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19 Jan 01 - 07:48 PM (#378152) Subject: Great Britain 1947 From: DonMeixner My daughter is doing a play about Great Britain in 1947. "See How They Run" to be exact. In it a Vicar is asked to show his papers to a Cop. What would those papers have been? Would they have had a photo and been similar to a passport or more like a drivers permit? What style of furniture would have been found in a Vicarage in East Anglia or some other up country community. Any help will be rewarded by thank yous and good on yous. Don
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19 Jan 01 - 08:13 PM (#378177) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Snuffy During and after the war we all had Identity Cards, which were just plain buff card, folded once (a bit smaller than a CD insert I think). No photo in them, just name and adress, that sort of stuff. The front cover had the royal coat of arms Lion & Unicorn and I think the words "NATIONAL IDENTITY CARD". I wasn't born till '46, but I remember seeing them in the top drawer where my parents kept important things like Ration Books, Birth & Marriage Certificates etc. Country Vicarages tended to be large houses, fairly well-off but certainly not fashionable. I would think you couldn't go far wrong with basically late Victorian style decor - plus of course the wireless (that's what we used to call radios then). Listening to the radio was the best way of getting news of the war. Wassail! V |
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19 Jan 01 - 08:19 PM (#378180) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: DonMeixner Thanks Snuffy, My daughter owes you a pint when you find your self in Worcester, Mass. Don |
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19 Jan 01 - 09:44 PM (#378219) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Jimmy C Snuffy is correct about the National Identity Card. The ration Bookwas a little book full of stamps (A stamps, B stamps ,C stamps etc). Because certain food items were still rationed, you needed to hand in a stamp as well as the money. No stamp no goods. I was very young but do rmember needing a certain stamp to get a bar of chocolate. I don't know if there was any form of I.D. on the book, maybe just a name and address etc. A vicerage would almost certainly have had a grandfather clock and an umbrella stand in the hallway. Maybe a Gramaphone with a large horn and definitely a tea-trolley etc. Good luck to your daughter. |
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20 Jan 01 - 05:16 AM (#378343) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,Martin Ryan Don't forget the aspidistra! Regards |
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20 Jan 01 - 05:39 AM (#378345) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Penny S. This link is to the British Channel Four website, where there are details of their recent project on life in the 1940s. It is a property which would have been newer than a vicarage, with less furniture from an earlier time (Victorian hangovers would be appropriate). The chief difference I can think of would be that a vicarage would have books, lots of them. There would probably be a piano somewhere, too. And the war related details would have gone by 47. A HREF="http://www.channel4.com/1940house/"> 1940 house Penny |
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20 Jan 01 - 05:42 AM (#378346) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Penny S. Try again Penny |
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20 Jan 01 - 07:22 PM (#378673) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: McGrath of Harlow I came across mine not that long ago - it's around somewhere. As Snuffy said, it was buff with a crest and National Identity Card onthe front, and name and address and date of birth inside, and I think you had to sign it.Size as I recall - about the size of an audio-cassette when closed.
No photograph, very easy to forge I imagine, except of course they didn't have photocopiers. I think you were supposed to have it with you and produce it, if the police asked you. That's what would be meant by being asked for your papers.
If a policeman was suspicious of the identity of a vicar he might require a bit more convincing than just an Identity Card. I suppose a ration book could be used as a proof of identity too. And a vicar might well have a driving license, and he'd have certificates from college tucked away somewhere, and correspondence from the bishop.
As for the environment - if it's the study, books, but not paperbacks - except for Penguin Books - with a vicar, especially the green-backed detective-story Penguins, which yiou stikll see sometimes in jumble sales. Generally vicars still seem to have studies which are much the same as they would have been then, or a lot earlier. Likely to be a college photo, probably the old panoramic type where, if you stood at one end, you could belt round the back and get in the picture twice. Maybe an oar stuck up on the wall?
