I had a bit of a haul at the Sunday Antique Market. I really didn’t mean to go. I picked Boy the Elder up from Scout Camp, went to church then remembered that I needed something from Sainsbury’s that I’d forgotten on Saturday. Then I remembered that Smog needed a new flea collar and she will only wear yellow which means getting one from Wilkinson’s which is right next to the market. Rats. Before I knew it, I had cruised in like a rooster and was contentedly browsing the stalls.
Now I happened to have, in the car, an inoffensive, mass-produced Japanese tea set that I had been given some time ago. I have been attempting to downsize in view of the diminished proportions of WH HQ and I remembered that I had forgotten to take it in on Friday. I fished it out and managed to persuade a feeble-minded trader to take it off my hands. I only got beer money but I did then feel justified in doing another circuit of the hall.
One stall, quite uncharacteristically, had a load of magazines and ephemera onto which I swooped vampire-like. This is what I bought:
- A 1951 ‘Woman’s Own’ magazine – slightly tatty but containing a three-page section on producing a first Sunday lunch for a new bride
- A wartime ‘Needlewoman and Needlecraft’ magazine which still had two transfer embroidery patterns in it
- A Red Cross ’Junior Nursing Manual’ which has convinced me that children should stop learning PSHE and Citizenship and should be doing First Aid instead.
I spurn you OK, Chat and Heat as I would spurn a rabid dog
I also bought two Staffordshire china cups and saucers with violets on which will necessitate the purchase of a little purple or yellow teapot so I can be all elegant and co-ordinated and that.
All of this led me to rummage through my (badly arranged) collection of pamphlets and I rediscovered my 1930s ‘Hints for Home Sewing’ and a wartime Ministry of Food ‘ABC of Cookery’.
You will be glad to know that I will be sharing the contents of these with you.
But I will do it gradually so you don’t get the vapours.
Wartime Housewife 