RHYS BOWEN: From time to time I see old advertisements posted on social media, and of course I save them in my treasure trove of research for my historical novels.  This one caught my eye. Knitted woolen underwear? First, can you imagine how itchy and uncomfortable that felt? And how hard it would be to wash? And second—who would have the time to knit themselves underwear? Can you imagine sitting on the train knitting away at a pair of long pink knickers? Talk about embarrassing.

But this advertisement made me think of two things.

1.         People had more time.  I don’t mean farmers’s wives, settlers on the Prairie. They worked from dawn until dusk. But the average person in England. My ancestors. They had long evenings with no TV. The light was probably too poor to read for long so they knitted or crocheted, their nimble fingers remembering the pattern in semi darkness.

2.         It also made me realize that ordinary people had skills we no longer possess. I learned to knit and crochet in home ec class at school (boys learned woodworking). I can do both, but slowly and cautiously, and not very well. My mother was an absolute whiz: there was never a time when she wasn’t knitting( and usually doing the crossword puzzle as well) as she watched TV, sat beside my father in the car. All of my kids grew up with Grandma’s hand knitted sweaters.

When I was expecting my first child my mother sent me a bag of white yarn and patterns for a baby layette. By the time the child was born I had finished one leg of a pair of leggings.  When I was expecting my third I decided to crochet a blanket. It started wide but I didn’t realize you needed to add a stitch at the end of every row, with the result that it got narrower and narrower until my child would have been wrapped in a triangle.

(of course one thing to consider these days is that it costs a lot more to knit your own sweater with quality yarn than it does to buy one ready made from China.)

 

A woman has to be handy with her needle or her children will run around in rags, my great aunt told me.  How many of us mend and repurpose clothing?  I wouldn’t call myself handy with my needle but I’ve made my share of Halloween costumes, costumes for the school play. When I was young and knew no fear I made myself a long evening gown for the college ball and my friends literally had to sew me into it. Luckily my boyfriend was not the type who would try to rip it off me!

Think of all the other things a housewife had to know how to do: can and bottle fruit and veg for the winter, make her own soap, shampoo and cosmetics as well as cook every meal from scratch. (first slaughter your ox, says the recipe for oxtail soup). I remember the early days of my marriage trying to cook lamb’s heart or sweetbreads. Yuck!

I’m thinking of all the other things we can’t do: shoot an arrow straight. Carve stone for cathedrals. Make exquisite pottery and jewelry using the simplest tools…

We are a generation of wimps, aren’t we?  We expect life to be easy. But now I think about it, we do have skills my grandmother would never have dreamed of. I can type as fast as I can think. I can change lanes doing seventy miles an hour on the freeway without worrying that I’ll hit another car. I can turn on my computer and give an interview with someone in Australia AND I can plan my trip around the world, knowing how to book hotels, hail taxis order meals in various countries. My granddaughter can write a program that makes a little man dance across her screen.  I can even use the remote for my TV—what an achievement!

So I guess we’re not so shabby after all.