A 1950s Mother E-Book

Sheila Hardy

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 344

Leseprobe

Other Books by Sheila Hardy

The Village School, Boydell Press/Anglia TV, 1979

1804 …That was the Year …, Brechinset, 1986

The Story of Anne Candler, SPA, 1988

The Diary of a Suffolk Farmer’s Wife: 1854–69, Macmillan, 1992

Treason’s Flame, Square One Publishing, 1995

Tattingstone: A Village and Its People, self-published, 2000

The House on the Hill: The Samford House of Industry 1764–1930, self-published, 2001

An Admirable Wife: The Life and Times of Frances, Lady Nelson, Spellmount, 2005

The Cretingham Murder, The History Press, 2008

Arsenic in the Dumplings: A Casebook of Suffolk Poisonings, The History Press, 2010

The Real Mrs Beeton: The Story of Eliza Acton, The History Press, 2011

Murder and Crime in Suffolk, The History Press, 2012

A 1950s Housewife, The HistoryPress, 2012

To the memory of Frances Hutchinson, the mother who laid the foundations of my life.

First published 2013

This paperback edition published 2022

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Sheila Hardy, 2013, 2022

The right of Sheila Hardy to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7524 9254 4

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Contents

Acknowledgements

Introduction

  1 Expecting

  2 The New Baby Needs …

  3 Baby and Mother Should Live by the Clock

  4 Baby’s Carriage

  5 Customs, Practices and Old Wives’ Tales

  6 Baby’s First Year

  7 Brothers, Sisters and Friends

  8 The Premature Baby

  9 Adoption

10 Holidays

11 What to Wear?

12 Mother’s ‘Me’ Time

13 Childhood Illnessess

14 Training the Child – The Early Years

15 Endings and Beginnings

Sources

Appendices

Significant Events of the 1950s

Popular Names in the 1950s

Popular Advertisements from the 1950s

Author’s Note

Acknowledgements

Every time I embark on the long journey to produce a book, I am amazed by the kindness often of complete strangers who are willing to share with me either their expertise on a subject or their personal experiences. Never has the latter been put more to the test than in this case and in the making of its predecessor, A 1950s Housewife. Many women, now in their seventies and eighties, generously revealed personal details of their lives in answers to my questionnaires; some allowed me to attend their group meetings where exchanges of information often sparked off hitherto little known facts. To the following ladies whom I call my ‘1950s Mothers’ my debt of gratitude is enormous. To those who permitted me to use their stories to illustrate certain aspects, I hope they feel I have done them justice. So, thank you to: Mesdames Angland, Billsberry, Bland, Bolton, Brittain, Coker, Cox, Jacobs, Lankester, Lawrence, Lemon, Perrins, Porter, Randall, Richardson, Slater, Smith, Stannard, Watkins and Williams.

When talking to the members of the Chantry Library 55 Alive group I hit an extra vein of gold with the discovery that some of them were ‘1950s children’. They too were most helpful with their recollections of their earliest memories as well as being able to provide some interesting photographs. Friends and relations were also dragooned into looking back; included in this group of ‘children’ are: Pauline Atkins, Diane Bell, A. Best, Helen Best, D. Bray, Mary Bray, Susan Garrod, Tony Garrod, Guy Smith, the Sullivan family, Colleen Taylor and Steve Williams. Mrs Pamela Green freely gave of her time to write in much detail of her experiences as a teacher in the 1950s and the Rt Rev John Waine, former bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, answered my questions concerning the service of Churching of Women, while Rachel Field helped with some background research. The following three people played a vital part by providing me with valuable printed material; so a very special thank you to Ursula Hardy for the loan of books used in her training as a Norland nanny, a precious copy of Woman’s Weekly and various knitting patterns. Valerie Clift lent me some rare copies of Mother and Baby magazines from the 1950s and John Kirkland allowed me to draw freely upon the Stitchcraft magazines collected by his late wife, Monica. To each and every one of you a most inadequate thank you; without your contribution, this book could not have been written. And finally, a huge thank you to Sophie Bradshaw for giving me the challenge and making me accept that the 1950s are now considered history!

