“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,” wrote LP Hartley in The Go-Between. When it comes to interiors, the analogy is quite often literal. Both my grandmothers grew up in India, while Michael McMillan’s Joyce’s Front Room installation, inspired by his grandmother, explores the essence of homes created by West Indian immigrants who came to Britain as part of the Windrush Generation. But even without geographical distinction there are significant differences of circumstance; the generation that lived through World War Two (i.e. the generation before the baby boomers of coastal grandma chic) knew a time when make do and mend was a necessity, not a trend. They ran houses when appliances of convenience – i.e. white goods – were far from universal (one of my grandmothers didn’t trust washing machines, and washed everything except sheets, towels and my grandfather’s shirts by hand, as long as she lived). Duvets didn’t even become mainstream until 1964, which is when Habitat opened; until then, beds were made up with sheets, blankets and eiderdowns.
That last is having something of a resurgence; “there are few things lovelier than the coming together of a wool blanket and a linen sheet, as on properly made beds,” points out Rita Konig, while eiderdowns – for a long time only to be found in charity shops (if you weren’t lucky enough to inherit any) – are again being made new. Other things, too, are in demand, among them utility textiles such as gingham and ticking. And tablescaping may seem very 21st century, but in fact it harks back to a previous era, “when things were done properly,” remarks textile dealer and designer Susan Deliss. That idea of ‘proper’ is seemingly what unites the generation, regardless of origin. The lace doily under a vase in Joyce’s Front Room has its equal in a silver coaster doing the same job in a classic English country house interior, and the decoupage trays that Sibyl Colefax & John Fowler designer Lucy Hammond Giles’s grandmother used to make, “using cut-outs of various kitsch Victorian scenes – girls with kittens, bunches of flowers – collaged together, and then varnished.” Lucy has done similar in her downstairs loo, where she and her family have stuck up “pictures we like, theatre and cinema tickets, passport photographs – but they’re not always varnished, and they’re always being added to.” Clearly, there are lessons to be learned, and ideas to be gleaned – even if they’re given a time-appropriate twist.
For instance, returning to those fabrics; then any leftover was far more likely to be transformed into arm covers than a seat skirt. “I’m definitely not bringing back arm covers, even if in the same pattern as the main chair,” emphasises Nicole Salvesen of Salvesen Graham. “It looks like you can’t trust your guests! And if there is spillage, well, I’d rather live with a visible wine stain.” Similarly, “antimacassars never need to be revived, ever.” That said, it’s agreed that a loose cover over a padded headboard in a guest bedroom is quite a good idea – the point being that we do value cleanliness, but an entire removable cover is both subtler and more aesthetically pleasing than a small, contrasting square (and fabric is no longer rationed).
Then, “both my grandmothers had proper storage,” recounts Susan. “And cupboards were properly organised and kept nicely. There were pantries and larders and house-keeping cupboards – things weren’t just wedged in under the kitchen sink.” Often now, space is at a premium; in the 1950s the average new house cost £1,891, which is around £69,000 in today’s money. But there are a plethora of storage ideas out there, while Charlotte and Angus Buchanan’s larder and laundry in their Edwardian house in north west London is worth close examination.
In larger houses, specific rooms for specific activities ran yet further, to smoking rooms, libraries, billiard rooms, and “both sets of my grandparents had Solariums,” says Lucy. “They were not quite conservatories; they were rooms with low walls and glazing above but to one or two sides only. They were full of rattan furniture, had sisal matting on the floor over tiles, and plants and vines growing up trellis to the walls. They were rooms for sunbathing, before it was bad for you.” Such spaces have become almost extinct, alongside dining and breakfast rooms, instead, vast farmhouse or shaker-style kitchens have been the vogue for what feels like decades. However, we do occasionally spot hints of a longing for greater formality. More than one guest invited to supper with designer Richard Smith and his partner Andrew Blackman at their house in East Sussex has failed to notice that they’re eating in the kitchen; the sink is tucked away out of sight, and the Madeaux wallpaper and fabrics mask the other utilitarian aspects. And the designers at both Studio QD and Salvesen Graham have noted an increase in multiple dining areas being requested, either in the way of intimate corners, or rooms being dual purpose, such as “a library that doubles as a dining room,” explain Mary and Nicole. (Of course, we have rooms our grandparents’ didn’t – such as extra bathrooms, and home offices.)
But regardless, much of the sense of ‘proper’ came, explains Susan, with “the effort of polished silver, starched napkins, and vegetables put out in matching serving bowls.” Whereas now with napkins and tablecloths, colour and pattern reign supreme (along with frills and wavy or scalloped edges), then such linen was almost always white, and often napkins – which might have been sent to an external laundry – were monogrammed. My maternal grandmother produced three puddings for every meal – usually a fool or a crumble, a trifle, and ice cream, and with the exception of the ice cream, they weren’t shop-bought. The fruit for the first two even came from the garden, as did all the vegetables, grown by my grandfather. Lucy’s grandfather grew roses, and her grandmother “dried and scented them, year after year. She cut quite a swathe wafting down her broad hall in voluminous kaftans, the air swirling in her wake and lifting the scent of her home-made potpourri from the five or six chests that lined the wall. Were I to have such a hall, and such time, that would be a decoration idea I would definitely revive.”
And here lies the crux; our lives now are quite different. My grandmothers worked during the war – one was a nurse, the other in the WAAF – but once married, they were professional wives (though certainly my paternal grandmother would have kept on working, if she could have done.) Alongside our dual-incomes, we’ve got more choice of how to spend the rest of our time; we eat out more, travel more, and shop more – for ready-made scented candles, ready-made meals, duvets and white goods; we can even have flowers delivered weekly. But it’s worth looking at the antique Anglo-Indian furniture you might have inherited, along with the mass of monogrammed napkins, samplers, quilts, lace doilies, and slowly-tarnishing silver – and pause, and polish that silver, and remember the joy and satisfaction that can be found in making things by hand, and doing things properly.
