Is There Custard For Tea?

June 1947 - Custard Pie anyone?

Come tea'o'clock you will find us in the Stockroom, hands wrapped round our afternoon cuppa, fingers dipping into the custard creams tin and eyes drooling over our stash of 1940s Housewife magazines.  Slowly, ever so slowly, both the biccies and magazines are savoured.   From cover to cover, front to back these 1940s gems are digested as part of our afternoon tea break.

July 1944 - not a piece of fruit in sight 

A recurring theme has emerged, for alongside the daily ritual, there on the back pages of many an issue are these wonderful advertisements for Bird's Custard, the backdrop to everyone's childhood. These images reflect so much of the time, the austerity and shortage of ingredients,  the simplicity of recipes but above all the homeliness of home. Jelly and custard, custard and stewed fruit,  steamed pudding with jam and custard, a glace cherry and angelica flourish,  simple or fancy, a comforting pud all year round.

 May 1946 Golden Comfort

May 1947 Chocolate and Custard

 September 1947, Autumn Fruits are coming

July 1948 Steamed Pudding & Custard 

 September 1948 Jelly & Custard

June 1949 - the works!

December 1946 - it has to be candlelit for Christmas

September Sunshine

The joys of September are plentiful - golden sunny days with the whiff of Autumn in the air, hay bales in fields, berries amongst the hedgerows, time spent in the kitchen making jam and chutneys, shorter evenings with more time for the knitting and sewing that we have been planning all Summer, the prospect of woolly socks and tights again (Miss Marple we have missed you), the return of the Great British Bake Off, feeling in the mood for a good old spot of cake making on a Sunday afternoon, a pile of books waiting to be read by the sofa,  the prospect of long Autumnal walks (searching out the wellies yet again), heads full of ideas and projects for the coming months AND lots of new goodies on the Emporium shelves.