Introduction

It seems to be almost too good to be true that the middle decade of the twentieth century, that is 1955, should have been the divide between the old order and the new. So many of the accepted customs and taboos of previous centuries were broken down or swept away as ‘modern’ ideas and methods took their place. While younger people readily took to the new ways, older people clung to what they considered were the best, whether in fashion or food, grammar schools or comprehensives. The clash between the old ways and the new thinking was likely to show itself most strongly where child rearing was concerned, especially if mothers were much in evidence to influence their daughters and daughters-in-law when the young women became pregnant. In a previous book, A 1950s Housewife, we met a group of women who volunteered their personal experiences of married life in that decade. In this volume, they and others reveal something of the advice and problems they encountered in bringing up their babies. The one thing that a young mother never lacked was being told how she should manage her child. The debate on the ‘correct’ way to rear a child continues today, just as it has done from time immemorial.

The most illustrious mother of the 1950s was HRH Princess Elizabeth who already had two small children when she became queen following the death of her father King George VI in 1952. The two young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret Rose had had the benefit of growing up in a loving family, enjoying a very close relationship with their parents, quite unlike the rigid, regimented childhood the king and his siblings had known. However, the very nature of their position in society meant that royal children would be raised in entirely different circumstances from the mainstream population; their day-to-day care would fall to nannies and nursemaids, and contact with their parents would be limited. Whereas the norm for the general population at that time was for the child to spend most of its early years in close proximity to its mother who looked after its needs, while its father provided for them all by working and thus was a more remote figure in the child’s life.

The difference between the family life experienced by our present queen and that of her father exemplifies some of the attitudes to bringing up children that seem to have existed since civilization began. Such guidance as parents were given in the past rested on the belief that children should not be left to develop freely but, like young animals, they needed to be taught or trained how to do the right thing. How that training was to be achieved was pretty straight forward. The Bible tells us in Proverbs XIII, v.24, that training should be given with love; albeit a love that on occasions has been misinterpreted: ‘He that spares the rod hates his son but he that loves him chastens him betimes.’ That is, the parent who neglects to correct his child really does not care about the child at all the loving parent punishes wrongdoing when necessary. In a later chapter, Proverbs XXII, v.6, we are told: ‘Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.’

Similar ideas occur in the work of the sixth-century Chinese teacher Yan Zhitui, who gave clear instructions on how a baby should be raised:

…as soon as a lovely baby can recognize facial expressions and understand approval and disapproval, training should be begun so that he would do what he is told to do and stop when ordered. After a few years of this, punishment with the bamboo can be minimised, as parental strictness and dignity mingled with parental love will lead boys and girls to a feeling of respect and caution and give rise to filial piety …

Wherever there is love without training this result is never achieved. Children eat, drink, speak and act as they please. Instead of needing prohibitions, they receive praise, instead of urgent reprimands they receive smiles. Even when children are old enough to learn, such treatment is still regarded the proper method. Only after the child has formed proud and arrogant habits do they try to control him. But one may whip a child to death and he will not be respectful, while the growing anger of the parents only increases his resentment. After he grows up such a child at last becomes nothing but a scoundrel.

The Family Instructions of Master Yan

From such sources grew the idea that discipline by some form of corporal punishment went hand-in-hand with training. Hence the continued belief in ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’. Poet Thomas Hood, in his ‘The Irish Schoolmaster’, wrote: ‘He never spoils the child and spares the rod, But spoils the rod and never spares the child.’ By the time we reach the Victorian age, the rod is still much in evidence both at home and in the schoolroom, and for girls as well as boys. In extreme cases the idea of loving training seems to have been lost and with it all forms of affection. The nineteenth century abounds with literary examples of those children who were either not correctly trained or were over-indulged by their mothers, growing up to become unprincipled and selfish adults. In contrast some authors depicted the over-disciplined children as growing into unhappy adults incapable of either giving or receiving love. That oft-quoted axiom ‘children should be seen and not heard’ was one that lingered long in certain aspects of the British way of life. In the 1950s, children were expected to be well mannered, sit quietly largely ignored, when taken to visit friends and relations, and were told quite firmly never to interrupt the adults’ conversation.

The end of the nineteenth century found Britain with an ever-increasing population, much of which was living in poor, overcrowded housing lacking running water and adequate sewage disposal. Insufficient food and generally poor nutrition often led to disease and physical impairments, which sentenced a child to a life either as a permanent invalid in a squalid home, or as a long-term inmate of the workhouse. Without proper methods of birth control families increased alarmingly, eased only by a high mortality rate among babies. The lack of proper medical care often resulted in the death of women following childbirth, which in turn led to a family of orphans left either to shift for themselves as best they could or having to be placed in an orphanage.

