So all this broad did all day was go to the movies and shop...

That was pretty normal then. Housewives would generally stay at their home, and then "go up to town" one day a week, have a day out, shop, lunch, see things, and then go home for another week. Alleviates the boredom. I must say, that was a perfectly dreadful original post!

It wasn't a radio. It was a clock, with 2 other dials. Presumably a barometer and a temperature gauge.


Now, it was made in 1945, before the ending of WW2 (and before the end of the war in Europe, what we call VE day), but it was set in the 1930s, probably 1939 from what I have read.

So in the story, there was no rationing and no shortages. It's conceivable that people sensed there was a war coming, but that does not seem to enter into the story.


But of course, it was filmed in the war. Carnforth was chosen, apparently, because it was a long way from London (it's in Lancashire), and so they could relax the blackout regulations. (I think German bombing had stopped by then. There was still the danger of V1s ans V2s, but they didn't need lit targets, and probably couldn't reach Lancashire).

So in reality, there were shortages, and it seems to me that everyone's clothing looks a bit dull and tired. And according to one source, the food in the refreshment room was fake. (I'm not sure if we see Alec and Laura eating the Bath buns, and of course no one would want to eat "me Banburies" after they had been on the floor).

By the way, I don't think Laura and Fred were average people by any stretch. We'd think of them as upper middle class. They had at least one servant. Perhaps a cook and a nanny. Fred was probably something in the city or a bank manager. Alec was probably meant to be of a similar social status, and Mary Norton and Dolly Messiter would be the same.

It would be a matter of pride for people like Fred that his wife didn't have to work. She would probably do voluntary work, and join the WI, and in the war, the WVS. Her "job" was to see to the running of the house, and probably keep an eye on the housekeeping money. She probably had her own money, perhaps a marriage settlement from her father, and would have bought Fred's present out of this money.

Women of her class could well afford not to work. Even women of much lower status often did not work, before and after the war. During the war, it was a different story.

EDIT: On the present being a clock and not a radio: Radios would have been enormous in those days. In the 1950s, my parents had a radio that was at least a foot deep, a foot high, and at least 2 feet wide. Transistors were not invented until after the war, and transistor radios didn't become popular until the 1960s. And to give us some idea of domestic electronics in those days, and although it's more than just a radio, the device that Laura uses to listen to Rachmaninov is a radiogram - a combined radio and record player (gramophone). A massive piece of furniture (which admittedly included storage for records, so it was more than just the electro-mechanical-thermionic hardware in there).
EDIT2: Looking again, Laura definitely is tuning a radio, since we hear another station playing a different style of music before going to the Rachmaninov. It still looks like a radiogram to me, even if in that case she doesn't seem to be putting a record on.