We are not an aberration …… when you are not alone .... spaghetti, milk and sugar

Growing up in southeast London in the 1950s we ate a heap of different foods.

Pretty much all of them were cooked from scratch at home using whatever ingredients were to hand.

And that meant that some of the meals were a bit of a strange mix, but they followed a basic recipe and drew on what mum and dad had eaten in their youth.

To this could be added the experience of wartime rationing and the limited range of food that was available.  

So, leaving aside the seasonal aspect of what was in the shops this was a time before advent of exotic vegetables and fruit shipped from around the world and ready to buy all year round.

So, strawberries, raspberries, new potatoes and a selection of root veg came and went adding to the slow rhythm of what we ate and I think made for an appreciative anticipation.

Now there was always tinned fruit which usually was saved for Sundays.

It also meant that things like avocados didn’t feature with me until I was well into my 30s.

And then there were the odd dishes which I always thought of as peculiar to our family and a bit of an aberration.

Chief amongst these was spaghetti cooked with milk and sugar.  It was a pudding treat, quick to make and always went down well.

But in those quiet shared conversations with friends’ spaghetti cooked with milk and sugar always drew a blank, in fact more than a blank, the general consensus ranged from disgust to outright derision.  It was a bizarre thing.

And so, I was left to “mutter well we liked it” with that consoling thought that it was the past where we did things differently. 

Leaving me to write a few reflective pieces and ponder how we were an aberration.

But not so, because tucked away in a book from the Great War on vegetarian recipes, I came across cooking boiled Macaroni “with a little sugar and milk [which] makes a very acceptable pudding”.  

I rest my case …. It may not pass muster today but jolly well was up there on the tables of fellow vegetarians in 1918.

The book has been reprinted by Read Books in their collection of Vintage Cook Books.

The publisher’s blurb tells me that it was “Originally published during WWI, this is one of the early vegetarian cook books, issued to help deal with rationing and the meat crisis. 

It contains many recipes and much advice that is still of practical use and interest today. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. 

Vintage Cookery Books are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. 

Contents Include: Hints On Food Soups Vegetable Stock Lentil Dishes Brown Lentils Rice Dishes Haricot Dishes Macaroni Dishes Nut Dishes Cheese Dishes Miscellaneous Dishes Curries Vegetables Sweets Pastry Salads Sauces Porridge Egg Dishes Explanations and Suggestions Menus For A Fortnight”.**

Now Lois my dearest friend and fellow writer and blogger who has followed my journey as a vegetarian for forty years and more sent me a copy yesterday.

I read it in a single sitting.  

Some of the recipes I already cooked, others looked a challenge or just didn’t appeal.

But the historian in me will go back and explore the 100 dishes as backdrop, not only to vegetarianism but also to the Great War.

And that is it.

Pictures; pasta to make a pudding from, 2026, cover of  the reprint Food in War Time, 2026

* Sugar sandwiches …. fruit salad ….. and carnation ……. food for the Gods, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2026/07/sugar-sandwiches-fruit-salad-and.html

** Food in War Time - Vegetarian Recipes for 100 Inexpensive Dishes: And Helpful Suggestions for Providing Two Course Dinners for Six People for One Shilling, George W. Hall 

***Lois Elsden, Writer, https://loiselsden.com/

A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 5........ a street fire alarm 1958

A short series featuring objects which tell a story of Chorlton in just a paragraph and  a challenge for people to suggest some that are personal to their stories.

In an age before we all had telephones it was necessary to be able to call the fire brigade.  Back in the 1880s there was a dedicated phone in the Lloyds Hotel.  Later still we got these.  This was one outside the Gaumont/Savoy cinema on Manchester Road.  There was another on the corner of Manchester Road and High Lane outside Oban House.

Picture; Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, A H Downes, November 1st 1958, M17988, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

Waiting for the off.......... Manchester Corporation trams lined up in the Princess Road Car shed, 1926

Sometimes the image says it all.