1940s house, great programme - and a very interesting site as well. |
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20 Jan 01 - 07:25 PM (#378676) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Sorcha I went to the 1940's House site, it's an awful place...the site, not the house. Little tiny piccies, in frames that can't be broken out of.....can't really see much of anything. I hate frames!! |
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21 Jan 01 - 06:29 AM (#378900) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Penny S. I managed to get larger versions - not full screen, though. I'm just going to search for identity cards - think I've seen somewhere educational. Blue Pelican books....? Use the theological section of the local second-hand bookshops, photo them with a digital camera, print out and paste to the flats. Penny |
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21 Jan 01 - 06:45 AM (#378903) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Eric the Viking For real info try the "BBC" How we used to live series. For schools. I don't know if there's anything from the series on the site and you might have to search but "BBC.co.uk" In east Anglia many of the local people of the farming community wore smocks. If I am clever enough I will scan an identity card from that time into my sons computer and send it as a JPeg if you send e-mail address. I have quite a bit about East Anglia-mainly Suffolk. Get back to me. E-mail "pm" I'm on the list. Cheers. Eric |
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21 Jan 01 - 07:02 AM (#378906) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Penny S. No luck on the ID card - I know I wasn't thinking of my Dad's, but I suspect I saw a photo while leafing through the C4 book. Penny |
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21 Jan 01 - 07:12 AM (#378909) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,JTT I don't think a vicarage would necessarily look prosperous - after all "poor as a church mouse" is a proverb taken from the idea that church people didn't have a lot to spare. Vicars often had big families, and made do by a lot of scrimping and stretching; the image is respectable (very!) but not well-off. For instance my own great-great-grandmother, who had 23 children in an Irish country vicarage, bought an oxtail at the beginning of the week, and made oxtail stock; the first day was stew, the second was risotto, and so on through the week, with the stock going through many incarnations. If it's any help, here's a site with some British wartime documents: http://www.polarbear-enterprises.co.uk/Paperwork/page14.html |
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21 Jan 01 - 11:19 AM (#378994) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: McGrath of Harlow "In east Anglia many of the local people of the farming community wore smocks."
Not in 1947, I think. I'd be pleased to be proved wrong.
The 1940s house needs to have the screen setting in "properties" set at 800 x 600 , otherwise it's virtually impossible finding your way round it. It's not a well designed site anyway - but it's got some great content.
I'm trying to remember where I put that Identity Card, but no luck so far.
The 1940s House series is so good, even better than its precursor, The 1900 House.
I can't really see how they can take the idea any further in England - I suppose they could go back further in history - but the charm of this one is the fact that so much of it is familiar to so many people, and it brings you up with a jolt how much has changed. Like when you go to an antique fair and see stuff there lovingly preserved that you've still got tucked away somewhere, like old tins of Colman's Mustard.
I imagine we'll be seing the American and other countries' equivalent soon. |
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21 Jan 01 - 12:14 PM (#379013) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,Penny S. (testing a new connection) I'm glad you said that about the smocks, Kevin. None of my family or their friends in Sussex wore them - it was old suits, as I recall (and I can just about remember 1948). I didn't want to imply that East Anglia was so far behind Silly Sussex. There's a link on the site, I notice, to an Edwardian House - asking for volunteers, so they are obviously seeking to extend the idea. What puzzles me is how the families they choose don't seem to have any old relations who can help - even I can remember Victorian houses with Victorian loos, for example - they just hadn't been brought up to date. And I have some old wartime cookbooks - real ones - as well as the nostalgia versions. I've not tried the haybox yet. And I know that during the war people did cheat - my Mum and her landlady had disagreements about the numbers of eggs in the waterglass (isinglass?) bucket. Also people used to go round road blocks and so on to visit people. If I'd been in West Wickham in the programme, I'd have gone out on the bike to a farm and come to some arrangement involving wild rabbit (and a direct debit from my bank account, if I couldn't help with haymaking).....it would have been quite in the spirit of things, I would have thought. Penny |
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21 Jan 01 - 12:28 PM (#379023) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: McGrath of Harlow Edwardian is a bit close to the one they did based on 1900, I'd have thought. First World War would have more possibilities, they had rationing then though it wasn't as well organised. In fact during the Second World War it's said the average standard of nutrition went up. That wasn't true first time round.
