MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 53

 

Have you had any snow this winter?  Nor have we, though apparently it’s on its way.  I like snow, I like the way it hides all the ugliness, transforming litter, cars and wheelie bins under a glistening white blanket. I must admit, though, I am not so keen on going out in it – oh, I’m fine walking through snowy parks or fields, but I don’t like walking on slippery, mushy pavements.

What I do love are snow globes, those glassy balls that incorporate tiny flakes of snow which can be transformed from a gentle flutter to a positive blizzard depending on how hard you shake the globe. Magical, enchanting and very tactile, these little transparent snowy globes have intrigued children and adults for years. It’s virtually impossible to pass a display of snows globes without picking up at least one and shaking it, to watch the snow whirl madly around before it gradually settles. Sometimes they are made from glass, though nowadays the globes are frequently moulded from plastic, and each contains an ornamental figure which becomes hidden amongst a flurry of snow or glitter when agitated.

Yet, although these toys have enchanted people for generations, no-one seems to know for sure exactly when snow globes were first made. Certainly the Victorians enjoyed them and collected them as souvenirs of their travels, while some of the earliest were displayed an ‘all nations’ exhibition in Paris in 1878, but they must have been manufactured for several years beforehand. Nowadays snow globes, or snowstorms or snow shakers as many people call them, are becoming extremely sophisticated, and many contain musical movements, animated figures, glitter, lights or even a mechanism to do the shaking for you. Some hold tiny fans to whirr polystyrene snow from within, but that really is the height of laziness!

At one time children often found a snow globe in their stocking at Christmas, but now they have gained a new lease of life and can be found in gift shops and tourist attractions, sometimes with glitter replacing the ‘snow’. Have you ever wondered what the snow is made of, and why it doesn’t fall straight to the bottom of the globe when it is shaken? Well, before the advent of plastic, globes were made from glass, using various substances for snow such as ground-up bone, ceramic dust, sand or ground rice, but today both globe and snow are often plastic. Apparently, the correct technical term for the snow is flitter! The liquid inside is usually water mixed with glycol to thicken it slightly, thus keeping the snow in suspension a bit longer.

Snow globes aren’t always round - in the 1940s a German manufacturer experimented with various shapes and decided that a compressed oval shape was less likely to break than the traditional globe. Before then, the majority of them were spherical and could be viewed from any angle, which meant they needed to contain a three-dimensional sculpture or figurine. With the advent of the new shape, half of the dome was painted (normally blue) to create a back drop, and because flat-backed figures could be then used, it lead to a saving in labour. It meant that the backs of the figures didn't need to be painted and the figures could easily be stamped from plastic.  Although globes are still made, the oval shape is very common, especially for the cheaper plastic ranges. Rectangular, bullet, cube, bottle, octagonal, cylindrical, conical, lantern and egg-shaped are just a few of the other shapes encountered. Interestingly, many other designs inside snow globes go back several decades – only recently I saw one on sale containing the figure of a little angel with a fawn, identical in every way to one which I was given (and still own) in 1957.

This time last year we had thick snow, and I took lots of photographs in the garden and park. The bare trees against a wintry sky looked bleak and cheerless, and the ice was thick and treacherous on the paths. I remember that the only thing to break up the white and grey of the scene was a perky little robin, red breast glowing defiantly against the element, singing his heart out. I am sure that someone, somewhere, will have produced a robin in a snow globe; I must keep a lookout.

 

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!