Why don't they ask us?

I sure don't know what foolscap is or what you mean by A4 . I'm an American guess I'll google it. One reason I'm here is to learn things.

How annoying .....they often get all the era's mixed up. Heartbeat, which I only deigned to watch after visiting lovely Yorkshire (Goathland) is quite authentic.

Do you remember the trouble girls had sitting down in their numerous paper nylon petticoats? I really wanted them but was a few years too young!

A4 and foolscap are paper sizes. When I was at university all our note pads came either fooscap or quarto size. Now they are all A4.

My whole gripe with how the 1950s is portrayed now is that it is based on generalisations and doesn't take into account the variability of how people lived even then. There was a book published on the period with a title like 'The way we lived',which was based on a whole series of surveys undertaken in the period and the author kept making sweeping statements about how we lived then based on studies that showed 50 or 60% of families did this or that and completely ignored the fact that at least 40% of the population did something else completely.

The book was about as representative of the life I lived in the 1950s as a book on the 1850s would bhave been and I think anyone reading the book who remembered the 1950s would have found that while parts of it did relate to their experience, much of it didn't because then as now there was a lot of diversity in our we lived. Not every woman was a full time house wife, not all men dolled out the house keeping every week and laid down the law to a subservient wife. Not evryone holidayed by the sea at the same seaside resort for a fortnight every summer. But read this, and other books and that was the picture painted.

I always think the sign of a really well acted and written period drama is when you do not notice the anachronisms - not that many recently unfortunately!

I got really annoyed with a programme presented by Giles Coren. I think it was called, Back in Time for Dinner. The sweeping generalisations he made regarding what people did or didn’t eat in the 50's and 60's and the smug patronising tone throughout made me switch off the TV before I lobbed the remote at it!
Did you know that 'nobody' ate turkey at Christmas in the 50's? It was news to me and all my fellow geriatrics. Also, nobody ate pasta either so my mother must have waved her magic wand in 1956 as I clearly remember asking for it on my 5th birthday....and getting it! Apparently we 'all' embraced Vesta curries and Angel Delight in the 1970's too. ?

What's wrong with 'half a crown'? That's certainly what we used to call it...

I used to say half a crown, and 2/6.
I did read a book last year, set in Brighton during WW2, it was December, and talked about Christmas tree lights twinkling in windows, hello, there was a blackout!

My complaint about period dramas is regarding furnishing. Eg in the 1970s not everyone had a home fully furnished with the very latest stuff. People had bits and pieces of furniture from various decades prior to that. Some people even had a few 'antiques' or odd old fashioned tables and chairs that they were glad to find and afford from second hand shops or cast offs from family gratefully received (well we were grateful ) Not every house was fully furnished by Heals!

I don't think JackyB was saying anything was wrong with 'half a crown'. She said she couldn't remember how the amount was portrayed, but it wasn't 2/6d, 2s 6d, or half a crown. Which I take to mean that she considers all three of those versions are acceptable and accurate descriptions of that amount of money.

Eh? Sorry, I don't understand what you mean, Indinana.

JackyB was referring to how we used to say prices, or write them and said it was 'certainly not ' half a crown' etc. That's what I was replying to.

Half a crown would have been written 2/6d. What other way?

I can't remember the exact example, but it was written very strangely, and certainly not 2/6d or 2s 6d, and certainly not "half a crown".

JackyB is giving an example that she came across of when something was 'written very strangely'. She is not saying that she would certainly not have said 'half a crown', but that in a recent example (which she can't remember exactly) it wasn't 'half a crown'.

Oh yes, sorry - I get it now!

Jingle..2s..6d?? Wadda I know anyway. ? I used to get £ 5 a week when I started work. We always gave our mum's housekeeping. I don't think or hat kids do that nowadays. How rude!

The OP says "written". Not said.

Yes. That too wot.

I could be confusing everybody!

I'm permanently confused but still enjoy this thread!

A lot of us have been discussing whether a 1940's farm would really have been growing maize (Home Fires) on the TV thread. Actually I think Home Fires has been pretty good although a few modern expressions creep in from time to time, as they do in The Durrells. "We need to talk" - no one ever used to say that!

My mother worked from home and my father handed his pay packet straight to her. We certainly didn't have a fortnight's holiday because, like most people in the 50s my father only had a week's holiday. I remember the excitement when that was increased to two weeks. We went to my grandparents for Christmas and had turkey. The big treat was having frozen peas with it because they didn't have a fridge, never mind a freezer.

It's so irritating when they get little things wrong. Surely they must have elderly relatives they could ask?

"They" probably don't ask us because "they" assume that, as we are all over the age of 60, we are completely gaga and can't even remember our own names.

I remember a waitress in a 50s play putting putting the food on the table and saying to the customer "There you go". I don't remember that phrase then - it was always "There you are".

When they show the 60s it annoys me, somewhat, as they seem to roll the whole of the decade into head bands, mini skirts and moustaches.

Mods and rockers did not coincide with Woodstock. You only need to look at chronological photos of the Beatles from Hamburg, through mod styling to psychedelia in 1969.
The music, art and fashion just rolled and changed as the decade progressed.
Also the differences across the country were vast. Everywhere was not like London. I suppose this counts for most decades as 10 years is a long time.

That Giles Conran programme was full of stereotypes and anachronisms.
I do find it jars watching plays set in the past and I agree with Jacky. Ask us perhaps.