At a time when the only State assistance for the poor came from the Poor Law, which was paid for by the Parish Poor Rate, it fell to charitable organisations, often inspired by religious zeal, to do what they could to help alleviate the suffering of those most in need. Among them were campaigners and practical workers like Dr Barnado, who worked to rescue children found living on the streets, and William Booth, who formed his Salvation Army to battle for those addicted to drink in the hope that, by saving them, whole families would be rescued from destitution. He also provided practical and lasting help by establishing hospitals for the poor in major cities. Bands of Evangelical Christian women worked tirelessly to provide food and clothing for poor families in their local areas, some volunteering to teach children in Ragged Schools in an effort to use education as a way of providing the rising generation with the ability to find employment.

In some of the most impoverished areas of London and other cities, wealthy middle-class women who were members of the High Anglican Church came together to form sisterhoods, their convents offering shelter and work, in particular for ‘fallen women’. For many young girls, forced out of overcrowded homes, prostitution was often the only way they could earn enough to feed themselves and pay for shelter. Inevitably, these girls, some as young as 13 and 14, became pregnant. Without family or friends to fall back on, they were reduced to abject poverty, open to becoming the prey of dissolute rogues who forced them into stealing or prostitution, usually both. These were the ‘fallen’ the sisters tried to help. Chafing at a life of indolence and indulgence, many of the middle- and upper-class women who joined the sisterhoods were thwarted nurses. Prompted by their religious faith they had the desire to minister to the poor in this way, but although their parents and guardians might countenance a bit of ‘do-gooding’ on their daughters’ behalf one or two afternoons a week, and while it was allowable for them to visit the sick with a basket containing a jar of beef tea or a nourishing soup, it was quite a different matter for them to want to go off and become a trained nurse. The idea was abhorrent, for even though the number of hospitals throughout the country was increasing, nurses at that time were not drawn from the middle classes. Those women who rebelled and joined the sisterhoods often had to go to the continent to get the training they needed, and before long they were taking their expertise into hospitals and supervising other nurses. Their contribution is still remembered today, having given their title to the senior nurse in a hospital ward.

Since it was considered a natural procedure until the eighteenth century, women gave birth in their own homes assisted by other women, those who had had children themselves and more often those who had, with much practice, become self-appointed midwives. Only in dire emergencies was a medical practitioner called in to assist at the actual birth. When the earliest union workhouses were set up in the eighteenth century they included an infirmary to treat seriously ill inmates, which also oversaw the care of pregnant and nursing mothers. The period immediately following a birth was known as ‘the lying-in’ and this was the title adopted for the first maternity hospitals set up in London. Significantly, the very first, established in 1749, was known as ‘The lying-in hospital for Married Women’. The unmarried mother, as we know from Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy, had to seek her lying-in in the workhouse. The Lying-In Hospitals took their patients for three weeks, beginning a week before they were due to be delivered. They were, of course, fee-paying, apart from exceptional cases. Initially, they were quite small establishments but they served as ideal training ground for the specialist nurses who became midwives. By the twentieth century midwives were in great demand and by the time we get to the 1950s, as we shall see in the pages that follow, every expectant mother was automatically assigned to the care of a midwife.

Quite apart from any help and advice on childcare that doctors and midwives might provide on a personal level, the twentieth century inspired other medical professionals to write about their experiences and the methods they had used in the rearing of babies and young people. The most influential of these was the New Zealander Dr (later Sir) Frederick Truby King (1858–1938). He spent much of his working life as the superintendent of a mental institution, where his research led him to the conclusion that mental ill health was the result of a faulty up-bringing. His regime of a good diet, fresh air, exercise, work, recreation and rest for his patients appeared to achieve good results. When he turned his attention to young children, he came to the conclusion that the cow’s milk on which babies were fed was responsible for many of their ills, and having been impressed during a visit to Japan on the health of the infants there, where breast-feeding was the norm, he proposed that this should be the basis of good child-rearing. He published Feeding and Care of Baby in 1913. Thereafter the book became both widely read and adopted throughout the world. Most of the women who became mothers in the 1950s would have been brought up on the general precepts laid down by King, whose work was carried on enthusiastically in this country by Mabel Liddiard.

