Shocking pictures of a time we’ve left behind
He’s watching what you’re watching!
The Way We Were
RTÉ One, Monday
Our House
Virgin Media One, Monday
Interior Design Masters
BBC1, Wednesday
Nostalgia is a potent force. Thinking about the past often brings us tremendous solace, particularly when we remember events that were shared with those who have passed away since. Previous episodes of RTÉ’s clever series The Way We Were generated good memories, of the corner shop long before supermarkets arrived in the Ireland, and of childhood holidays in damp, cold caravans as we pretended to be having fun.
There was no such comfort in the first episode of the new series on Monday, as the programme cast a very frigid eye on how we dealt with love and sex in the days when sexual morality was policed by the Catholic hierarchy and the State alike.
As I watched it, my overwhelming thought was: how did women not just burn the entire country to the ground? Not only were they expected to accept every pregnancy, wanted or unwanted, but when they gave birth, they had to be ‘churched’. This was a blessing given to them to absolve them of the sin of having had sex at all, even though procreaareas. tion is impossible without it.
Contraception, of course, was banned until the 1970s, but even then made legal only for married couples. Until that same decade, and this bit I did not know, it was legal for a 12-year-old girl to marry. Male homosexuality was criminalised up to the 1990s, the same decade we finally voted to allow divorce. A woman was deemed to be her husband’s chattel, and if married, his domicile also was hers.
Unmarried mothers not only were frowned upon, they were expected to have their children adopted, or incarcerated in Magdalene laundries. In the marriage rite, women were expected to ‘obey’ their husbands.
It is easy to think of all of this as a rural phenomenon, in the grand tradition of the Valley of the Squinting Windows, but in a really quite chilling clip from the 1990s, a poshsounding rugby-playing boy baldly stated that women should stay at home, mind the children, and do the washing.
The Church railed against the emigration of women, especially to the UK, where more liberal attitudes would influence them, but also because it would mean fewer potential partners for men in rural Everywhere, there was control, or at least an attempt to maintain it, and I know a few younger people who genuinely were shocked by the programme.
For those of us who grew up in that stifling environment, though, it was a useful reminder of just how far we have come in the last 30 years. There are, no doubt, many who lament these changes and who would love to rewind the clock. I watched it all as a bit of a horror show, and genuinely give thanks that we’ll never go back to the way we were.
One couple who won’t do that either were Fiona and Bram Lawson, played by Tuppence Middleton and the ubiquitous Martin Compston, in Virgin Media One’s gripping new whydunit, Our House, which began on Monday (UTV ran it over four nights, and all episodes are available to stream on the Virgin Media Player).
The Lawsons split up over his infidelity, and Fi kept the house. One day, though, she arrives home to find it stripped of all her possessions as workmen bring new furniture in. Even more shockingly, another couple have bought the house, though Fiona never consented to the sale, and have taken up residence. That bit stretched credibility to the limit, but by the end of the first hour, it was clear Bram was not everything he seemed to be, and while that’s where I left it, I’m saving the rest for a binge over the holiday weekend.
The one thing I hope the new owners never do is hire any of the 10 contestants on Interior Design Masters, which returned on BBC1 for a third series. Alan Carr hosts again, and the first challenge was for all the rivals to pair off and decorate a living room, a bedroom and a home office in an upmarket apartment building in Manchester.
In at least one case, it would have better to send in a few toddlers with crayons, because the designer’s own art work was beyond feeble. He also hung handmade drapes that deliberately sat about 30cm off the floor, but since the window was floor to ceiling, light still could get in. He was beside himself with delight at his creativity, but the judges soon disabused him of his pomp and ceremony, and he was shown the door. At least he could find it, since it was about the only thing in the room he didn’t paint.
On shows like this, there’s always at least one contestant’s work you can admire, but that really wasn’t the case here. Almost every room was a disaster, with a scattergun approach to accessories in particular that had no cohesion at all. Nor were many of the wannabes even likeable, because they were just way too full of themselves to garner any affection or sympathy from an audience sitting at home, grateful for the fact that when it comes to décor, less really is more.