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When Shopping Was Shopping: Reminiscing about the Early Days of Brands
From: The Victoria and Albert Museum
| By:
Sally Noelle |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
The following reminiscences by elderly members of the London community were recorded in association with the V&A's exhibit 'Brand.New', which ran from October 2000 to January 2001. 'Brand.New' looked at our ever-changing relationship with the world of goods, from grocery packaging to designer labels. It looked at our loves, loathings, and loyalties, but in doing so reinforced the hegemony that brands enjoy at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
It was not always this way: as reminiscence worker Sally Noëlle demonstrates below, many older people can remember a time in Britain before branding and packaging ruled the shops, when household goods were bought loose and unpackaged, and one dress was mended and re-mended to last a year. |
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| Mansion polish. | |
 olishing and all that one day, something else another day, the laundry, the ironing, the mending another day. The shoes would have to be checked up, patches were cut and put together again. By Thursday the ironing was being done and it used to be up in the hot press by Thursday evening and the hot press was inspected to see if it was in there properly.
--Anita, Westminster Advocacy Service for Senior Residents (WASSR)
The days were ordered. Monday was always washing day, Tuesday was ironing, Monday's lunch was the cold meat from Sunday, and Tuesday would have been shepherd's pie or something like that. Then Wednesday would have been shopping day, not sure about Thursday, Friday would have been fish and you did all your baking for the weekend.
--Jeannie
Thursday was half day everywhere. Early closing.
--Tony
Oh, that's right you did your cleaning on Thursday, usually. Saturday was slightly a day off, but not all that much and Sunday was the day when you had roast meat. Everybody changed their clothes, they were only changed once a week and they were put in the wash for the next day.
--Jeannie |
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| Empire gelatine. | |
A lot of people worked on Saturday.
--Maureen
Wasn't Friday night bath night?
--Iona
Saturday night was bath night.
--Jeannie, Iona Open Age Project
And then you went to church clean.
--Maureen
You had special books to read on Sunday, religious books even if your family was not religious you still had special books and no noisy games. You went to church in the morning and then the servants went in the evening because they had to stay at home and prepare the dinner, and then they were allowed to go to church in the evening and leave a cold supper for their employers.
--Jeannie
Did everybody go to church?
--Sally
No, but people who didn't kept it quiet.
--Maureen, Open Age Project
Polish
My first job was housework, in service. It was a hard job. You were up in the morning about six o'clock and working right up to about nine o'clock at night. All sorts of jobs. They had someone come in on Monday and I used to have to wash the socks whilst she did the washing out in the garden. It was a terrible job. Then I had another job and there was three of us. A parlour maid, a cook and I was housemaid but I didn't like it. Waiting at table.
--Miriam, Kensington Day Centre |
In Jamaica, for cleaning we had a bark that you would strip off the tree with a machete, as I can remember. And then they boil it and we use it to put on the floor with a brush and it makes it dark like a varnish. That is what my parents used to do. You would put it on a fire, a coal fire, and when you boil it, it turns red. And then you let it cool and you take a brush and do the floor and it come up red, very dark and nice like this (tin of red Cardinal Floor Polish). It was better than this.
On a wooden floor. Every weekend we did that.
--Enid, Hackney Pensioners Press
This is the most microscopic tin of Cardinal Polish I have ever seen in my life. The thing in Sri Lanka in the most fashionable houses was to do every inch in red concrete, and you had to keep that up and polish it. And it was a disaster, you would get it all on your shoes and if the chap didn't apply it neatly you had an uneven line.
It was perpetually applying this, and buffing, buffing, buffing, really until it was like glass. And that was an absolute hazard. Children wore patent leather shoes in those days and it was a terrible risk. (Pointing to small tin) I thought this was shoe polish, because that is the way the shoe polish came. I have never seen such a tiny tin of Cardinal Polish.
--Manel, WASSR
Provisions
Avocado, kiwi, even peppers--we didn't know what it was for.
Papaya, there were none of those exotic fruits. Pineapple you saw before the war, but you didn't see them again until after. Or a banana. I didn't know what a banana looked like until after the war.
--East Chelsea Community Contact Organisation in conversation |
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| Royal lemon pie fill. | |
There used to be stores, like Home and Colonial Stores, Lipton's. You used to go for provisions or the butchers. Sainsbury's started out, I think, purely as a butchers. I used to work in one store from Edgware Road. That was the Home and Colonial Stores and it included Lipton's, David Greg's and a couple more, Maypole Dairy. All included in the one. They called them Allied Suppliers. It was all food in them days. They had their different small departments, but it wasn't a department store and it wasn't a supermarket because most of the stuff used to get down on the premises. You used to go to the butter counter and there might be some butter ready but on the other hand there might be a great big slab of butter, and they used to have a bowl beside and they used their pan-handles or whatever you call them. And they cut it out and put it on there if it was the right weight, and keep on until they got the right measurement. Sugar and that went in packets and they used to done them up fast, because they were used to it, you see.
