My posts on this blog seem to be bring out so many memories for so many people, myself included.
I am just hoping that the majority of them are good, and that the bad ones at least make us realise just how far we have come in the past few years.
Today I am just sharing a photo of the kitchen from The 1940s House.
I recently re-watched this and although I have the book I have never read right through it. Perhaps I should as I do like to pore over photos like these, picking out the details remembering the versions of things that we had in our tiny little pantry-sized kitchen in my Nana's house growing up.
I do have the large saucepan that is on the cooker and lots of other enamelware, which I absolutely love. If I had more space in my tiny home I would love to get an original kitchen cabinet, my Nana had a beautiful cream coloured 1940's version, and then in the late sixties my Mum got one with a Formica worktop instead of the enamel as they used to be.
Now I need to go and weigh out next weeks rations.
This will be the final week that I will be having these sort of rations before I have a re-jig the following week. I have very luckily found a way to simplify things, well I think it will be simpler!!
It can't possibly get any more complicated ... can it?
Sue xx
I bought that book when the TV series was first aired and loved it. Unfortunately, it was among the books I culled in our move 4 years ago. Drat....
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I found the Blitz Spirit programme on iPlayer yesterday so that G and I can watch it tonight. He love that sort of thing too, so thank you for pointing me in the right direction :0)
I feel your pain I am always decluttering books and then regretting it a while later. Oh to have a whole room available for shelves and shelves of books. It's a really good programme isn't it and a real eye-opener, I did know a few of the things raised but there were so many that I had never heard of. Very educational.
DeleteLike you, I grew up with quite a few of the kitchen items in that photo. Whilst it conjours up the idea of a more peaceful time I don't think it was.
ReplyDeleteI remember we did not get an automatic washing machine until I was 17, up until then the weekly laundry day was all about lugging heavy, wet towels and bedding in and out of a twin tub. Always ended up with water all over the kitchen floor and much exhaustion.
Oh it wasn't peaceful in our house growing up, we lived in three rooms and Mum had to cook in a tiny pantry area which housed the cooker, gas fridge, and Belfast sink as well as access to the understairs area which house all our food supplies. When she got her kitchen cabinet she thought it was amazing, and so did us kids actually because it went in the space where the fitted cupboards and drawers used to be in the dining/living area of the kitchen, and we got to have one of the huge drawers each as our toy boxes, which doubled when empty as boats/shop counters/lorries/hiding spaces.
DeleteAfter reading about your washing I looked up Mum and Nana's shared washing machine which was up in the bathroom, it turned out it was a Hotpoint. The big square sort with a mangle that swivelled to go over the bath. I didn't have an automatic washing machine until my youngest son was about 18 months old. Lots of hand washing for me, I still love putting things in and being able to push a button. :-)
I stopped following the rations to the book this week ( partly because I was on my back in bed for six days ) but I have decided to modernise it and stick to the basic principles and be guided more by the money in my purse . I will still take recipes from the books as I like them and they are frugal and quite healthy, I made the fruit cake today for the second time, no eggs and two tbsps of marg and it's delicious and our food bill has gone down considerably over the last five weeks, Phil was surprised, just as well as I have ordered a new chair for my poor back ( one for the vertically challenged our furniture is designed for lanky legs ). After a kitchen fire my sister has set up her kitchen with no fitted units, washing machine or cooker, she uses counter top cooking appliances and freestanding second hand furniture, it looks lovely and suits the two of them well, she has a good eye and is very creative .
ReplyDeleteWe can learn so much just from doing rationing for a while can't we, I'm glad you are finding a way to go forward that suits you. I hope your new chair helps, I ended up buying a pair of chairs from HSL, not cheap but my back loves them. Your sisters kitchen sounds amazing, it's nice to be able to start from a blank canvas isn't it ... although the fire sounds a drastic way to do it. ;-)
DeleteI love that book. I bought it for Mum so, after she had passed and I was clearing her things (and Dad's) I took it back. xx
ReplyDeleteMaybe I need to buy my Mum lots of lovely books ... ;-)
Delete(Don't worry she'll laugh if she reads this.)
Thought of you this afternoon, we were visiting the Norfolk Museum of Rural Life. They have a postwar room - with kitchen cabinet, enamel pans, twintub, ancient radio, lace caps for the milk jugs, oxo tin.. The museum's volunteer cleaner stopped her polishing to chat with us about 'what we remembered from our 1950s childhoods, and stories our grans told us about war years...You would have loved it!
ReplyDeleteOh it sounds like heaven, I'm sure I would have. I need to go and visit the Home Front Museum in Llandudno again before it closes for the Winter.
DeleteYou have bought back many happy memories. I have some 1930s/1940s things in my kitchen which I use on a daily basis and love. I was transported back to my nans kitchen, the big white sink and the slanty wooden draining board. I am leaning more to an unfitted kitchen, I would dearly like a dresser.
ReplyDeleteYes, we had the big white sink and the slanty draining board growing up. We thought it ultra modern when we eventually got little an instant water heater on the wall, before then it was cold water only from the tap.
DeleteI have watched the 1940s House when it was shown on our public TV channel and, more recently, online. It was a very interesting show, I thought. But, I think they had a hard time managing on the food rations; I seem to recall the mother complaining that all she's had was a piece of bread, one day.
ReplyDeleteIt was a shame that neither of them was a better cook to start with, although they came on in leaps and bounds by the end didn't they.
DeleteLook forward to reading how you are going to simplify your rations Jeannette
ReplyDeleteIt's mostly a bit of a tweak going from the vegetarian rations to the meat eaters rations, but don't worry I wont be eating meat. It struck me as very wrong to be using the vegetarian rations and eating fish. But I found an information leaflet that really helped me figure things out.
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