Top tips from a bygone age

A new book based on a popular 1950s Sunday Post column offers hundreds of ingenious household tips – and a hearty dose of nostalgia, as Caroline Lindsay discovers

It’s easy to forget what life was like before central heating and wall-to-wall carpets. Now, a new book called Pass It On: Household Tips From The 1950s offers a trip down memory lane to those days, with more than 1,000 practical household tips, many of which could still come in handy today.

Full of wisdom from the Dundee, Angus and Fife areas, the tips have been gathered from 1950s Sunday Post newspapers.

And while those publications were full of Cyprus, Suez and Harold Macmillan’s troubles with Hugh Gaitskell, this is a record of the problems solved and the remedies found in the lives of ordinary folk.

Steve Finan, the book’s editor, says: “Possibly what sets this collection apart is the retention of the full names and addresses of the 1950s contributors.

“Did you know Mrs W Stewart of 56 Dudhope Street? Or Mrs LR Hill, 48 Constitution Street?

“Their wisdom earned them a place in the paper and now their tips are aired again.”

Being a housewife in those days of thrift, ice on the inside of windows and make-do and mend was a competitive business.

“Keeping a scrubbed doorstep was a matter of honour and finding an ingenious method of keeping milk fresh without a fridge was a feather in the cap,” Steve explains.

Some of the advice includes how to clean up dog hair (tack a strip of foam rubber to the reverse side of a sweeping brush) or prevent the toilet cistern freezing (add a teaspoon of glycerine overnight).

And Steve has his own favourites: “How to get a dent out of a ping-pong ball made me smile – pour boiling water over it.

“How to dust behind an immovable wardrobe struck me as simple but ingenious – simply get a dust sheet, two people draw it to and fro down the gap, then vacuum the dislodged dust.

“Making sure a skirt hem will never come down is crafty (sew lengths of three inches or so, not one continuous job),” he continues.

“Most of all, the one about warming an entire bed with one hot water bottle brought back my childhood.

“It only works with old stoneware bottles – instead of laying it at waist or foot level, stand it in the middle of the bed, like a tent pole so the warmth spreads through the bed.

“My mother used stoneware bottles on nights when ice formed on the inside of bedroom windows.”

He also has a touching tale about finding his own grandmother’s name in the tips from 1951.

She worked in Dundee’s jute mills then became an office cleaner.

“But she was an amazing woman — well-read, highly articulate and with an inexhaustible work ethic,” he recalls.

“Towards the end of her life she developed dementia.

“She was strong, agile and incredibly determined but operating in her own closed-in world.”

Her tip (replace a saucepan lid with a clear Pyrex plate when cooking soup so you can keep an eye on it) reconnected Steve with the resourceful, houseproud, powerful woman she had been in her prime.

“I shed a tear when I found it,” he admits.

Although the book carries a “try at your peril” disclaimer, Steve reckons the worst that could happen is you spoil the mince.

“It’s a book that measures nostalgia and your mother or grandmother would love it. In fact, she very possibly wrote it,” he adds.

How to get dust from behind an immovable wardrobe struck me as simple and ingenious

Pass It On offers homespun wisdom used by real-life housewives from the 1950s.