So it was that our expectant mothers and fathers, too, would be reading books and magazine articles that would offer advice that had been tried and tested for forty years. However much the magazines of the day attempted to reflect modern ideas, they still tended to echo the old views and it would take time before those of the American Dr Spock would revolutionise the thinking of the 1960s.

Note

In the 1950s the word ‘gender’ was most likely to have been used in classrooms to teach pupils learning Latin, French and German how to distinguish the correct ending to apply to a noun. It was a somewhat difficult concept for the average English child to comprehend that one’s eye, ear, nose and mouth, for example, might be labelled masculine, feminine or neuter, and to make matters worse, a feminine noun in one language might well be masculine or neuter in another. The words ‘sexist’ and ‘feminism’ were to enter the vocabulary of some during the 1960s. I mention this to explain why I have adopted the use throughout of ‘he’ when describing babies of both sexes. To write he/she is both time wasting and seems clumsy while ‘it’ seems disrespectful. There are books where the author has deliberately written of the baby throughout as female; to me, that seems slightly forced. Belonging to a generation even earlier than the 1950s, I happily accepted the idea that ‘he’ stood for all humankind.

1

Expecting

The words ‘pregnancy’ and ‘pregnant’ were not in general use amongst the majority of the population in the early 1950s. Instead, a woman was described, even on official forms, as an expectant mother, while her friends and relations all busily reported that she was ‘expecting’. The word pregnant had been in popular use in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century but fell into obscurity during the Victorian era, possibly because the condition was not considered one to be discussed in general conversation. A young scholar of the 1950s was more likely to come across the word ‘pregnant’ only in its literary context of describing a dramatic pause.

Most of those who have contributed their memories became pregnant within eighteen months to two and a half years after marriage. Some of them were still limited to living in two rooms in someone else’s home and having to share the kitchen and bathroom. For others, the advent of a baby meant that they were able to progress a bit further up the waiting list for a council house. Certainly the incentive to have a proper home of their own became stronger once the realisation struck of what having a baby would entail.

In those days before pregnancy-testing kits, most women waited until a second period was missed before visiting their doctor to have their suspicions confirmed. Once he, and most doctors at that time were men, had examined her thoroughly and given her a date for her confinement, he then directed her to the antenatal clinic to make arrangements for where the birth should take place. The doctor also provided her with the necessary certificate to take or send to the local Pensions and National Insurance Office, which would ensure that she was provided with the extra care given by the State. During the war years of the 1940s, when rationing was introduced to ensure fair shares of food supplies for all, there was, according to Nurse Patterson who gave expert advice in a magazine, ‘a universal improvement in children’s health. Britain’s Bonny Babies became a by-word. Expectant mothers had the first call on the nation’s larder and priority for milk.’ One result of the doctor’s certificate was that expectant mothers were issued with the same distinctive green ration books that were allocated to children. (This made life hard for any woman who, for one reason or another, wished to keep her condition secret.) The green ration books contained special tokens, which allowed the mother-to-be extra milk at a reduced price, as well as extra coupons to help with the baby’s needs.

During all or part of the period of 1950–54, meat, bacon, sugar, butter, tea, eggs, cheese and sweets were still rationed. In 1950 canned and dried fruit, chocolate biscuits, treacle, golden syrup, jellies and mincemeat had become available without points but supplies were still subject to availability; some parts of the country fared better than others – the equivalent of what in the twenty-first century has become known as the post-code lottery. Petrol and soap were also decontrolled later that year, so the mother-to-be was assured that she would have adequate supplies of soap flakes and washing powder to wash the nappies (or napkins) she would need in a few months’ time.

Those nappies, as they were commonly called, made of terry towelling and fine muslin, were among the many other items that would be required. Few of those who were about to give birth at the very beginning of the 1950s had the luxury of going off with their husband to a specialist baby shop and buying whatever they fancied, or could afford, for the dreaded ‘dockets’ were still in existence. While most people are aware of the food rationing that existed during the Second World War, it may surprise some to learn that furniture was among many other commodities that could not be bought freely. During the war most manufacturers were directed to produce those items necessary to the war effort, while others were left struggling to produce essential goods against acute shortages of, in the case of furniture makers, both home-grown and imported timber. Thus there was very little new furniture available to meet the demands of those who had to replace the homes they had lost in the bombing, as well as those who were setting up home for the first time. So furniture rationing had been introduced under the government’s Utility scheme. Selected manufacturers produced the best quality they could, using designs that harked back to the simplicity of the Arts and Crafts movement. All these pieces were marked with the CC41 Utility emblem.

