What do you think?
Rate this book
'37-'39: Last look round
Kate Caffrey brings vividly to life what was to be seen in the last look round before the world was plunged into war. The book studies England's middle class society and culture which developed to its peak during the last 2 years before the second world war. The preceding years of the Depression were overcome and overlaid by the efforts of a generation who both created and reflected the dazzling images of the silver screen: white telephones, silks and furs, foxtrots, dressing up to go shopping, the Mediterranean cruises--an age of niceties, manners and financial drama.
175 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1978
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
January 15, 2023
Imagine it's the late 1970s. You're out with Grandmum for tea after a film at the Odeum. It was a film set during the Second World War -- handsome men in British khaki, pretty women in hats and gloves -- and Grandmum got a bit misty at times. So you, being a clever tyke, ask, "Gram, what was it like when you were young?"
This book is what she tells you.
Last Look Round isn't History. The big men and big ideas don't figure much in it at all. It's history (small "h") as seen by a new kind of folk -- "suburbanites" -- from the front parlor of their terrace house in a planned neighborhood out on the edges of London or Manchester or Liverpool. It's about how they lived in those last two years of peace before the war ripped apart their world and irrevocably changed the nature of Britain and the British.
The author's voice is chatty and occasionally arch as she describes the houses, the housewife's daily occupations, the men's commutes and offices, the films and radio (wireless, back then) shows, the books they read or pretended to read, the newspapers and magazines they really read, the clothes, and the holidays that dominated this tiny but momentous slice of time. The first chapter covers most of the politics that appears in this book; the rest could be called "social history" or "popular culture" or "gender studies" or whatever you might consider the parts that engage you. You'll be amazed by the number of people and things she name-drops, once extremely popular, now completely unknown to anyone who wasn't alive in the late 1930s.
It's hard to find biographical details about the author; she is/was a historian (though she doesn't write like one) with a number of other books to her credit. We have to guess: was she a girl or young woman then? Does that explain the note of nostalgia, even affection, in these pages? One might like to think so. If you're not from This Scepter'd Isle, you may need to take your time with not only the 1970s British English, but also the 1930s words and idioms you'll run across. Other than that speed bump, you'll find this quick and relatively painless reading.
I picked this up because I needed a tour through late 1930s English social and pop culture for my new historical spy/mystery series. It was exactly what I needed. My main quibbles: many more pictures would be useful, the index is quirky, and the culture of work (especially office work, which occupied most of the male members of Homo suburbius) doesn't get as much ink as it probably should have.
'37 '39: Last Look Round is a breezy spin through the last two peacetime years of pre-modern Britain. It's told with ease and affection by an author who seems to know her way around the subject. Don't expect the big picture; enough other writers have dwelt on the seismic political and economic events that led to world catastrophe in September 1939. This book is micro-history, the two-bob tour of the middle-class High Street and the lives of the people who shopped and played along it before the bombs and blackouts.
This book is what she tells you.
Last Look Round isn't History. The big men and big ideas don't figure much in it at all. It's history (small "h") as seen by a new kind of folk -- "suburbanites" -- from the front parlor of their terrace house in a planned neighborhood out on the edges of London or Manchester or Liverpool. It's about how they lived in those last two years of peace before the war ripped apart their world and irrevocably changed the nature of Britain and the British.
The author's voice is chatty and occasionally arch as she describes the houses, the housewife's daily occupations, the men's commutes and offices, the films and radio (wireless, back then) shows, the books they read or pretended to read, the newspapers and magazines they really read, the clothes, and the holidays that dominated this tiny but momentous slice of time. The first chapter covers most of the politics that appears in this book; the rest could be called "social history" or "popular culture" or "gender studies" or whatever you might consider the parts that engage you. You'll be amazed by the number of people and things she name-drops, once extremely popular, now completely unknown to anyone who wasn't alive in the late 1930s.
It's hard to find biographical details about the author; she is/was a historian (though she doesn't write like one) with a number of other books to her credit. We have to guess: was she a girl or young woman then? Does that explain the note of nostalgia, even affection, in these pages? One might like to think so. If you're not from This Scepter'd Isle, you may need to take your time with not only the 1970s British English, but also the 1930s words and idioms you'll run across. Other than that speed bump, you'll find this quick and relatively painless reading.
I picked this up because I needed a tour through late 1930s English social and pop culture for my new historical spy/mystery series. It was exactly what I needed. My main quibbles: many more pictures would be useful, the index is quirky, and the culture of work (especially office work, which occupied most of the male members of Homo suburbius) doesn't get as much ink as it probably should have.
'37 '39: Last Look Round is a breezy spin through the last two peacetime years of pre-modern Britain. It's told with ease and affection by an author who seems to know her way around the subject. Don't expect the big picture; enough other writers have dwelt on the seismic political and economic events that led to world catastrophe in September 1939. This book is micro-history, the two-bob tour of the middle-class High Street and the lives of the people who shopped and played along it before the bombs and blackouts.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review