But 1940s got everything - close enough to be remembered first or secondhand, far away enough to be exotic, set against a historic narrative that still seems relevant and important. |
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21 Jan 01 - 12:30 PM (#379027) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,Penny S. (testing a new connection) It's a big country house, though - could be a bit shocking! Penny |
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21 Jan 01 - 12:51 PM (#379037) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,Penny S. (testing a new connection) Back to the Vicarage, old faded Victorian curtains, but I don't think the horn gramophone - more likely a folding one, which is what my Dad had, and he was even less well off than a vicar. I would expect a phone, though, unlike the family in the C4 site, as part of the job. Furniture which others had got rid of. Possible now desirable again. I remember chenille table cloths, but maybe that's the wrong class. Penny |
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21 Jan 01 - 02:06 PM (#379066) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: McGrath of Harlow Roll top desk, if it's the study. |
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21 Jan 01 - 05:34 PM (#379191) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Penny S. Worn carpet Penny |
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21 Jan 01 - 05:50 PM (#379205) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Penny S. Another source for information would be old films, provided that they were made in Britain. Things like Brief Encounter. It wouldn't give the colours, which you can see on the C4 site. Murky brown and boiled outer cabbage leaf green woodwork, browny cream walls. Penny |
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21 Jan 01 - 07:36 PM (#379252) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: McGrath of Harlow That's how rooms are meant to look. |
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22 Jan 01 - 11:38 AM (#379590) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Probably linoleum with a carpet square in the middle. I remember where we lived in the 1940's to early '50s (behind and above my aunt's hairdressing salon- outside khazi, tin bath on the nail outside, copper boiler in the kitchen,only gaslight in my bedroom but electric downstairs) Dad concreted the living-room floor 'cause the floorboards were rotten and then painted it green with something called "liquid lino". I remember having to walk on planks raised on bricks while it dried! I still have my ID card somewhere, but no ration book! RtS (war baby) |
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22 Jan 01 - 11:45 AM (#379592) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,John hill I was born in 1947 .. I still have my Identity Card somewhere. It was supposed to be renewed at age 16 but of course that never happened as they were revoaked before that. They were issued into the 1950's .. my wife was born 1951 and she still has hers too. Most folks would have progressed from wind-up gramaphones by 1947 but there were still plenty about. I suppose I could scan my identity card if you like... I'll see if I can find it. I seem to remember that my wife's is a pale blue colour although mine is buff... I don't know why that is. |
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22 Jan 01 - 12:30 PM (#379613) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: wysiwyg I copy-edited a series of remembrances for a friend who was a boy during the war, in England. As well as his later recollections of service in the army. He's gone now but I have been talking with his widow about putting them up here at the Mudcat in the storytelling section of Aine's songbook. I didn't realize how much some of you might love them till I read this thread. You'd have loved Jack. He was a fine watercolorist and his stories are as lovely and well-composed as his pictures. Jack taught me an awful lot, not the least of which was the meaning of "scrumpin'." Jack also taught me that if you are in the army and can get hold of a motorcycle from the motor pool, it is actually a lot of fun to ride it through the command building. He did enjoy the guards, too, who loved him dearly every time he had to pay them a visit. If you'd like to see these stories when I get them, I'd hate to think you'd miss them if you aren't here at the Mudcat when I post them. If you want notification I've posted them (via e-mail), send me a message with the subject line JACK. I'll send them out when I get them. ~Susan (AKA Praise) motormice@hotmail.com |
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22 Jan 01 - 12:47 PM (#379628) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Bert Ah! 1947. give or take a year or so. The lino was fake, kinda like roofing felt with a painted pattern on it. We had polished wood floors in our bedroom and we'd tie dusters on our feet and skate around the floor when we had to polish it. The floor was crooked 'cos the row house next door didn't exist any more, it got bombed. Aunts and Uncles used to give us kids their sweet ration. Which we called 'sweet coupons'. I think it was about 4oz a week. We spent hours in the sweet shop making our choices. Us kids would go and do the shopping. Mum would make a list and we'd take a bus to the store and stand in the queue (wait in line). You queued for everything. Utility furniture. Whale meat. Pom - dried mashed potato - awful stuff. Dried Eggs. - just about edible. Kids could buy cigarettes. We used to go into the village and buy 5 Woodbines for the German prisoners at the local prison camp. The Prisoners used to work on the farm and they'd get paid in beer. Land Girls. Sugar, biscuits, and butter were all weighed out at the store while you waited. |
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22 Jan 01 - 12:57 PM (#379640) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: McGrath of Harlow "Most folks would have progressed from wind-up gramophones by 1947 "
Well, we hadn't. I suppose maybe a vicar might have had an electric one - they were in big cabinets, and unless I'm mistaken the electricity just drive the turntable round, rather than amplify the sound. The records were still shellac 78s of course, but clasical ones were sometimes 12in instead of the niormal 10in.
