Oh, and I nearly forgot Clothkits! Beautiful & unusual clothes for kids, to either buy ready made up or to buy the kit and sew up at home.
Also they sold packets of buttons (probably left over from their kits), I still use these on cardigans etc. now, just to make the cardigans a bit different
Lovely to know about your mum because my own children of the 70’s will identify with you when I show them this!
Their lunch boxes never saw a crisp or a biscuit, I made everything from scratch. They put up with (for example) cheese, carrot and oat slices, my wholemeal bread for sandwiches, carob fruit & nut biscuits, and a piece of fresh fruit, before coming home to such things as lentil lasagna, millet burgers, wholemeal pastry cheese broccoli flans, Cranks Homity pies etc, etc. The work surfaces were cluttered with sprouting alfalfa seeds, mung beans and flasks of fermenting natural yogurt and a 72kg sack of Canadian wholemeal flour sat in the corner next to my orange and brown Kenwood mixer.
I made 3 loaves at a time so that I always had some in the freezer, also rolls and pizza bases.
Ah! Clothkits! My three were lucky that when I ordered some, I thought the cotton was too stiff for them, so made their clothes from softer fabrics, however I made some Clothkits items for myself and wore them with the matching colour tights. I loved a kaftan and an ethnic poncho!
I still have all my cook books from the 60’s onwards and somewhere in the loft are 2 unmade cloth kit garments. The fabric designs were too nice to get rid of.
Lovely to hear about your mum, Jeanette.
Thank you ❤️
My children still refer to their deprived childhood! 🤣
Ah this is so lovely to read Hilary - and great to hear about this from the mum's side! I love your desription of liking a kaftan and an ethnic poncho. And carob - I remember that appearing too! And you are so right - the Clothkits fabric WAS like cardboard. I think you and my mum would have got on. And I would with your children too. Big hug to you all, Jeannette
Loved reading this Jeanette. To think, I grew up with the findus pancakes, Birds Eye beef burger. angel delight, Heinz soup and chips most nights followed by a chocolate biscuit!!
So lovely Jeannette 😍 (and we lived parallel lives in SO many ways!) Here's to our wholefood-loving, plant-cherishing, CND-activst mums. Another thing from my 1970s childhood was endless saving and recycling - which for a long time I thought of as just hoarding rubbish, but with hindsight was putting into practice an important anti-consumption pro-environment lesson. I carry it with me to this day. "Live simply so that others may simply live" was the motto. A good one to live by.
I had no idea we had this in common too! My parents - both teachers - decided to do the small holding thing when I was growing up. Dad was a rural science teacher with a small working farm at school and mum had grown up on a market garden and had kept animals so it wasn't too much of a stretch, they were both very practical. My dad got his first hive of bees the week I was born ("because he needed a hobby"!!). They kept all the animals. My mum did Clothkits too, made most of our clothes. And hers. She was - is - an amazing seamstress and I own various things she has knitted me in recent years which I love - but at times when I was primary school age she would go way too far for my liking - I will never forget the untreated sheep fleeces she used to get - she would clean, card, spin, dye and knit. The clothes were all variations on mushroom/beige/sludgy browns. I was allergic to lanolin and HATED wearing them. You know how curly my hair, right? Middle parting brushed out into an afro or plaited and tied up with homespun knitted ribbons. I always looked odd and was bullied all the way through school. Like something out of Little House on the Prairie. The witch thing was thrown at me and my mum. I didn't mind that one so much. And she genuinely loves clothes so when she had much less time for all of the making, our shopping expeditions when I got older were quite cool.
And as for the food - well, most of our own meat, eggs, dairy (goat because of my brother's cows milk allergy and I hated it), very few processed foods, bread made once a week on Sunday. Sugar very strictly rationed. I liked most of my mum's food, but as most of it was homegrown/reared it wasn't consistent and was often experimental - really hard for small children. There was obviously a lot of preserving! I used to crave the consistency of my granny's food. Sunday lunch at hers was a joint of beef roasted so there wasn't a drop of moisture left in it, which did give it that intense burnt end umami flavour, shaved thinly (she brought up 8 children) so you could see through it and drowned in bisto gravy. With roast potatoes but also tinned peas and carrots. I loved it. Then Heinz steamed puddings and Ambrosia custard. Jelly and evaporated milk. It was heaven. There were a lot of arguments about food - my aunts used to delight in giving me banned things like white bread, ketchup. One used to give me chip butties with chip shop chips, ketchup on Sunblest. My mum relaxed her stringent rules over time - Saturday sweets were introduced, we were allowed to keep all the chocolate at Easter and Christmas - and when she went back to work more processed foods started creeping in. But the very early years of my childhood have taught me not to make holy cows of anything with my own children. When mine have wanted to try things I really don't want them to eat, I've let them. I do also tell them why I don't eat it myself but let them make their own minds up, especially now they are older. But knowing that the bulk of their diet - probably at least 95% - is home made and healthy. It has for the most part worked.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us here Catherine. It all makes sense why you write what you write with your cook books and do what you do here on Substack…plus btw for anyone reading here, one of the things I do most appreciate about all your pressure cooker recipes is you make all that veg and beans and tough old cuts of cheaper meats taste so delicious and quick to make. You’ve experienced what can happen with natural food if you don’t! Fan mail complete. 🤗
I gave my baby unpasteurised milk which you could get from a local farm in Hendon! In Carlisle, the farmer's wife would deliver it on her way to bingo. Fun being slightly alternative.