And for anyone who was born after the last of the old trams rumbled their way through our streets and for that matter those who can just remember them, here is a magic picture.

It was taken in 1926 in the Princess Tram depot.

Within two decades and a bit these majestic vehicles had stopped running and now even the garage has gone.

So here they are as stately and magnificent with the sun shining down through the big glass roof.

Now I don’t think it is romantic tosh to say you get a real feel of just how impressive these trams were all lined up and waiting to go.

No wonder they still have the power to call up memories and draw new generations in.

Picture; the Princess Road Car shed, 1926 from the collection of Sally Dervan

On Court Yard with Annie Morris

I never tire of looking at this picture which takes me back to an Eltham I never knew.

We are standing on Court Road at the beginning of the last century and it comes from the collection published in Eltham Through Time by Kristina Bedford*

To our left in more recent times was the Grove Market, ahead of us the old Congregational Church and to the right a row of houses and shops which were already old by the time our photograph was taken.

Judging by the leaves on the trees we are in spring but never completely trust an postcard because companies were not averse to the odd “touching up” to enhance the image.

That said I have always been drawn to this bit of Eltham and not because of the palace and the posh buildings associated with it but because of that row in to our right.

I have written about walking past the properties already.**

And it was here that Annie Morris who lived when our photographer pitched up on Court Yard.***

In her time she had lived at  numbers 17 and 25 Court Yard and before that in Ram Alley behind the High Street.

She was born in 1848 at 4 Pound Place, and almost her whole life was spent in here Eltham.

She was a cook and may have worked for Captain North at Avery Hill and through her life we have a snap shot of what Eltham had been and what it was becoming.

Her grandfather had set up a farrier’s business in Eltham in 1803 on what is now the Library, and “attended the old Parish Church in his leather apron.”

All of which takes me back to Court Yard and that picture from Ms Bedford's book

Location; Eltham

Picture; courtesy of Kristina Bedford from Eltham Through Time

*Eltham Through Time, Kristina Bedford, 2013, http://www.amberleybooks.com/shop/article_9781445616001/Eltham-Through-Time%3CBR%3E%3CI%3EKristina-Bedford%3C_I%3E.html?sessid=QEZApJq34zSjKNVdmAQp3W3Qy2Osaq7D26IZyhCFhC916IZiIOjjz615AwKjvvXM&shop_param=cid%3D1%26aid%3D9781445616001%26

**Walking along Court Yard in the June of 1841, looking for John Martin and Hannah Simmons, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/walking-along-court-yard-in-june-of.html

***Annie Morris, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Annie%20Morris 

Ms Bedford also has an interesting web site, Ancestral Deeds, http://www.ancestraldeeds.co.uk/

As many Prime Ministers as you can count ……

It has become one of those throw away comments much loved by the media that since 2016 we do seem to have had a lot of Prime Ministers, which is often accompanied with a comparison to some of our European neighbours who change theirs with monotonous regularity.*

1979

And it is true that in that decade we have had five, with one lasting just 44 days which occasioned the “Liz Truss lettuce”.

1923

Now none of this is contested but does hide the uncomfortable history that during the last century some governments were almost as short lived.  

The second post war Labour Government which won the 1950 General Election survived with a majority of just five from February 1950 till the October of 1951.  

All the more remarkable when the first post war Labour Government came to power with a huge majority and established the National Health Service. 

Just over twenty years later in 1974 there were two elections in the February and October, while the Conservative Prime Minister, Sir Alexander Douglas- Home who succeeded Harold Macmillan in the October of 1963 lasted just a year.

Of course, there are sound political reasons why those changes of power occurred and once you delve into the history the sleek and shallow observations are just that ….. sleek but shallow.

And if you wanted to go back to almost the beginning of the 20th century that history can offer up a similar set of Prime Ministers who held office for just a short period.

1929

David Lloyd George, Coalition, lasted from 1918 till he was ousted by a Tory Party coup in October 1922.  His successor Andrew Bonar Law, Conservative was replaced by Stanley Baldwin, Conservative in May 1923.

