability and conformity. Very few women worked after getting married; they stayed at home to raise the children and keep house. The man was considered the head of the household in all things; mortgages, legal documents, bank accounts. Only the family allowance was paid directly to the mother. It was still unusual for women to go to university, especially working class women. 1950s electric fire, courtesy The Memory Store. 1.1 Overview of life in Britain in the 1950s. 1.1 Extended learning: BBC iPlayer: Back in Time for the weekend, the 1950s. 1.2 Schooldays in the 1950s and 1960s. We all have strong memories of our first few days at primary school, although nowadays most children tend to go to pre-school, so it is not such a shock to the system for them as it was for the children of the 1960s!
In the 1960s there were no state pre-schools or nurseries, so for most children just turning 5 years old, their first day at school was the first time they had been on their own, away from home. Most mothers did not work outside the home, so for many children this was also the first time they had been apart from their mothers. 1.2 School days in the 1950s. By David Kynaston Updated: 09:52 GMT, 31 October 2009 To many people who grew up in the Britain of half a century ago, the Fifties are a clearly and dearly remembered age. 'We walked to school, had open fires and no central heating,' recalled a woman of that generation. 'We played in the street with our friends and were safe; we climbed trees, skinned our knees and ripped our clothes, got into fights and nobody sued anybody.
Sweets were a treat, not part of lunch. 'We got a clip round the ear when we had been naughty, and Mum gave us a teaspoon of malt and cod liver oil before school. Nuclear family: 1950s Britain is dearly remembered by many who grew up in that era 'We played cards and board games and talked to each other. 1.3 Leisure and Recreation in the 1950s.
Following years of hardship and anxiety during the war people were ready to enjoy themselves.
Leisure was one of the few things people could spend their money on as they wished, since goods were still being rationed. The Holidays with Pay Act (1938) made it easier for people to spend time on leisure pursuits, giving workers the right to receive pay during their holidays. The combination of personal wealth, technological developments and external influences, mainly from the United States, changed the way in which people spent their spare time and displaced a number of traditional recreational activities in Wales. Immediately after the war recreational activities remained very similar to the way they were beforehand. They tended to be local and traditional in nature, with every member of society joining in the fun – carnivals, whist drives, drama groups, local ‘eisteddfodau’, choirs and various clubs. Many people would combine their chapel visits with more secular activities. 1.3 Playtime - fun and games 1950's. Take away Computers, Consol Gaming, DVD's and 100 channel TV at 24 hours a day and you have the 1950's!
We had toy's, but ours would fit under the Bed and not need a separate room to put them in as is it a lot today. Our biggest toys were of a natural kind; tree's, woods and our own imagination. Then we had dreams of being a Roy Rogers, Davy Crockett or Robin Hood, now it's celebrity! But not so much of the now and then! INDOORS Toys were something you got at Christmas, Birthday's, possibly when you were ill or when a relation came to stay and that was it. Around the mid 50's I got my first Meccano Set, No.4 I think, but it was a large enough Kit to make a Tower Bridge of Sorts. I had a clockwork Hornby Train Set which always seemed to go so fast it kept coming off the tracks on every bend. In my Aunt's house I had a Bay Window to play in. A few days after the Coronation, I had my tonsils removed, I remember the gas mask being put over my face now!
OUTDOORS An endless list of playtime. 1.5 Notting Hill Race Riots. Sources employment 1950s. Sources employment 1950s.