A 1950s mother with her baby.

The maximum number of units or dockets allowed to a married couple furnishing a new home was sixty, with another ten for each child. But since demand was so high not all the units were available for use straight away. Recipients would be informed when they might use them. For those young married couples who moved into two rooms in someone else’s house, where they were expected to provide their own bedroom furniture, they would receive a maximum of twenty-five units which was sufficient for a large double bed, a wardrobe and a tall boy. Those moving into prefabricated houses with built-in furniture would have their allowance scaled down accordingly. The Board of Trade leaflet UFD/6 Utility Furniture & Household Furnishings makes awesome reading but does also throw light on the advantages and fairness of the scheme. To start with, all Utility furniture was free of purchase tax (331/3 per cent at that time). There was a fixed maximum price for both new and second-hand pieces (which were also subject to units having to be surrendered), and traders were permitted to offer Utility furniture on hire purchase or credit sale agreements, provided that the full payment was made within two years.

Mattresses, bedding, curtains and flooring were all included in the scheme requiring units, but Utility nursery furniture, that is cots, playpens and high chairs, could be bought without a permit. However, the Board of Trade leaflet warned that as these were still in short supply there was little likelihood of there being enough for everyone who might need them. Therefore people were encouraged not to buy new chairs or cots, if they could make do with an old one, so prospective grandparents searched their lofts for any baby equipment that might be scrubbed, repainted, mended and brought back into service. Alternatively, the small advertisements in local newspapers and cards in shop windows proved a useful source for slightly more modern second-hand equipment for sale.

Clothes, too, continued to be rationed for a number of years after the war ended. The annual clothing coupon allowance had more than halved by 1945, which meant that the era of make-do-and-mend carried on well into the early 1950s. Girls who had learnt to knit socks and scarves for servicemen while they were at school were now making themselves jumpers and cardigans to wear for work. One clothing coupon was required for every 2oz of wool purchased. The only wool that did not require coupons was that designated as being for darning purposes. This came in small hanks made up of pieces cut to about 12–15in length. The ability to make a neat darn was a necessity in those days; if a sock wore thin at the heel, one either re-knitted the whole heel or carefully darned the thin area before the hole appeared, thus prolonging the life of the sock. Similarly, any other knitted garment that had a hole or a weak spot was repaired with a darn. The hanks of darning wool were sold in assorted colours, grey, brown, navy and black being the most popular, but white and pastel shades were also available for mending children’s clothes. Such was the ingenuity of the women of the period that at Christmas many a little girl found her old doll had a new wardrobe of clothes: vest, knickers, jumper and skirt, coat, hat, socks and shoes, all knitted with strands of darning wool, carefully joined together. The basic navy of the main garments was enlivened by the introduction of inserts of a coloured pattern.

In the twenty-first century it is hard to believe that knitting wool was sold in 1oz skeins that had to be wound into balls before knitting could begin. ‘Holding the wool’ was an operation that was learnt by quite young schoolchildren. Though it was thought by many to be a tedious process as it meant sitting still for some time, for others it was an opportunity for a quiet chat. For those who have never seen the process, it went something like this. The skein holder and the winder sat facing each other about 2–3ft apart. The holder stretched out his or her arms with the palms of the hands facing inwards, thumb erect. The winder, who was usually the knitter, then took the skein of wool, which was twisted in a loop, shook it out until it formed a circle and then placed that on to the holder’s hands. It was essential that the holder kept the skein taut at all times. The winder, having located the beginning of the skein, started making her ball, carefully wrapping the wool a number of times over the fingers of one hand. When she was satisfied she had enough to form the centre of her ball, she slipped this off and continued winding until the skein was fully wound. It was necessary for the holder to develop a rhythm that matched that of the winder. This meant tilting the hands one way and then the other as the wool was wound. Woe betide – an expression much used in the 1950s – the holder who let the skein slacken or who failed to tilt at the right time. A knitter with no one available to help her wind was forced to make do with using the uprights of two kitchen or dining room chairs. With their backs facing and placed the correct distance apart to stretch the skein of wool, winding could commence, but it was an even more time-consuming process. How much better, if the young expectant mother could persuade the father-to-be to act as her holder – having first made sure that his hands were thoroughly clean!

A couple of skirts with two or three oversize blouses or smocks were usually sufficient to get the woman through the last few months.

