A foreign country...

A few months ago, I bought a bound volume of 1925 "Good Housekeeping" magazines. The book sits on my desk and every day while I'm waiting for my computer to chunter itself into readiness I read a few pages. I was born in 1950 - only 25 years after these magazines appeared - and yet they seem to portray a different world from the one I remember from my childhood. But the past 25 years seem to have passed in a flash.

The above advert for knitting wool, for example, with its references to Granny's "shrewd old eyes" and "gnarled and seamed old fingers" - so flattering to grannies! But one of my grannies was only 55 when I was born and I imagine this was the case for many grannies in the days when women tended to have babies at a younger age.

And I know it's an advert, but - attitudes to housework have possibly changed somewhat. This text may have been written by a man - you think?

And as for this one - if only it were that simple. It makes me think of my grandfather, who was very interested in medical matters - he was a vegetarian in the 1930s, for example, which was very unusual then. He was a great advocate of wholemeal bread, which was again quite unusual among Scottish people at that time. But he didn't claim it as a cure for cancer!