A JOURNEY back in time to Britain in 1923 shows a country beginning to change rapidly after the horrors of the 'war to end all wars'. The BBC, formed at the end of 1922, dominated the headlines, becoming the first to broadcast live from cities and towns as far apart as Aberdeen and Bournemouth. The granting of equal rights made it possible for women to divorce men and, in science, John Macleod and Frederick Banting won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of insulin. All progress, indeed, but glancing through the adverts carried in COUNTRY LIFE for the same year reveals a more intimate story of how the nation was advancing (or, in some cases, needed to advance quite a bit further).
Possibly the most alarming product to be promoted in the magazine was Clark's Thinning Bath Salts, which made a regular appearance throughout 1923. A sachet of the magical salts in your bath would ensure that 'all superfluous fat is dissolved through the pores of the skin'. How an inanimate object managed to determine what was necessary and what was superfluous fat will forever remain a mystery (but, oh, how I wish dieting could be this easy). The packets had the unequivocal 'Clark's Salts for Fat People' emblazoned on the front. If, however, you only suffered from corpulence in one part of your body, Clark's Reducing Paste which promised to eliminate only 'unnatural fat' was recommended, promising as it did to leave the user with one of a woman's chief attractions: dainty ankles.
Denne historien er fra December 06, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra December 06, 2023-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
