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1948You are in: London > 2012 Olympic Games > 1948 > Our tribute to over 60 years of Woman's Hour  Susie Miller with young friend Our tribute to over 60 years of Woman's HourThe radio programme Woman's Hour has been broadcast since the mid-1940s. Projects run by the the Shoreditch Trust recapture the original spirit of the programme, from make do and mend to women's independence. What do women want?Ìý It's a question people of both genders have asked themselves for generations.Ìý It's particularly a question which wracks the brains of radio producers working on the long-running 91Èȱ¬ Radio show Woman's Hour.  The toy workshop Back in the 1940s when the programme was first aired, it was perhaps more easily answered.Ìý In those days few women had serious career aspirations, so domestic tips and ideas for brightening family life in austere times were most welcome.Ìý Which isn't to say that Woman's Hour didn't do its share of promoting the versatility of women and the range of skills they were capable of mastering.Ìý Food Rations in 1948, per person.Bacon 2oz (2 weekly) Preserves 4oz (weekly) Cheese 1.5oz (weekly) Butter/Marg 7oz (weekly) Cooking fat 2oz (weekly) Meat 1 shilling worth (weekly) Sugar 8oz (weekly) Tea 2oz (weekly) Sweets 4oz (weekly) Eggs 1 (when available) Milk 3 pints Bread - 4 loaves per week When one of the women in the Shoreditch Trust first came up with the idea of celebrating 1948 (yes it was a woman's idea), it was to celebrate the last time London hosted the Olympics.Ìý But a number of women (the idea was growing) also cast around for projects which might capture the imagination of local people to get them involved.Ìý In particular they were seeking intergenerational ideas, which would appeal equally to 8 and 80-year-olds. They thought it would be fun to make some audio features, since in those days radio was still the dominant medium over the nascent upstart, television.Ìý The audio features captured here and in the other 1948-linked features are the result of that. They also looked at some of the buzz words from the time, such as 'make do and mend'.Ìý It transpires this is just another version of a buzz word from our time, 'recycling'.Ìý One workshop spent several weeks seeing what could be created from items which would otherwise be thrown away.  Chris Westwood, Shoreditch Trust And since pleasures were simpler in those days, and toys were certainly not high tech, the idea of a toy-making workshop was also proposed.Ìý That ran alongside a cookery group, who tried out old recipes from the 1940s, when of course rationing meant cooks had to stretch their imaginations to make the plain food enticing. The programme below gives a flavour of those projects.
Help playing audio/video last updated: 05/09/2008 at 16:54 SEE ALSOYou are in: London > 2012 Olympic Games > 1948 > Our tribute to over 60 years of Woman's Hour |
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