I loved Clothkits and made some for both my kids.
My cousin was holding hands at Greenham Common but my husband was the RAF Commander at Greenham Common!
Wow! Your baby’s biome must have been good! Brave of you. I’m great someone here knows what I’m talking about re cloth kits - in retrospect it looks lovely. And what a story re Greenham Common you have there. Some one should document these tales.
A lovely piece - totally reminds me of my own childhood in the ‘70s too. My alternative mum made her own muesli and natural yoghurt using goat’s milk fresh from the neighbour’s two goats. She did bake but only ever used wholemeal flour. Funnily enough it was her who gave me Patrick Holford’s Optimum Nutrition Bible that set up my passion for nutrition. (And I’m definitely guilty of giving my own kids the weirdo lunchboxes at school…)
Oh, and I nearly forgot Clothkits! Beautiful & unusual clothes for kids, to either buy ready made up or to buy the kit and sew up at home.
Also they sold packets of buttons (probably left over from their kits), I still use these on cardigans etc. now, just to make the cardigans a bit different
I remember going to Cranks, still have two of their paperback cookbooks! All of my family love the homity pie recipe!
Also I regularly made almond rice nut roast from another 70s cookbook.
And of course I wore Laura Ashley (and Biba) clothes - none of these seemed expensive at all back then!
Rather lovely times!
Oh, this is great!
Lovely to know about your mum because my own children of the 70’s will identify with you when I show them this!
Their lunch boxes never saw a crisp or a biscuit, I made everything from scratch. They put up with (for example) cheese, carrot and oat slices, my wholemeal bread for sandwiches, carob fruit & nut biscuits, and a piece of fresh fruit, before coming home to such things as lentil lasagna, millet burgers, wholemeal pastry cheese broccoli flans, Cranks Homity pies etc, etc. The work surfaces were cluttered with sprouting alfalfa seeds, mung beans and flasks of fermenting natural yogurt and a 72kg sack of Canadian wholemeal flour sat in the corner next to my orange and brown Kenwood mixer.
I made 3 loaves at a time so that I always had some in the freezer, also rolls and pizza bases.
Ah! Clothkits! My three were lucky that when I ordered some, I thought the cotton was too stiff for them, so made their clothes from softer fabrics, however I made some Clothkits items for myself and wore them with the matching colour tights. I loved a kaftan and an ethnic poncho!
I still have all my cook books from the 60’s onwards and somewhere in the loft are 2 unmade cloth kit garments. The fabric designs were too nice to get rid of.
Lovely to hear about your mum, Jeanette.
Thank you ❤️
My children still refer to their deprived childhood! 🤣
Ah this is so lovely to read Hilary - and great to hear about this from the mum's side! I love your desription of liking a kaftan and an ethnic poncho. And carob - I remember that appearing too! And you are so right - the Clothkits fabric WAS like cardboard. I think you and my mum would have got on. And I would with your children too. Big hug to you all, Jeannette
Thank you and a big hug to you too, Jeanette.
It’s a lovely feeling when like minds are introduced unexpectedly ❤️
Loved reading this Jeanette. To think, I grew up with the findus pancakes, Birds Eye beef burger. angel delight, Heinz soup and chips most nights followed by a chocolate biscuit!!
As a kid I’d have wanted to swap places with you any day 🤣
My mum was a modern mum!
So lovely Jeannette 😍 (and we lived parallel lives in SO many ways!) Here's to our wholefood-loving, plant-cherishing, CND-activst mums. Another thing from my 1970s childhood was endless saving and recycling - which for a long time I thought of as just hoarding rubbish, but with hindsight was putting into practice an important anti-consumption pro-environment lesson. I carry it with me to this day. "Live simply so that others may simply live" was the motto. A good one to live by.
