tourmaline (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tourmaline) wrote2009-02-10 10:17 pm
tourmaline) wrote2009-02-10 10:17 pm
How We Used To Live
Did anyone else here watch How We Used To Live as part of history lessons at primary school? I saw it in my final year at Junior school (age 10-11), and I loved it. I didn't realise at the time, but there were several series - 'my' series was the 1936-1953 era, covering the reign of King George VI, plus the year before and after - the first episode featured King Edward VIII's abdication and the final episode focused on Queen Elizabeth II's coronation.
I hadn't given it a thought for ages, but tootling through Wikipedia I came across the entry for one of the actresses - the mother of the family which my series was centered around.
The series focused on the Hodgkins family in Yorkshire, parents and four children whose age at the beginning ranges from 2 years old up to early teenagers. Every episode included a 'newsreel' section with a voiceover summary of the main events of the year, or the part of the year in which the episode was set (the 1944 episode, the last screened of the autumn-winter term, was set at Christmas; some years had two episodes devoted to them). The series showed the family reacting to, and coping with, the events of the time, and passing trends. Because it showed the family over a period of seventeen years, it also showed the children growing up and adjusting to adult life. The Wikipedia entry says the family were "lower-middle class"; they lived in a semi with leaded lights at the windows and I always thought their first neighbour was rather posh because she wore those little hats with the short veils.
Looking back, there are lots of things which stick in my mind:
- the older two children running into a gang of young fascists on the way home from school in the 1930s
- the war: the older son served in Europe, and after an encounter with the enemy managed to escape through France by pretending to be Italian
- the mother returning to teaching during the war (this was commonplace as a way to 'free up' male teachers for war service)
- the posh neighbour being 'called up' and having to work in a munitions factory
- the younger daughter became a Land Girl (she was absent from some episodes and returned being played by an adult actress)
- the older daughter became a nurse, and her best friend was killed in an air raid
- the older daughter married a US soldier who had been stationed locally and became a GI Bride. They and their children returned for the final episode to celebrate the Coronation and their son wondered where "the ice-box" was in the kitchen
- the posh neighbour's son was horrifically burned on service during the war, she sold the house to move closer to his hospital and it was bought by a jolly laughing ('common', in our teacher's words) woman and her husband
- the parents and their youngest son watching Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs at the cinema after the war
- the younger daughter dressed in Dior's 'New Look' in 1947, and her geeky-looking but definitely un-caddish boyfriend, who she later married
- the neighbour crying in her garden at the news of the King's death in the penultimate episode
- the parents becoming owners of a car, and then a television set, in the 1950s (the Coronation saw a big rise in the number of television sets sold.)
I don't know if these recollections are entirely accurate. Unfortunately none of the series appear to be available on DVD, which is a real shame, particularly considering they were highly praised when they were made. At the time it was shown (early 1980s) many older houses still had air-raid shelters in their back gardens, often used for garden purposes such as an additional shed or a hen-house (the family in the series were shown growing mushrooms in theirs some time after the war ended). A house we used to pass on the way to school had one in their garden, which we could see through the fence as we went by the side of the house.
I hadn't given it a thought for ages, but tootling through Wikipedia I came across the entry for one of the actresses - the mother of the family which my series was centered around.
The series focused on the Hodgkins family in Yorkshire, parents and four children whose age at the beginning ranges from 2 years old up to early teenagers. Every episode included a 'newsreel' section with a voiceover summary of the main events of the year, or the part of the year in which the episode was set (the 1944 episode, the last screened of the autumn-winter term, was set at Christmas; some years had two episodes devoted to them). The series showed the family reacting to, and coping with, the events of the time, and passing trends. Because it showed the family over a period of seventeen years, it also showed the children growing up and adjusting to adult life. The Wikipedia entry says the family were "lower-middle class"; they lived in a semi with leaded lights at the windows and I always thought their first neighbour was rather posh because she wore those little hats with the short veils.
Looking back, there are lots of things which stick in my mind:
- the older two children running into a gang of young fascists on the way home from school in the 1930s
- the war: the older son served in Europe, and after an encounter with the enemy managed to escape through France by pretending to be Italian
- the mother returning to teaching during the war (this was commonplace as a way to 'free up' male teachers for war service)
- the posh neighbour being 'called up' and having to work in a munitions factory
- the younger daughter became a Land Girl (she was absent from some episodes and returned being played by an adult actress)
- the older daughter became a nurse, and her best friend was killed in an air raid
- the older daughter married a US soldier who had been stationed locally and became a GI Bride. They and their children returned for the final episode to celebrate the Coronation and their son wondered where "the ice-box" was in the kitchen
- the posh neighbour's son was horrifically burned on service during the war, she sold the house to move closer to his hospital and it was bought by a jolly laughing ('common', in our teacher's words) woman and her husband
- the parents and their youngest son watching Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs at the cinema after the war
- the younger daughter dressed in Dior's 'New Look' in 1947, and her geeky-looking but definitely un-caddish boyfriend, who she later married
- the neighbour crying in her garden at the news of the King's death in the penultimate episode
- the parents becoming owners of a car, and then a television set, in the 1950s (the Coronation saw a big rise in the number of television sets sold.)
I don't know if these recollections are entirely accurate. Unfortunately none of the series appear to be available on DVD, which is a real shame, particularly considering they were highly praised when they were made. At the time it was shown (early 1980s) many older houses still had air-raid shelters in their back gardens, often used for garden purposes such as an additional shed or a hen-house (the family in the series were shown growing mushrooms in theirs some time after the war ended). A house we used to pass on the way to school had one in their garden, which we could see through the fence as we went by the side of the house.