As the mother-to-be progressed through her waiting time, the likelihood was that she would put on weight, though the powers-that-be urged her to disregard the old wives’ tale that she should eat for two, stressing that her weight gain should be only a little more than the expected child would be. However, even if she did not put on a great deal of extra weight, her shape would alter significantly and eventually she would be forced to find new clothes suitable for her condition. In the January 1951 edition of Mother magazine, there appeared a knitting pattern for what was described as the ‘cleverest maternity jumper’. Made with fine two-ply wool it had a lacy pattern. What earned it its superlative was the fact that it was knitted on a yoke onto which the two overlapping front pieces were pleated, thus allowing for, as the pattern had it, ‘an adjustable bust measurement’.

In the 1950s there were no chain stores dedicated solely to the needs of mother and baby. Large department stores in towns and cities often had a nursery department but clothing for the expectant mother would, in the main, have formed part of the stock-in-trade of drapery and dress shops. As for baby clothes, these were often to be found in what were termed fancy goods shops, those that sold mainly wool or all things associated with embroidery. It was an appealing display in such a shop window that tempted Jean’s husband to venture inside and buy the delicate little christening gown for his new daughter, an impulse buy that has had regular use within the family for sixty years.

In the main, most pregnant women did not spend a great deal on special maternity clothes. Wrap-around skirts were ideal for coping with an expanding waistline. The simplicity of their design meant they could be made at home or purchased at a reasonable price. A couple of skirts with two or three oversize blouses or smocks were usually sufficient to get the woman through the last few months. Some women resorted to wearing their husbands’ shirts when they could no longer fit into their own clothes. Certain items of new underwear became essential as time progressed and there came a need for support garments too. But in many cases, the woman could get away with wearing her existing winter coat right to the end, especially if, like Mrs SJ’s, it was one of those fashionable swagger coats which she had bought a couple of years earlier as part of her ‘going away’ outfit.

Most of the 1950s women continued at work for as long as possible for, as they were reminded by all the books and magazines of the period, as well as the staff at the antenatal clinic, ‘Motherhood is a natural normal event and not an illness. Old wives’ tales should be scorned as belonging to an ignorant past.’ So wrote the sensible, down-to-earth Mabel Liddiard in The Mothercraft Manual. A State Registered Nurse and Midwife, Liddiard spent her life in maternity nursing, becoming nursing director of the Mothercraft Training Society, which was based on the principles of the late Truby King. The first of these was the importance of fresh air. The period up to and including the 1950s was obsessed with fresh air. The theory was that everyone, not just pregnant women, should spend as long as possible outside breathing in good, fresh air. One book actually stated that pregnant women needed to breathe for two, not eat for two! No matter what the weather, being outdoors was essential at some time during the day and linked with this was the necessity to take exercise. Being pregnant was not an excuse to stop taking part in sports if one normally played them, but every woman should take at least one walk a day regardless of weather; with stout shoes and warm clothing she would come to no harm. In fact she would be ‘less likely to have colds than those who coddle themselves’. The emphasis on the importance of breathing fresh air was carried into the home and, in particular, to sleeping with the window open. Those of us who grew up in the 1940s and 1950s remember what it was like to sleep in a bedroom that was totally unheated in any case, yet was made even colder by your mother’s insistence on having the window open at least 2in to allow the passage of fresh air in and the stale air out. This had, no doubt, been very sensible advice in the days when a bedroom accommodated five or six children in a small room.

The working woman who took plenty of exercise walking to and from work or when shopping daily – in all weathers – did her deep breathing and slept with the window open, should remain healthy and happy. Any minor complications or troubles that occurred were not natural but, said Liddiard, it was best to know a little about them and the example she cited was morning sickness. We of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been accustomed to film and TV depictions of a young woman hanging her head over a lavatory bowl as a way of conveying that she was pregnant. Liddiard would not have approved of this over-dramatisation. Listen to her no-nonsense sensible advice:

‘Sometimes during the first three months there may be a feeling of nausea every morning and sometimes actual vomiting; this is commonly called “morning sickness”. When this unpleasant condition exists it is best to have something to eat before rising and to get up slowly. As little attention should be paid to it as possible; it usually passes off after the first three months, if not sooner. Food should be taken as usual.’