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22 Jan 01 - 03:11 PM (#379769) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: okthen "You make me feel so young,you make me feel so ......." ish cheers bill |
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22 Jan 01 - 05:10 PM (#379880) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Penny S. I don't think the vicarage would have lino, more like polished wood, in the public part of it, anyway, the rooms where the vicar did parish business. Maybe in the kitchen, and this play wasn't in that part of the house. I remember the first electric radiogram I saw - a large cabinet about the size of a Hoover washing machine with spindrier. Much later than '47, though. The girl whose house it was in was very proud of it, and its autochanger. I thought that was a brilliant idea, until I saw that it didn't turn the classical 12 inch 78's over on to side 2 for you. But it was an advance not to have to wind up before the end of the side. I almost feel moved to ask if anyone has a 78 of "Jingle Jangle Jingle" or Clapham and Dwyer's dialogue retelling Cinderella, what I trod on. Penny |
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22 Jan 01 - 05:26 PM (#379895) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Llanfair The vicarages were huge, draughty, and a bit bleak as far as I can remember. Although the Vicar (ours was the Rector) was usually not well off, they would have at least one servant to help with the heavy work and do the chores. A section of the house would originally have been "below stairs" which referred to the servant's quarters. Much of the accommodation for the church incumbent was built with money from the local rich people, and the parishes themselves were often very well off, with monies being left to them over the generations. The parish was responsible for caring for people who could not support themselves, and then they had the bright idea of joining together to build workhouses................ But that's a different story!! Cheers, Bron. |
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22 Jan 01 - 05:47 PM (#379917) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Penny S. In the rural parishes where there was a large landowner, the vicarage could well have been built by that family as a dwelling for a younger son. In some places there is a cluster of big house (very big), church, vicarage, and, somewhere off stage right or left, the village. Having seen this play once performed on a very small stage, I don't see this one as being part of that sort of set up, but the vicarage was usually way out of scale for present needs, and has usually now been sold off and a more economic house built, smaller, and easier to keep warm. One I know of was very badly designed, with no room for parish committee meetings, not usually a problem in the old ones. Penny |
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22 Jan 01 - 05:53 PM (#379923) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: mousethief Hard times written in my mother's looks With her widow's pension and her ration books ---Al Stewart |
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22 Jan 01 - 07:20 PM (#380020) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Snuffy We still had a wind-up gramophone until nearly the end of the 50's. I remember having to wind it up to listen to Elvis 78's. And you had to change the copper needles after about 3 records. Then we got a Dansette, which you could load ten 45's onto - but one of them was usually warped - so everything after that sounded horrible. That was the start of the disco. About 4 times a year ( Whitsun, Harvest, Christmas etc) there was a dance at the church hall with a 3-piece combo - piano, drums bass - playing waltzes, quicksteps, barn-dances etc. In the interval, while the "square" grown-ups were having their refreshments, us kids got the Dansette out and played that wicked "Rock'n Roll" and danced to it for half an hour. Happy daze. |
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22 Jan 01 - 08:14 PM (#380071) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: McGrath of Harlow I wouldn't be so sure about the servant in 1947. There was a labour shortage, and not many people interested in being servants. I'm not sure there wasn't still directioon of labour. Most plays set around then would still have servants, but if one's not mentioned I wouldn't insert any. |
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22 Jan 01 - 08:14 PM (#380073) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: DonMeixner Thank you all for the help Bekkah is very appreciative. You came through as I knew you would. Don |
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23 Jan 01 - 07:30 AM (#380330) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,John Hill We were still buying 78's until they went out in 1960. (The last commercial 78 made in England was Brenda Lee's "Sweet Nuthin's") We had an electric turntable that we had to plug into the back of the wireless. My father's father sill had a windup until he died in 1956 whereas my mother's parents had had an electric radiogram since about 1932. |
