Let Loose in the Sixties
QUESTION Does anyone recall a forerunner of Loose Women on ITV in the Sixties or Seventies?
This was a southern Television production called houseparty. it was screened in the days when iTV was a loosely linked collection of regional companies, with some programmes transmitted locally and others nationwide.
it was, at first, broadcast three times a week on southern from 1969 and proved so popular that it extended out over the iTV network and ran until 1981.
The programme was set in a studio constructed to look like a modernist, openplan house, with a kitchen/lounge, Formica surfaces and hessian wallweave, which displayed the height of middleclass style. it was designed to appear as if the audience were eavesdropping on a group of friends who were casually chatting over tea and cake.
The illusion of peeping into a domestic space was reinforced by the doorbell occasionally ringing and participants answering it, with protestations of surprise. The programme ended by inviting its audience to ‘drop in again’.
houseparty featured a revolving cast of around 25 women, who appeared six at a time. some were household names, such as Mary Morris, a TV cook, Angela Ladbury, a crafting expert, and Cherry Marshall, who ran a model agency.
Other regulars included a shopsteward’s wife, a plumber’s wife and a Franciscan nun.
While the guests mostly discussed recipes, crafts, flowerarranging and knitwear, there was sometimes an edge to the show when they discussed marital difficulties, politics and mental health.
Fiona Jones, Chepstow, Monmouthshire.
QUESTION Which political party was the first to issue an election manifesto? Were the promises kept?
MANIFESTOS have been around for a long time, but don’t necessarily relate to politics. There have been spiritual and religious manifestos. For example, a Christian might regard the sermon On The Mount as a manifesto, as it lays out Christ’s promises to his followers.
One of the earliest on record is the Baghdad Manifesto of 1011 AD. it questioned the legitimacy of the ruling Fatimids based on their lineage.
The United states Declaration of independence (1776) and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) can both be regarded as manifestos.
The earliest British political example is the Tamworth Manifesto (1834), issued by sir Robert Peel, on which historians believe the modern Conservative Party is based. The manifesto broadly set out ideals of reform for the party, in particular the acceptance of the 1832 Reform Act, and promised to review ‘institutions, civil and ecclesiastical’.
Today, manifestos have a semilegal basis. Under the salisbury Convention, a party winning an election should not have its manifesto promises opposed by the house of Lords. This convention came into being following Labour’s victory in the 1945 General election.
At that time, Labour held only 16 out of 761 seats in the house of Lords, which meant the Lords could block all of Labour’s manifesto promises on the creation of the welfare state.
Lord salisbury, a Conservative peer and leader of the Conservatives in the Lords, brokered a lasting commitment for the Lords not to block manifesto promises, so long as the house of Commons voted in favour of them.
Bob Cubitt, Northampton.