There is a wonderful joy in social history, and by that I mean the sort of history that tells you what people were actually doing in their ordinary economic lives. For that, there is no better way than an inspection – punctuated by expressions like ‘They never ate that stuff back then, did they? No wonder they all got ill’ – of the statistics of the time. Or just the simple social expectations.
Long before the Office For National Statistics started assessing a basket of typical goods so that it could calculate the inflation rate, there were extraordinary items that wouldn’t enter your head, or you would wear on your head, now.
My grandfather was a young journalist in the press gallery of the House of Commons before the First World War. The social expectation at the time was that all journalists in the press gallery should wear a top hat. But not all journalists, as now, were flush with funds. So, a system sprang up. Grandfather would indeed sport a top hat. But come the parliamentary recess, he would be down to the pawn shop to reclaim its value – and vice versa when the House of Commons was sitting again.
Judging by the post-war basket men all wore three-piece suits, if only to watch football
Rise of consumer statistics
This sort of thing tells you more about the social aspects of the time than any measure of the annual output of top-hat manufacturers for 1902. Besides, consumer statistics weren’t seen as something important. When the commitment to introduce a consumer advisory service appeared in the Labour Party Manifesto of 1950, it slid by un-commented upon. ‘Since I was writing the election programme,’ the chap responsible recalled later, ‘I slipped it in and no one on the National Executive Committee made anything of it.’
A glance in the basket
New items placed in the basket this year include virtual reality headsets, men’s sliders/pool sandals, cushions, exercise mats and ready-to-use noodles. A second overnight hotel stay has been added to the existing one-night item, and pre-cooked pulled pork replaces oven-ready gammon or pork joint.
Some of the items left out in the bagging area are newspaper adverts, fresh diced or minced turkey and in-store cafeteria meals.
They would, as the items that made up the basket of typical goods show, have been feasting – if that is the right word when all food was rationed in the post-war era – on condensed milk. It was very sweet and came in tins, was high in proteins and fat, and, crucially, lasted a lot longer than the fresh stuff, which was in any case in short supply. It was only removed from the list of crucial goods in 1987.
Judging by the post-war basket, men all wore three-piece suits, if only to watch football on their Saturdays off when you wanted to get out of your work clothing. (Look at the photographs of crowds then.) And washing machines, which largely didn’t exist, didn’t make it into the basket until 1956, though mangles, hand-cranked for squeezing the water out of hand-washed clothes before they were hung up to dry, were.
The ‘Party Seven’ made it on, even though few students remembered to bring a tin opener
Appetite for change
Meanwhile, the meat of choice in the basket was corned beef, which arrived in tins from Uruguay and stayed in the fundamental basket until 2005. Nineteen sixty-two saw the great revolution; for the first time, the list included both the fish finger and the refrigerator in which to put them.
When students started to constitute a mass market in the 1970s, the ‘Party Seven’, a huge tin of seven pints of gassy beer, made it onto the list, even though few students remembered to bring a tin opener to the party, and the popular emergency measure of bashing a key into the top of the can meant that much of the contents erupted onto the ceiling.
These days, the annual changing of items on or off the list, which was most recently updated in March, is more a swap through fashion rather than a change because of technological innovation. This year, pre-cooked pulled pork and exercise mats made it onto the list, while in-store cafeteria meals and a bag of sweets were out. The days of revolution seem to be over.
