The Agatha d'Ascoyne Papers

An extract from my new book - "English Sewing in the 20th Century- A History of the English Sewing Cotton Company and the Way We Used to Sew" by Sarah Miller Walters.  At the bottom end of the scale of sewing careers was the visiting needlewoman. In 1939, Home Chat magazine announced to their domestically minded female readers that  "There's a career in needlework". The full page article began by describing how to become a qualified teacher in the subject and described the surprisingly wide variation of places where training could be accessed including county council training centres, correspondence course providers, polytechnics or even (presumably for the better off) the Royal School in Kensington. Employment suggestions included masonic or military embroidery. Upper class households might also be in need of a resident needlewoman to take care of the household clothing and linen. But the final suggestion was that of the visiting needlewoman - those who went i...

Odhams Press published the "Woman Weekend Book Number Two" in 1950. I have recently acquired a copy, it is inscribed: " To Margaret with love from Aunt Elsie, Xmas 1950". The first section is called "Woman to Woman" and contains a series of letters on general topics. They are very telling on what it was like to be a woman at the turn of this oppressive decade: Enjoying Bad Health Some months ago, my husband was at home on washday, and helped with the washing and mangling. By 10.30am he was asking if it were not time for "elevenses" yet, and added thoughtfully he hadn't realised what hard work washing is. The result of his efforts was an all-electric washing machine. Just before Christmas I was unfortunately ill (or should I say fortunately?) and though the machine did the family wash, I couldn't tackle the ironing. My husband came to the rescue, bless him, but the job took from 7.15pm till just after eleven. I was ill for three weeks, and...