She then goes on to recommend a successful cure: half a pint of milk mixed with half an ounce of Mead’s *Casec or *Plasmon, to be taken before rising and last thing at night for three or four days. The two asterisks denoted that neither product could be obtained during wartime. The first, which seems to have been a form of magnesia, was imported from Canada, while the second came from Italy and is still used in prepared Italian baby foods.

Those who raised a wry smile at the foregoing, even thinking that Liddiard had obviously never experienced the condition herself, may be amused by a further direction that the mother-to-be should ‘not give way to morbid cravings for one particular food about which there are many foolish superstitions’. We have all heard the apocryphal stories of the women who ate small pieces of coal or licked the distemper off the cowshed walls because they had a calcium deficiency or a need for charcoal in their diet, but there is no denying that most pregnant women do have sudden strange cravings for kippers or porridge, ice cream or salt and vinegar crisps. Liddiard uses the term ‘morbid’ in the medical sense of ‘unwholesome’. Yet her advice on diet, generally, is wholly in accord with that of the present day: three well-balanced meals daily made up of a little meat, fish, eggs, cheese and butter, with plenty of vegetables, fresh fruit and salads. Tea and coffee were to be taken sparingly – many women in fact found that they became intolerant to both during pregnancy. Instead it was recommended that 1½–2 pints of milk should be taken each day in some form or another. On the subject of alcohol, Liddiard found it necessary to quote Sir Truby King himself:

Alcohol taken by the mother flows as a poison in her blood. The tender growing cells of the baby, directly nourished by this poisoned stream, or fed with milk derived from it, do not grow or develop properly; they become stunted and degenerate. Therefore, an expectant or nursing mother should take no beer or stout, however strongly such drinks may be recommended by well-meaning friends or nurses.

Feeding and Care of Baby

In fact during the 1950s nursing mothers were frequently offered glasses of stout during their stay in hospital.

The Mothercraft Manual first appeared in 1923, with the tenth edition being reprinted in 1946. (It was translated into Siamese in 1933, Chinese in 1935 and Afrikaans in 1937.) Thus this would have been the book most probably read by the parents of those who became mothers in the early 1950s and so would influence the well-meaning advice that they handed on. While much of the antenatal advice was sensible, if a trifle extreme, it has become a source of on-going debate over the years as to the value of the strictures laid down concerning the actual rearing of the infant. In the first half of the decade, the Sunday Express produced its own baby book. Mrs A.A. Woodman, MBE, SRN, SCM, certified health visitor, produced a handbook for mothers in response to what mothers had said they wanted to know. It was not just a reference book full of advice, but also included what, at that time, was a novel feature, namely a personal record section in which to chart the own child’s progress.

It is interesting to compare the style and attitudes of Liddiard and Woodman. The former reflects the commonsense unemotional approach of the earlier period and was aimed at nursery nurses as well as mothers, while the latter is more sentimental. In the opening chapter of the Sunday Express Baby Book we are given the supposed thoughts of a mother-to-be including her dreams for the future of the child, based on the parental duty to teach and train it to grow up with high moral standards, which would be achieved with God’s help. Today we might be surprised at the overt religious content but more shocking was the sexist attitude shown by the mother to her unborn child. She wishes that her daughter should be beautiful, since beauty is always an asset, provided it is more than skin deep. She wants her to be unselfish, loving, generous and kind – all things her parents can teach her. She must learn to be a sport and play the game by the rules. If she loses, then she must smile and try again. But it is the next wish that today’s women may find irritating. There is nothing about the girl making the most of her ability and finding a satisfying career in which she could make use of all the goodness her parents have taught her; instead there is advice on what to look for in her search for a husband. The assumption is that this is every woman’s ultimate aim. And once she has found her man she must love him wholeheartedly; no matter what happens she must stick by him and trust him. If things sometimes go wrong, she should just smile and love him all the more and things will come right again! As for her son, she wishes him to be honest, straightforward, kind and gentle. He must be fair in his dealings just as he would expect others to be. Again he, like the girl, must learn to be a good sport. The mother-to-be hopes he will never know poverty but, if he does, then he must have the courage to do the best he can with what he has. She hopes he will never be grumpy or cynical but always wear a cheerful grin on his face. When he comes to choose his partner in life, he must not be blinded by superficial appearances …and so it goes on, and it is we the readers who become cynical, wondering in what ideal world this woman lives, knowing that she is more than likely to be in for a nasty shock one day.

And once she has found her man she must love him wholeheartedly; no matter what happens she must stick by him and trust him.