We all love a bit of nostalgia and for me the Era that resonates the most is the 1940s.
Don’t get me wrong! I adore the 1920s and 1930s for the cool Art Deco designs of jewellery, clothes, architecture etc, but the decade that warms my heart is the shabby, homely, handcrafted, fighting spirit of WW2 1939-1945.
I think it is because it was still present in the homes of my grandparents when I was growing up.
The ‘waste not, want not’ thriftiness evident in the kitchen drawer where neatly tied pieces of string and carefully folded paper bags nestled with ancient pairs of scissors, short stubs of pencils and other bits and bobs that always come in handy.
The ‘waste not, want not’ thriftiness evident in the kitchen drawer where neatly tied pieces of string and carefully folded paper bags nestled with ancient pairs of scissors, short stubs of pencils and other bits and bobs that always come in handy.
Big flowery aprons, handknits, home bakes and beds of rhubarb in the garden were all carried forward from the 1940s into the ration years of the 1950s and were still going strong in the 1960s when I was a child.
At the weekend we visited Newark Air museum and there we stumbled upon this wonderful Dig for Victory garden complete with a fully furnished Anderson shelter. The delight was in the fine detail from the little handcrafted aeroplane toys, the abandoned pipe and headline on the newspaper, to the picture of Winnie inside the shelter.
Whoever curated this evocative little patch of Britain, either lived through those terrifying years or loves the cosy, hearth and home, careworn warmth of all the treasured items and values that survived it, as much as I do.