But Baldwin lost the 1924 General Election to the first Labour Government led by Ramsey MacDonald whose administration lasted for just eleven months. 

Baldwin was returned to power and managed a creditable five years before he was defeated in the 1929 General Election by Labour who were derailed by the financial crisis of 1929.  Unable to secure the budget cuts he wanted and in the face of a Labour Party split he formed a National Government winning the 1931 General Election.

All of which means that by my reckoning in the seven years that spanned most of the 1920s we managed to clock up six changes of Prime Minister, starting with the Lloyd George Coalition Government and ending with the Coalition Government of Ramsay MacDonald.

Pictures, Election Posters from 1924-1979

*Theresa May, 2016-2019, Boris Johnson, 2019-2022, Liz Truss, 2022-2022, Rishi Sunak, 2022-2024, Keir Starmer, 2024-2026

History through art .... on the wireless today

Now here is a double presentation of wireless at its best.

Gassed, 1919

Both programmes explore art as part of the backdrop for the last two centuries.

It starts with National Remembrance and the 1924 Empire Exhibition Artworks, Who Did We Think We Were? 

"75 years after the Festival of Britain offered a tonic to a Blitz-hit nation, Neil MacGregor, former director of the British Museum, returns to Radio 4 with a three-part series, examining how celebrations of British identity and togetherness over the past century or so can help us better understand and define who we are now.

PETROLEUM, 1924

'The question of who we are, of national identity, of the Union Jack itself, is now the subject of angry political debate,' Neil says. 'In these three programmes I want to take a step back – to look at six moments over the last hundred years when, as a country, we came together to assert a national purpose, to celebrate and to explore who we thought we were, and to consider our place in the world.'

MATCH MAN, 1924

'Asking 'who did we think we were then?' might help us answer the question - 'who do we think we are now?'.  And to understand why – as a country – we have, for over a century, found that question so difficult to answer."

In this first programme, Neil looks at the aftermath of World War One. 

After conflict in which nearly a million servicemen of the British Empire were killed, how should a nation honour that huge human sacrifice? 

The immediate answer was to create a National Hall of Remembrance, lined with newly-commissioned memorial art - art that shocked its first viewers. 

SHARP'S,1924

And 1924 saw the opening of a vast Empire Exhibition in Wembley, re-asserting Britain's place in an unstable post-war world. 

Across two years, the Exhibition attracted 27 million visits - an astonishing number at the time. So what did it say about us? 

What drew people in such numbers? And what might we conclude from it today?

Producer Katy Hickman"*

And  is followed by Art That Conquered the World, Artworks, Ophelia.

"John Everett Millais's Ophelia is an art world celebrity. It's a star of Tate Britain, attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors to a recent exhibition in Shanghai and floats serenely across the internet, racking up huge numbers of likes and memes. But how and why did Ophelia hit the big time?

In this series, art historian Dr James Fox traces the twists of fate and happy accidents that pushed a handful of artworks to the forefront of global pop culture. Painted in 1851, Ophelia's fame is a story of fashion and feminism. And, as James discovers, the unlikely combination of Shakespeare, Ken Russell, Elizabeth Siddal, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Taylor Swift and the most famous bath-tub in the history of art.

In conversation with James are the art historian Dr Rebecca Marks, tattooist Jessica Stratton, the actress Judith Paris and Lord Lloyd Webber.

