Yet not everyone was enthusiastic about the advent of the chain stores. As local shops closed across the country, to be replaced by yet another Woolworths, English towns began to look alike. Moreover, as locally sourced products were replaced in the new stores by mass-produced goods from abroad, local producers complained about the loss of business, while consumers noticed a significant reduction in quality.
The food sold by chain stores was of the mass-produced variety, too. Colourful and tasty comfort foods became available to the masses: custard, jelly, ice cream, blancmange, sponge cakes and chocolate eggs were all favourites of the period. A generation that had experienced wartime rationing at last had an opportunity to indulge its sweet tooth, while savoury tastes could also be satisfied with Marmite, Bovril and Smith’s crisps. Breakfast cereals arrived on the shelves of the chain stores, with Grape-Nuts, porridge oats, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Shredded Wheat among the most popular. Most of the food sold in the new stores, however, came in tins – sardines, salmon, peaches, peas, pears, pilchards and Spam. Tinned food might have been abhorrent to the higher classes, but it was a blessing to those lower down the social scale, and the tin opener became indispensable in most suburban kitchens. Many of the tins were imported from abroad, along with much of the fresh food, including eggs and tomatoes. While the food revolution of the period was a blow to native producers and generally involved a reduction in both quality and freshness, the increase in consumer choice was undeniable. An older generation which had grown up with an unvaried and often meagre diet was astonished to be now able to purchase frozen meat and exotic fruit in tins, and at reasonable prices.
Evenings in the suburbs came round quickly in the Thirties. Working hours had been reduced from sixty hours per week to around fifty, largely thanks to the pressure of the unions, and work on a Saturday generally finished at lunchtime. This meant more evening leisure time, but the remoteness of many suburbs from urban centres and their lack of public spaces and venues encouraged people to stay in. Among the two most popular suburban pastimes were gardening and ‘having a read of the newspaper’.
National dailies and local ‘rags’ found their way onto most suburban doormats each morning. The working man of the house would skim these papers at breakfast and peruse them with care at night (when he would also do the crossword, now a daily feature of newspapers). The total circulation of national dailies exceeded 10 million in the Thirties. By the end of the decade the Daily Express sold two and a half million copies per day, and the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror one and a half million each. These papers offered entertainment and accounts of the lives of sports and film celebrities, while older publications such as The Times, the Manchester Guardian and the Morning Post were the serious purveyors of news, commentary and enlightenment. The high circulation of the Express, Mail and Mirror brought vast cultural and political influence, as well as wealth, to press barons such as Lord Beaverbrook and Lord Rothermere. Despite their earlier misgivings about Baldwin, the barons helped him consolidate the support of the Conservativevoting suburban lower middle class, and to identify the views of this new class with public opinion and the national interest.
Newspapers brought an avalanche of advertisements into suburban homes; as a result, advertising played a crucial role in stimulating the demand-driven consumer boom of the period. Manufacturers and retailers now spent over £60 million on newspaper advertising annually, with the heaviest investors including department stores and producers of cosmetics, cigarettes, medicines and processed foods. Flourishing publicity firms came up with catchy slogans for their products, such as ‘Player’s Please’ and ‘Friday night is Amami night’.
This second advertisement for shampoo was aimed at young women, a new and burgeoning market for advertisers. A particular form of femininity was being promoted, perhaps to counter the effect of large-scale female employment in the new light industries. In the Thirties, women generally dressed more conservatively than their flapper predecessors, with longer, tighter dresses emphasizing the ‘feminine’ figure. Although Edwardian heaviness had been banished from women’s wardrobes forever, shoulders were now broader and waists were coming back. Hair became longer, softer and curlier across the decade, while make-up became heavier and more widespread. By 1939, 90 per cent of women under thirty regularly used lipstick, powder, mascara and rouge.
Along with the more traditional look, traditional gender divisions returned. While women might work immediately after they left school, their ultimate destiny was to marry, have a family and settle down. Housewifery was regarded by many as the ideal career for women; for many it was the only option, since their professional progress was still hindered by the marriage bar. The housewife brought up the children and managed the house, with the help of the new electrical appliances. New ‘women’s magazines’, such as Woman and Woman’s Own, instructed women on how to run a household, while urging them to ‘be the junior partner’ within their marriages. As a result of propaganda and economic pressures, English women were forced back into the home in the Thirties. It is telling that it was not uncommon for the rooms in new suburban houses to be separated along gender lines, with the male head of the household having access to a private study, while the housewife might occupy the morning room. It is unsurprising that many housewives complained of boredom and fatigue and longed to return to work. Some were disappointed that, having won the right to vote, they lacked the political power to improve their lot.
Lonely suburban women spent a great deal of time reading books, as did the men after work. The bookshelves of the new ‘semis’ were often stocked with the latest publications. ‘Penguin’ fictions and the ‘Pelican’ educational series were launched in the late Thirties for only sixpence a book, while the ‘Reader’s Library’ hardback classics could be bought cheaply from Woolworths. By the end of the decade, book sales increased to 7 million per year. Books could also be borrowed from libraries, with 247 million loaned in 1939. The representatives of ‘circulating libraries’ would visit the suburbs on their bikes. ‘A romance or a detective story?’ they would ask young mothers, since these were the most popular genres among that demographic. Where Mills & Boon ruled the romance genre, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers dominated detective fiction, providing suburban readers with intriguing puzzles in exotic or aristocratic settings. Gangster novels, meanwhile, transported countless male readers to New York, while thrillers tapped into their unconscious fears about foreign invasion and war.
An alternative form of suburban home entertainment was provided by the radio. When the family came together after dinner, it was often around the wireless, to listen to a news broadcast or a light entertainment programme. By the end of the Thirties, compact sets could be purchased for as little as £5, which meant that every suburban family, and even some workingclass households, could afford them. Where workingclass families tended to leave the wireless on to provide background noise, the middle classes switched selected programmes on and off and listened intently. In the Thirties listeners had access to continental stations such as Radio Luxembourg, which were financed by advertising and broadcast popular music as well as comedy shows. This ‘American-style’ commercial fare was less restricted than the typical offerings of the BBC, where earnest, lengthy highbrow programmes and public-school accents dominated. While the BBC alienated many workingclass listeners, the aspiring suburban classes tuned in faithfully. Suburban families also listened to music on the gramophone, which had become cheaper and smaller since the Twenties, while 6-inch records were now available from Woolworths for sixpence. Popular songs of the period included ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ and ‘Boomps-A-Daisy’, while among the most successful classical composers were Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar.