MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 52
Now that the decorations have
come down, the baubles carefully wrapped in tissue and returned to the loft and
the last of the Christmas pudding donated to the sparrows, it’s time to look
forward to a new year. I was watching the news showing thousands of people
crammed into stores, determined to buy new clothing, furniture or ‘white goods’
– and it set me thinking.
 |
| !970s' Kenwood Mixer |
 |
| English Electric Cooker 1969 |
When I was younger, in the
1950s, 60s or even 70s, people didn’t seem to feel the urge to rush out and
replace their goods regularly. They bought only when something didn’t work, was
shabby or damaged. Even today, I tend not to buy an item unless it needs
replacing – and so items such as my fridge, washing machine and tumble drier have
been in use for many years. In fact my cooker, an English Electric, has been in
use since 1969 – we purchased it when we got married. At that time it was a top
design – it even had a double oven, which was the height of kitchen
sophistication! My 1970s’ Kenwood mixer still makes great cakes, too and the
Russell Hobbs percolator still percs! In the 1960s we tended to be better
informed than those who had set up homes in the immediate post-war years and
through most of the 1950s. No longer did you need to be posh to follow the
latest trends, or even to hear about them.
 |
| 1970s Russell Hobbs Percolator |
 |
| Ridgway Potteries Homemaker plate |
Admittedly the 1951 Festival of
Britain had introduced many exciting new designs and concepts, though the
majority didn’t filter their way into the average home till the mid to late fifties,
such as the ubiquitous Homemaker plate, designed by Enid Seeley and made by
Ridgway Potteries for Woolworths in 1957.This black and white crockery was
decorated with stylish pictures of coffee tables, lamps, chairs and cutlery.
But with the sixties came excitement, colour, change, and beautiful sleek
designs. Mixing with my fellow students at art and design school opened my eyes
to the stimulating new ideas which were pouring from the studios and workshops,
changing the way we looked at conventional objects. We were taught to view
everything from new angles and to lose our traditional concepts, even if this
did mean suffering the embarrassment of walking round a shopping centre wearing
a face-covering helmet of red, blue, green or orange cellophane in order that
we saw things in a different light.
However, it wasn’t just us art students who were made more aware –
everyone was. People all around were doing exciting things; it was as though
the air was supercharged, causing people to break free from their safe world
and dare to try something new. A teacher from my school suddenly upped and
founded a pottery, Tremaen, in Devon, while an acquaintance found a job helping
sculptor Henry Moore at his studio. Everyone, it seemed, was into art, music,
fashion or ‘doing their own thing’ – and people were discovering that however
ordinary you were, you could still have a fashionable home.
 |
| Ercol Rocking Chair 1969 |
Design was a buzzword, and
newspapers and magazines were packed with adverts. By the time I married,
Ercol, G-Plan, Meakin, Viners, Midwinter and Russell Hobbs were just a few of
the must-have manufacturers that brides turned to for their first purchases. I
was no exception. My first significant buy was a small Ercol rocking chair,
which I saw in a sale for just over £6. A bargain! After queuing for a couple of hours one
January morning, the chair was mine, and stored away as a rather large part of
my ‘bottom drawer’. Yes, we all had them then; mine was filled with orange and
purple tea cloths, a bright blue Spong mincer, colourful melamine plates, Poole
cookware and a set of Pyrex casseroles decorated with assorted motifs. It also
contained some stunning black and gold Portmeirion mugs and a couple of
circular pink-edged tin trays adorned with animals; the latest thing in style!
We chose Meakin for our
china, just as did most of our friends. Meakin – characterised by the ‘Bull in
the China Shop’ advertising logo – was made by J & G Meakin, who were based
in Staffordshire. Amongst the designs which poured forth in those heady
sixties’ days were Poppy, Capri, Rondo, Aztec, Palma and Filigree, which was
the pattern we chose. I loved this understated, delicate design of pink
flowers, such a contrast to the more vibrant patterns of the time, and one
which was perhaps reflecting a newer side to the sixties – a more gentle,
low-key, softer feminine approach. We used our Filigree for years, but
eventually the pattern began to fade on a few items, so it has now been safely
put away, to be brought out for special occasions. The cutlery we chose was
Viners – we went for the new ‘Love Story’ range, with tiny daisies embossed
around the handles, and collected the whole lot, even the fish knives, items
rarely used today. Viners cutlery was the in-thing at the time, and had quite a
long history, as it was founded in Sheffield in 1901.