Produced by TBI Media, Producer – Julia Johnson, Exec Producer – Jonathon Mayo, Junior Producer – Jamie Adam, Sound Design - Tom Burchell, Production Manager – Sera Baker"

Location, BBC Radio 4

Pictures; Gassed, John Singer Sargent, 1919, Imperial War Museum, PETROLEUM, & MATCH MAN, SHARP'S,  BRITISH EMPIRE EXHIBITION 1924-5, unnumbered, SHARP, PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY RAPHAEL TUCK & SONS LTD. Oilfacsim but not so trade-named, comes with three slightly different backs see Perkins & Tonkin. Sold as single cards available at Exhibition, six images by CHARLES E. FLOWER, Tuck DB https://www.tuckdbpostcards.org/ Ophelia, John Everett Millais, Tate Britain, room 14, Accession number, N01506

*National Remembrance and the 1924 Empire Exhibition, ArtworksWho Did We Think We Were? BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002yl1f

**Art That Conquered the World, Artworks, Ophelia, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002yxt4

It’s the little bits that serve to make a history ……

If you are of certain age, born in the second half of the last century who grew up during the early years of television then the chances are that the wireless played a big part in your life.

1950s elegance

Along with newspapers the BBC remained the primary source for news and entertainment.  It was there in school with a variety of educational programmes, at your place of work with Music While You Work and offered up a heap of comedy and drama broadcasts which stand the test of time.  They were innovative, and funny and set many comedians on a path to fame and success.

Advert for radios, 1949

The list of radio shows from my youth tumble over each other but in a way culminate with Two Way Family Favourites that request programme designed to link families at home in the UK with British Forces serving in West Germany and other places overseas.*

It was just part of Sunday, sandwiched either side of Sunday dinner, beginning with that signature tune “With a Song in My Heart” followed by “In Britain and in Germany it is 12 noon so at home and away it is time for Two Way Family Favourites”.

It is perhaps easy to forget that there was a time within living memory that communicating with a loved one was pretty much limited to letters and post cards.

Our first phone arrived only in the 1950s, and the line was shared with another family, but we were lucky because for most people making a telephone call meant a trip to the nearest public phone box while phoning from abroad might involve booking a call-in advance.

All of which meant that keeping in touch was down to writing either letters or the short picture postcard.

And with such limited access to communication often hearing of a relative’s illness was hit and miss.

But here the BBC stepped in with its SOS messages which were designed to alert families to an urgent emergency, like "Will Mr and Mrs Little, last heard of eight months ago in the Birmingham area, head to Leeds General Infirmary where Mrs Little's mother is dangerously ill."

They weren’t frequent but even as a child when I heard one I was transfixed.  And in the same way when the BBC broadcast an appeal for information on a missing person.  

The radio audience, 1944

What strikes me now is that idea that someone could  have been “last heard of eight months ago in the Birmingham area” which with today’s level of knowledge and potential surveillance seems so remote.

I occasionally remember these messages and yesterday went looking for them, a search which led me to a BBC story, “The personal SOS messages the BBC used to send”, Kathleen Hawkins.**

Now I wont steal Ms. Hawkins story, all you have to do is follow the link, but as the story shows we still know so little about the service, even down to when it ended.

According the BBC piece, “It is not known when the messages ended, but it was at some point during the 90s, although BBC World Service continued the practice into the 21st Century. Mobile phones made them redundant, but for those who were directly affected by the SOS messages, my family included, they had a huge impact that lives on today".

I do remember that having grown up with them I caught myself thinking that I hadn’t heard an appeal for ages.

So there you are.  The SOS message, it may only be a tiny footnote in the history of British broadcasting but it’s a bit that serves to make a history and, in the process, offers up a very small window on how we were.

Location; my past and yours

Pictures; 1950s elegance, News of the World's Household Guide and Almanac, courtesy of Debbie Cameron, advert for radios, 1949, from the collection of Graham Gill, radio listings from Saturday July 3rd, 1943, The Derby Evening Telegraph,  from the collection of Andrew Simpson, and group of young women, signing on for the industrial registration at the Derby Employment Exchange, August 9th, 1943, reproduced courtesy of the Derby Telegraph, January 2, 2013 

* “In Britain and in Germany it is 12 noon" .... One song ….. Two Way Family Favourites ….. and a different way of saying hello, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2025/10/in-britain-and-in-germany-it-is-12-noon.html

**“The personal SOS messages the BBC used to send”, Kathleen Hawkins, BBC News, May 15th, 2016, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35815747