The House the 50s Built

In a cheerful and informative first episode, Walker focuses on the kitchen and the labour-saving devices that brought huge improvements to women’s lives. A lady from the WI demonstrates the boring horrors of wash day to Walker as he ineptly drags wet shirts through a mangle. “I felt like chains had been lifted,” she says of the arrival of the glorious twin-tub. The fridge, replacing the stinky larder, meant housewives no longer had to spend ten hours a week shopping and all the time saved could be put to good use. Says Fay Weldon, “There was time to agitate, time to think, time to become a feminist.”

Engineer Brendan Walker continues to explore the changes around the home in post-war Britain, reconstructing an entire house with the decor, furniture and gadgets of the era and investigating how these innovations affected the wider world. He focuses on the living room, which saw the introduction of the television set, wallpaper paste and vinyl emulsion, and the curvy dining chair for ever linked to a memorable 1960s image featuring Christine Keeler, the woman at the centre of a political scandal.