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23 Jan 01 - 08:01 AM (#380354) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,John Hill Come to think of it ... I only threw the turntable away about a fortnight ago as it would have been dangerous to use. |
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23 Jan 01 - 04:48 PM (#380727) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,Kernow Jon I don't know if it's needed but if you want an ID card scanned in and emailed let me know. KJ |
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23 Jan 01 - 05:18 PM (#380761) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Penny S. No servant, but maybe a daily woman. My Dad still has a wind-up for his old 78's - the ones we didn't tread on while dancing to them. Not the same one, but a Decca folding one, about the footprint of a laptop, with the horn in the lid and a sort of reflector system. I don't think he is the only one, as when the needles turn up at flea markets, it doesn't seem to be just collectors who buy them. It's now getting more difficult to get LS 8 sapphire styli for my deck.... Penny |
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24 Jan 01 - 09:01 AM (#381176) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,John Hill Disposable needles for 78 players are still made... you don't have to go to flee markets to buy them. That aside its not really the best way to listen to 78's... I recently sent for a turntable from Esoteric Sound in the States... 6 fixed speeds + a variable.... and a diamond stylus. The old players had very heavy arms .. not a good idea to keep using if you want to preserve your records. Apart from that many early "78's" were 80rpm and a number of other speeds depending on the maker. |
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24 Jan 01 - 09:16 AM (#381181) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler John, (or anyone else)does Esoteric Sound have a UK outlet? I've been trying to find a modern turntable that can handle 78s as well as 33 & 45(preferably one I can integrate with other modern media [cassette, radio, CD], Herself doesn't want us to go back to lots of bits joined up with trailing wires!) RtS ("and on this one you can hear where Louis dropped his handkerchief") |
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24 Jan 01 - 07:19 PM (#381624) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: Melodeon My mother's relations lived in a small Suffolk village from 1900 onwards. I had an Aunt who was a daily help to a couple who had a grand house - half timbered and thatched. It was grander than the vicarage and I later realised that most of the furniture was older than Victorian. This was in the late forties/early fifties. My great aunt's house was quite big (4 bedromms) and the things I remember most were the outside toilet, the solid fuel range in the kitchen (which was huge) and electricity was only on the ground floor. Upstairs had no lighting as there was no gas laid on. Quite a lot of the houses in the village only had gas lighting as they didn't trust electricity. In many ways rural Suffolk was quite backward, But in others quite progressive. It was in the forefront of the opposition to Church Tithes. The vicarage was quite small but I never went inside. Qite a lot of rural houses had only a cold water supply and no bathroom in the late forties. We used to bath in the tin tub. I hope this gives you a flavour of a Suffolk village of the time. Of course Norfolk was positively medieval by comparison. Melodeon |
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10 Feb 01 - 01:50 PM (#395133) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: McGrath of Harlow Just came across my old Identity Card. Buff coloured card, 3 1/2 inches by 5 inches (so if it was opened up it'd be 7 inches by 5 inches).
On the front at box made of three lines drawn 3/8 inches away from the edge. Inside the box, in capital,letters "NATIONAL: REGISTRATION" (on two lines), with a crest below of the Lion and the Unicorn holding the crown with the royal coat of arms. Below that, in larger capital letters IDENTITY CARD (again on two lines). (Mines also got UNDER SIXTEEN YEARS - in case you think I'm a contemporary of Captain Mainwaring...) Inside there are boxes for number and name and address and an official stamp (like a postmark), and room for three change of addresses - all of which would have to be registered with the local National Registration Office.
I hope this helps - if a photocopy would be of any use, just let me know. Though I think you've already got more than you want. (I'd have put this on a personal message to Don Meixner, but for some reason it couldn't find that name, with or without the gap. |
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10 Feb 01 - 03:04 PM (#395179) Subject: RE: Help: Great Britain 1947 From: GUEST Big white sink in the kitchen(called a butler's sink, with a wooden draining board . A "copper" for the washing, heated by gas. A "posher" in my part of the world, to move the clothes about and make sure they all got well washed. Wooden tongs to take the clothes out of the copper and put them through the wringer.that was still the way in my home in 1947; in some ways, things were even more difficult in the postwar years than they'd been during the war. |