My parents had embraced
sixties style earlier in the decade by throwing out their old utility, heavy wood
sideboard and hefty, thick-armed padded armchairs, settling instead for an
Ercol three piece suite and a modern dining table and sideboard. Ercol was
cool, light, curvy and airy, and a complete contrast to that heavy utility
look. Their suite had green textured woven covers, and looked stunning. The
Ercol company was founded in 1920 in High Wycombe, by a designer called Lucian
Ercolani, who perfected the technique of steam-bending wood into ‘bows’ to form
chair backs, discovering how to work with elm, a wood with a beautiful grain
but notoriously difficult to tame for furniture. The company was particularly
renowned for its Windsor chairs, which featured a bent wood frame and an arched
back, and I remember that this type of chair was later used when I was at
secondary school. It was in the sixties that Ercol really came into its own. My
parents’ suite was later given to my brother, and then a few years ago he gave
it to me, so it’s in daily use and still as comfortable as ever.
 |
| A 1970s photo of our G-Plan when it was still new! |
When we had chosen our new
flat, my fiancé and I made a trip to Waring and Gillows, a renowned furniture
stockist in London’s Oxford Street. The company dated back to the late 1800s,
and we went there to choose a dining-room suite. We already knew that we wanted
our table to be circular, and soon chose a G-Plan model which we loved, not
only for the superb teak wood grain, but because the table was impressively solid.
It looked as though it would last. The accompanying chairs, with their circular
seats, were padded with a pineapple-coloured woven fabric, while the six foot
long, low sideboard featured a two-door cupboard at the left and a drop down
cupboard at the right. In the centre were four drawers. We were spot-on with
the assumption the pieces would last – we still use them every day! The sideboard looked super in
our flat against the pale orange walls, and the table was attractive, its
centre graced with a Poole pottery Delphis bowl which had been a wedding
present. The Ercol rocking chair looked good too, but we had no money for other
furniture so we utilised an old white-painted single wardrobe which we laid on
its side, padded with foam and covered with orange fabric to match the curtains
to give us a bench. Yes, you’ve guessed – we still have that, too…
One of our wedding presents
was a super orange fibreglass lamp supported on three dark wood legs, vaguely
resembling a blunt-nosed rocket. At the time it cost just under £10, and these
Scandinavian inspired lamps are once more finding favour, both the
floor-standing lamps – ours is 41inches high – and the smaller tabletop
versions. Although people used these coloured lamps to cast a warm glow, in
most houses in general the ‘main’ lighting was from a single ceiling light, not
the multiple lights we so often see today. Lampshades were often made from
paper slotted together, or woven from raffia, or perhaps colourful geometric
shaped shades moulded from thin plastic. Perhaps it’s worth mentioning that, if
the average person wanted to buy fittings, furnishings or china, we were very
much reliant on the chain stores – we bought lamps from British Home Stores,
(it wasn’t BHS in those days!), curtains and bedding from Marks and Spencer and
everyday china from Woolworths.
Department stores such as
John Lewis were good for the best china and special items, but, on the whole,
there weren’t the huge warehouse type stores we are so used to, today. Most
people did their own interior decoration, buying paint from their local
‘wallpaper shop’, or choosing the paper by browsing through the large books of
patterns which were on the counters. When we bought our new flat in the late
sixties, the living room floor was just concrete and so we stuck down grey
Marley rubber floor tiles, interspersing them every so often with green, orange
and yellow tiles – very fashionable, and perfect with our Nordic long-pile rug.
Of course, we couldn’t take the floor tiles with us when we moved into our
house, but we took the Nordic rug and – yes, yet again, it’s still in use
today. I am sure manufacturers must
loathe people like me, but my policy is ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.
 |
| Poole Bowl 1969 |
Naturally, I do still buy new
things – I’m an avid mug collector and the kitchen reflects this, and only last
year I invested in a new kettle! (The old one coughed and died.) Modern electrical technology needs to be
updated regularly too. And I know that styles and tastes change. Luckily,
however, at the moment the retro/vintage look is in vogue, so I’m once more
living in a fashionable house, enjoying my Ercol, G-Plan, fibreglass lamp and orange
Nordic rug!
My book, ‘Cornish
Shallowpool Dolls’, was published in October, and I’m thrilled that a pile of
copies have been snapped up by a Cornish bookseller, who has asked me to do a
book signing for them in Spring. The book is proving surprisingly popular with
doll collectors and those interested in Cornish lore, featuring as it does
hundreds of beautiful dolls all handmade in Cornwall around thirty years ago,
many dressed as Cornish tradespeople and famous characters. I had enormous fun
creating mini tableaux of a bakery, dairy, harbour, town square and others, to
display the dolls. I’m still working on the book ‘Nelly makes a Bloomer’, the
follow up to the novel ‘Nelly’s Knickers’. It’s almost complete and should be
published later this year. That’s providing I can keep the characters under
control and stop them wandering off to do their own thing; an occupational hazard
for writers!
