2022 Granny's Attic Exhibition

click The Local History Group for list of other exhibitions

A hot water bottle - bedrooms seldom had any heating.

Exhibition Summer 2022 Granny's Attic.

Exhibition of Domestic Bygones, mostly Victorian/Edwardian. Collated by Rosemary Mortham and held in the garage at Pondside, Kiln Lane. Lacey Green.

The new local history media wiki being developed was also demonstrated.

on the right >>>>>Table crockery was invariably made of china.

Treddle Sewing Machine.

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Smaller items from the past

Ornamental crockery.

on the right >>>>> No electricity here in this sewing machine - the needle was moved up and down by pedal power. Material moved forward by means of a knotched plate on which the material rested. It worked with the needle going up to move forward a fraction, dropped down below the surface level. moved back and came up to hold the material, just as the needle was coming down again. The user was required to guide it and keep it straight along the route of the stitching.

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on the right >>>>>> Several steel kettles, these would be placed on an open fire or if posh, on a metal plate that swung over the fire and thus kept them clean.

A long metal fork was used to hold bread near the fire for toast.

The copper contraption at the front was filled with paraffin or similar and used to boil the kettles, heat food and sometimes for the copper boilers used to sterilise clothes.

Bathrooms were often outside or you used a portable bath, in either case hand-filled with heated water. Here you see a wash basin kept in the bedroom for convenience.

on the right >>>>>> A far cry from the modern office but the typewriter was a precious tool. You had to feed paper into a roller at the top. Each key had a thin metal arm attached which swung up and hit an inked ribbon transferring the ink onto the paper (the ribbon, on reels, moved a fraction sideways with each key press, as did the roller.) The end of the metal arm was engraved with the letter.

A more portable version of the sewing machine behind a crochet bag

At the end of the line of text, a lever was used to return the roller back to the start of the line and rotate the roller just enough to move to the next line. Typo's meant winding the paper so you could paint out the mistake with a white fluid.

The large item a the back is either a bath to use wherever convenient and hopefully private, hand filled with warm water; or for hand washing larger items such as bed sheets. No such thing as a washing machine. Sometimes they used a copper boiler to clean personal items. Thomas Crapper invented the first flushing toilet (allelua!), hence some of the vulgar terms referring to use of the toilet.

Re-aligning the paper to resume, could be a problem.

Note the selotape dispenser - that hasn't changed but for it now being plastic and much lighter.

Remember the portable radio, bottom left

corner - you now use your phone - much

better when out jogging.

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on the right >>>>> An early gramaphone had to be wound up like a clock so it would spin the turntable. A flat vinyl record contained a single groove - sound track - in which a needle rested and vibrated according to the route of the groove - this was translated into sound via a diaphragm (loudspeaker).

Some lace, hand made in those days. The locality had a thriving lace industry.

Below. Members of the Local History Group.

l-r. Rosemary Mortham, Rita Probert and Margaret Gray

Margaret Gray

Joan West demonstrated the media wiki, LaceyGreenHistory.com