It's Grim Up North

By lynnfot

Elizabeth Roberts archive

This is the archive at Lancaster University that, hopefully, if the Arts Council pay up, I am going to transform into twelve candid/documentary photos.
Which drawer to start in?
Today's major archive discovery. Nobody drank tea between breakfast and teatime (4pm). Nobody drank coffee at all.
I find a number of the recorded habits of these working class families of the early 20th century quite alarming because I grew up, in the 60s and 70s among the same rituals, habits and restraints. The one that jolted me today was that women changed their clothes at lunch time. My mother and grandmother always did this. 
They both always saw themselves as being socially superior, even though we were a lower middle class, run of the mill family. It seems that shopkeepers were socially 'elevated'; my great grandfather was a draper.....
Then there was the belief that babies were born knowing 'right' from 'wrong' and that if tiny children were naughty, they were being sinful. I grew up with this attitude projected onto me.

A random transcript in extras. 

Comments New comments are not currently accepted on this journal.