The saving and recycling makes so much sense doesn’t it? Here’s to our 1970s mums 💪☮️❤️
Absolutely beautiful. Your alternative 70s mum lives on through your creative expression 💖
I had no idea we had this in common too! My parents - both teachers - decided to do the small holding thing when I was growing up. Dad was a rural science teacher with a small working farm at school and mum had grown up on a market garden and had kept animals so it wasn't too much of a stretch, they were both very practical. My dad got his first hive of bees the week I was born ("because he needed a hobby"!!). They kept all the animals. My mum did Clothkits too, made most of our clothes. And hers. She was - is - an amazing seamstress and I own various things she has knitted me in recent years which I love - but at times when I was primary school age she would go way too far for my liking - I will never forget the untreated sheep fleeces she used to get - she would clean, card, spin, dye and knit. The clothes were all variations on mushroom/beige/sludgy browns. I was allergic to lanolin and HATED wearing them. You know how curly my hair, right? Middle parting brushed out into an afro or plaited and tied up with homespun knitted ribbons. I always looked odd and was bullied all the way through school. Like something out of Little House on the Prairie. The witch thing was thrown at me and my mum. I didn't mind that one so much. And she genuinely loves clothes so when she had much less time for all of the making, our shopping expeditions when I got older were quite cool.
And as for the food - well, most of our own meat, eggs, dairy (goat because of my brother's cows milk allergy and I hated it), very few processed foods, bread made once a week on Sunday. Sugar very strictly rationed. I liked most of my mum's food, but as most of it was homegrown/reared it wasn't consistent and was often experimental - really hard for small children. There was obviously a lot of preserving! I used to crave the consistency of my granny's food. Sunday lunch at hers was a joint of beef roasted so there wasn't a drop of moisture left in it, which did give it that intense burnt end umami flavour, shaved thinly (she brought up 8 children) so you could see through it and drowned in bisto gravy. With roast potatoes but also tinned peas and carrots. I loved it. Then Heinz steamed puddings and Ambrosia custard. Jelly and evaporated milk. It was heaven. There were a lot of arguments about food - my aunts used to delight in giving me banned things like white bread, ketchup. One used to give me chip butties with chip shop chips, ketchup on Sunblest. My mum relaxed her stringent rules over time - Saturday sweets were introduced, we were allowed to keep all the chocolate at Easter and Christmas - and when she went back to work more processed foods started creeping in. But the very early years of my childhood have taught me not to make holy cows of anything with my own children. When mine have wanted to try things I really don't want them to eat, I've let them. I do also tell them why I don't eat it myself but let them make their own minds up, especially now they are older. But knowing that the bulk of their diet - probably at least 95% - is home made and healthy. It has for the most part worked.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us here Catherine. It all makes sense why you write what you write with your cook books and do what you do here on Substack…plus btw for anyone reading here, one of the things I do most appreciate about all your pressure cooker recipes is you make all that veg and beans and tough old cuts of cheaper meats taste so delicious and quick to make. You’ve experienced what can happen with natural food if you don’t! Fan mail complete. 🤗
I gave my baby unpasteurised milk which you could get from a local farm in Hendon! In Carlisle, the farmer's wife would deliver it on her way to bingo. Fun being slightly alternative.
I loved Clothkits and made some for both my kids.
My cousin was holding hands at Greenham Common but my husband was the RAF Commander at Greenham Common!
Wow! Your baby’s biome must have been good! Brave of you. I’m great someone here knows what I’m talking about re cloth kits - in retrospect it looks lovely. And what a story re Greenham Common you have there. Some one should document these tales.
Wow, what a woman! Your mum would be so proud of you Jeannette x
Thank you Helen 🤗
Thank you for sharing Jeannette! Your mum was such a cool lady. It must have been tuff on you.
I’m so sorry about those mean kids.
Thanks Sabine! I bet as a teacher you’ve seen it all 🤣
A lovely piece - totally reminds me of my own childhood in the ‘70s too. My alternative mum made her own muesli and natural yoghurt using goat’s milk fresh from the neighbour’s two goats. She did bake but only ever used wholemeal flour. Funnily enough it was her who gave me Patrick Holford’s Optimum Nutrition Bible that set up my passion for nutrition. (And I’m definitely guilty of giving my own kids the weirdo lunchboxes at school…)
I’m smiling reading this. The goat’s milk yogurt, ION bible, and weird lunch boxes - love it!!
She sounds amazing, Jeannette 😍
Thanks Anne ❤️
Love it! What’s with the marrows, runner beans & blackberries combination? Same assortment in my family 1970’s home.
Your Mum would be proud of what you’ve achieved
Right? Why that combo? Marrows so watery - urgh! And the runner beans so stringy 🤮🤣easy to grow I guess
What a lovely story. Hard for you at that time but good for your mum. As you suggest she'd have fitted in so well today
Thanks Fiona. Wouldn’t she!