Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho

It's back to work week in the Charles' household.

The prospect of returning from holidays doesn't hold the same dismay as it did when Nick and Nora worked for other people or even the terror of returning back to school

Mainly, it's because we're masters of our own destiny, secondly we get to work together which has plenty of pleasant compensations.

Were things easier back in the past when housewives stayed at home to suffer through the monotony and murderous drudgery of housework and the menfolk went back into the work place to be fawned over by man-hungry, ambitious young secretaries?

Probably not.

The image at left, by the way, is in the household safety section of 1972 The Young Homemaker (Book Two) that we've previously profiled here.

Husbands worked hard to buy their womenfolk a time saving appliance like this:

Click on the image to see a much larger (and readable version from the October 9, 1948 edition of Saturday Evening Post).

While much has been written, usually in the post-feminist milieu, of capable war and home forces women being shoved back into their roles of wives, mothers and housekeepers post-World War II, there was another side of the story.

It must have been very difficult to swallow the safe predictable life of the workaday world after experiencing the life and death adrenalin rush that fed the terror of facing combat.

The subject is thoughtfully illustrated in Sloan Wilson's Man in the Gray Flannel suit (pictured is the first edition 1956 Australian copy - hence the reason why the title is changed from 'gray' [US spelling] to the local 'grey').

Filmed in 1956 starring the magnificent Gregory Peck in the title role, The Man in the Gray Flannel tells the story of a man trying hard to adjust back to the safe, monotonous civilian life after the end of the war while keeping some secrets of his time overseas.

Doubtless many men felt the same.

Still the seeds of independence were sown and young women of Nora's mother's generation read books like the 1963 Supreme Book For Girls and dreamt of a pre-marriage career as exciting Beryl (now there's a name that's fallen out of favour) the air hostess.

As always, don't forget to click to view large-size readable versions.





Ah you're back.

It's a no nonsense story, nicely handed by Beryl and happily concluded at the end of 16 frames with absolutely no appearance of anyone shouting Allahu Akbar or the intervention of an armed sky marshal.

But perhaps the woman in today's Daily Mail op-ed columns might have felt more comfortable in the above scenario if the hostie handling the problem was more like bloke instead of a mere slip of a girl.