--James, Kensington Day Centre
Most things were bought loose. Cut off blocks. And the sugar was weighed. But you never got carrier bags like you do now. You had to take your own shopping basket. Or maybe a string bag for your vegetables.
--Vera, ECCCO
I used to go to the market in North End Road, Fulham, and I still go there. My mother used to go to the same stalls that I go to.
--Ena, ECCCO
A man used to come round with a tray with all the muffins on and a nice white teacloth over it. We would have muffins for tea on Sunday; it was the only day you got them. Five a shilling.
--Eleanor, Age Concern, Camden
When the shops were shut, in the dairy they had what they called the Iron Cow. You put your money in the slot and your jug under. That was before milk bottles and plastic.
--Vera, ECCCO
In Spain, when we had an empty bottle we would go to the shop and say 'can we have half a litre of milk?'
There was a woman who would come with a big churn of milk, and would give you so many litres and you would have it in a jug, but only for the day--because there were no fridges.
--Rosita, Spanish Memories Group
We would get fresh bread and go into Dakins and get broken biscuits and you took a bag with you and you filled it up with broken biscuits. You just took your own paper bag. The broken biscuits were in boxes, tins and you just helped yourself. My mother used to never throw away a brown paper bag and I couldn't work out why. I had no use for them but in the past they had to be reused.
--Ann, ECCCO
People used to take a pudding basin shopping to go and get jam. Or you could go in the pub and get jam. And mustard pickles and pickled onions. They were all made on the premises.
--Ena, ECCCO
Mars bars were on ration and they were cut up according to the number of children there were in the room. The thought of a Mars bar each was inconceivable. It would be: 'there's a penny for you to take down to the sweet shop.' You could get a lot for a penny. Pre-wrapped sweets were very rare. You used to go into the sweet shop and say: 'can I have a happence worth of sweets?' It was up to the confectioner whether he said: 'well, which do you want? Do you want dolly mixtures', which were favourites in those days. Then you would get a happenny worth of dolly mixtures, which was quite a lot. A big bag. A 2oz bag.
--lrene,WASSR |
Tailoring
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| Harrods spools of thread. | |
During the war it was mainly army khakis or ambulance blue. After the war, whatever was going.
I did have one of the Burton's specials. It was very good. It was very comfortable. We had nice tweed caps and trilbys. If you were betting or hunting then you would have a cap.
--Stanley, Age Concern, Camden |
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| "Cutie" bias binding. | |
There was always the local dressmaker or mother made dresses for you, and men's suits had to be bespoke. Unless they were industrial clothes and then you could have bought them from a shop where they had them hanging outside from the facia board. Otherwise things were handmade or homemade.
Everyone had a Singer sewing machine of course. It wasn't until Dacs and Simpsons started to make men's trousers that men's clothes after the war started to become off the peg.
--Jeannie, Open Age Project |
I bought myself a Singer sewing machine in 1945, something like that. It was pedal one.
--Rosita, Spanish Memories Group
Before the war you had Burton's and the fifty shilling saver, and they were in every high street. In Burton's you could get a suit for a little bit more, three pounds, and they made it for you.
--Tony, Open Age Project
There was another shop called the five-shilling shirt company, it was in Regents Street and it had it illuminated in neon--five shillings, in a neon circle and you could buy a shirt for five shillings. There were lots of guinea shops, as well.
--Jeannie, Open Age Project
I had my own tailor. I remember once that I used to work in an office, and on the ground floor there was a shop and they were selling cheap, I think they were closing down. So I bought this piece of fabric, three metres, for a suit and I bought it in good faith, it was very, very cheap, about 100 pesetas.
So my brother said, 'alright, come to my tailor', and the tailor said, 'well, yes, it is not very good, but don't worry because people, they are going to be envious'. And he produced this suit, and it was fantastic. I remember it was pearl grey and it was so well done, with such style that after that I continued going there.
--Jesus, Spanish Memories Group
Now we are much more inclined to give our clothes away when we are a bit fed up with them, whereas years ago, with your hats for instance, you bought new ribbons for them or you bought another flower or put on a brooch. But, you kept your hats for years. And your dresses were altered, particularly when you were a growing child, with insets. Or they were passed down to other children and then they became rags for dusters and then they became rag carpets so that they had a continual use, full time. Things weren't just discarded.
--Jeannie, Open Age Project |
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| Ration booklets. | |
I remember as children if you got a bit fat, father would say, 'put a gusset there'. Or at the end of one's skirts. My grandmother would say, 'we must get something done, these children are indecent' and that meant your hemline had to be three inches below your knee. So something had to be found somewhere, so they would put a band into the waist, or a ribbon in the centre of the skirt to give you two or three extra inches.
Then they cut up old blankets to make dressing gowns. My father's shirts, the end of them would make blouses for us.
--Anita,WASSR
I don't ever remember having a bought woolly, they were all hand-knitted at home. Most of our clothes were made as well.
The classic thing was that a fellow refugee did dressmaking and she pieced together all of the strips. One of my sister's favourite dresses was made into panels of all these off-cuts and it was a lovely dress and she just got some white pique to do the collar. So these tweed off-cuts made a very nice winter dress for her.
--lrene,WASSR
In Sri Lanka, the most sought after magazine was Weldens. Every issue had two or three pages of the two little princesses and what they wore. Immediately, my mother would rush to the dressmakers and all the dresses that the princesses wore were made for us. They were most horrific. I remember ones that were Victorian, with this organza thing and it pricked and pricked... But everything that the princesses wore was sent out to the colonies.
-- Manel,WASSR
At school we had to have lace-up shoes for outdoors and strap shoes for indoors and then you had outdoor plimsolls and indoor plimsolls and slippers. And you were not allowed to leave school unless you had your hat on and your gloves, regardless of the weather--Panama and gloves in the summer and felt hat and warm gloves in the winter.
--Jeannie, Open Age Project
I had to wear suspenders and stockings and a liberty bodice to school at five years old!
-- Elizabeth, Open Age Project |
Wearing black--the 'sorrow'. In Spain plenty of women wore black. If somebody died they went for three years black, and then somebody else died and they spent all their life black.
And the children as well. I remember seeing a lovely pink sort of jumper in a shop window, and I thought I will have that in a few months time with saving up and that. And then my aunt died and I had to wear black. Depending on who it was, if it was a parent it would be long. If it was an aunt or a great aunt it could be six months. It depended on the relationship.
--Rosa
When my mother died in 1941 my small sister was ten. She wore a black dress, all her dresses were black.
--Jesus
Yes, my mother wore 'the sorrow', a veil.
--Conchita
Especially in the villages you see, if you lost a husband, a lady even if you were youngish, forties or fifties--she would never come out of mourning.
--Rosita
My mother always had corsets. She would have her best one and everyday corsets. It was if you went anywhere proper, put a best corset on to hold her tum in.
--WASSR
Obviously you wanted to be old enough to be allowed to wear stockings and then when you did, the horrible reality of the discomfort.
Stockings and suspenders were torture actually. I can remember my cousin telling me the first time she ever went out in stockings, she couldn't bear the discomfort and took them off. In the cinema! |
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| Portion of tea. | |
When tights first came in I couldn't afford them. They were very expensive compared to stockings. Ordinary people couldn't afford silk stockings therefore we had the lyle. The shop round the corner from us were stocking menders, stockings were knitted and they would have a hook and put it onto a frame and link the stitch up again. So you always had your stockings mended. But that shop was also a lending library of
romantic novels and you would pay so much a week to borrow them. The library wouldn't stock such low class stuff. They were my mother's bedtime reading.
--WASSR
Advertising
For the fiesta, they used to publish beautiful posters and for explosives as well, we would use them mainly for hunting and shooting. In the newspaper they would advertise them, in the village one person would have the newspaper and the bus driver would bring it along from the capital. In the countryside only one person would have the newspaper.
--Saturnino, Spanish Memories Group |
The wireless was the only place for obtaining news and I am quite sure that this is where we learned about places like Selfridges and Gammages or word of mouth. Certainly I can't remember it ever being advertised.
--Isabel, WASSR
They started advertising by the roads, on big posters. So that people would fall in love with the advertising.
-- Rosita, Spanish Memories Group
If you went to your grocer's shop, which was often a small general store as well, and he being a good businessman would say,' ooh, have you seen this Mrs Jones?' And if it was a new soap Mrs Jones would be inclined to buy it or to at least try it.
-- Jeannie, Open Age Project
In the magazines there were cigarettes and different models of dressmaking as well. Cigarettes were advertised as a luxury thing. That was about the time when you had a choice, where you could pick one thing or the other, but it came very gradually. We started to use things from packaging and advertising when we could afford it.
--Rosita, Spanish Memories Group
Only really when we started to have radios did we start to hear advertising. There was some advertising painted on the sides of the buildings. The same way they advertise here with a poster, but in those days it was painted--'Sears' or something like that. I remember one of the brands was 'Sabuto', in the cathedral square or wherever. 'Sabuto' was advertising shirts, very nice shirts.
-- Saturnino, Spanish Memories Group |
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