Further Back in time for Dinner!

[Akire]

With the Robshaws!! Something to watch on a Tuesday hooray.

The house isn't their house though is it.

So the program makers will have had to buy or rent this house to do it up in the various years.

I imagine the choice of houses would be quite limited.

I used to live in a tiny two up two down 1880 terrace. I have a copy of the 1901 census. The family next door were just a husband and wife. They had a live in maid.
In my house it was a mum, dad and 8 children!

I was surprised that they didn't have the front room and back room, with the front room for best. I wonder if it would have been too restrictive for the cameras.

MoreThanUS I have noticed Dad Robshaw can seem a bit uptight and grumpy old man in this series. Love Rochelle she is very much like Wendy Craig, Ria in Butterflies with her culinary delights

I was surprised that they didn't have the front room and back room, with the front room for best. I wonder if it would have been too restrictive for the cameras.

In the original series they filmed in the Robshaw's actual house which seems to be a smaller, narrower house than the one they are currently filming in and they put up a false wall for the earlier decades to turn the front rooms back into a livingroom and diningroom. So I don't think the layout they are using is just to make filming easier. I suspect that it's because they made a decision to have the Robshaw's live the life of an upper middleclass family and had to work with the house they got the use of. In Edwardian times an uppermiddle class family would have owned either a 3 story house with a basement kitchen and sittingroom the family would have mainly used and the groundfloor laid out like the tv house for formal evening meals and entertaining. Or in a more suburban setting like Wimbledon (I'm thinking Hazel's family in Upstairs Downstairs) a double fronted house with the kitchen and family sittingroom on one side and the formal dining/parlour on the other. The BBC probably either couldn't get a house of that size and or didn't want to go to the expense of decorating another room for each decade. (I was excessively fascinated by Victorian/Edwardian living when I lived in a period house and did loads of research. I somehow don't find myself fascinated by the original owners of my current 1980s bungalow. )

DH and I have been wondering about Dad Robshaw though (over infested alert). He doesn't seem as light-hearted and happy as the last series and we hope he's okay!

I sort of get the impression that Rochelle and Brandon aren't as close as they used to be. I wonder if one of them (Rochelle probably) wasn't so keen to do the show and the others railroaded her into it. It could be why the producers decided to make them an upper middle class family in fact. Rochelle could have been totally unwilling to do the show if she had to skivvy about in a turn of the 20th century kitchen. The family are all around with her a lot more than they were in the original series. Brandon is no longer being sent away to work each day and the children aren't pretending to go to school every morning. I think a series of decisions have been made to make the show easier for her than the first time.

Yes I agree with Springer . In the 60s the houses (even good semis) were not that expensive (compared to nowadays) . Dad was a teacher and dm was a part-time telephonist ,they could afford to buy one.

So in the 30s they were cheaper although banks wouldn't give mortgages easily at all.

Springer and two, thanks, although I was hoping you were all going to come on saying, no - Brandon's the same as he's ever been!
Springer - interesting ideas. Think you might be right. DH was concerned that their marriage might have taken a bit of a battering. They always seemed such a fun, easy going family!

Loving the series.

I really like the Robshawes... they seem lovely, and the kids just delightful and very good sports.

Moretanus I'm not sure that Rochelle seemed an 'easy going' type in the 50s and 60s house. Always moaning about being in the house , if I remember correctly. Then when she got a job in the 70s she moaned about that She does seem quite a pleasant sort though, on the whole.

II suppose I meant that the family dynamic was easy-going. Lots of laughs and conversation. It just seems to lack that and is a bit more tense than before.

Love Rochelle. I think she gives things a go and gives a good account of the challenges. I used to think that my mum (excellent cook, very determined, can-do sort), would be better on this sort of programme, but have come to realise that this is more realistic. Just because you were a woman in the 20C, doesn't mean you liked cooking or enjoyed home making!

It seems a little unrealistic that both the girls are still living a home, no boyfriends or jobs or universities\colleges at all! Some young women did become 'typewriters', or secretaries, in the 20s and 30's.

One of the girls isn't even 18, I don't think.

I too thought they were aged 16-19 ish. The younger one rarely has alcohol, especially when they go out to pubs/restaurants in the programme, which suggests she might be under 18.

It was probably filmed in the summer holidays last year, so they could have been between school/university.

I liked Giles talking about his grandparents and the Jewish food.

Think the girls are about 17 and 20 now, the boy 12.
Its filmed in the summer I think, so even if older girl is at university, it could be when she is back home.

From March 2015

Rochelle, 52, her husband Brandon, 53, a university lecturer, and their children Miranda, 17, Ros, 15, and Fred, 10, took part in a unique social experiment to cook and eat their way through five decades.

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So children are about 19, 17 and 12 now.
The older two are on social media according to DD.

And yes it is filmed for 6 weeks over the summer - this series is not filmed in their own house.

The dad, Brandon, has a wordpress blog.

Yes I really liked Giles' input this week, it didn't occur to me he was Jewish but Coren may be derived from Cohen?

I love Rochelle being so resourceful and determined with cooking even though she finds it so hard. And her family being so nice about it.

I've just watched the 1930s episode with DH and DD. I was born in 1972 and DH in 1967 but both of us felt like this episode had echoes of our childhoods. The food (especially the stuffed marrows) the special trip out in the car to the pub for a meal, even the look of the house was all very familiar. We both had periods in our childhoods where our primary care givers were our grandparents, and our grandparents came of age in this era so I suppose that's why, but it was still strange when the previous four eras had felt very distant and quite alien.

Always loved this series, love the family too and the dynamics between mr and mrs robshaw.

They have such lovely children too.

I might be slightly obsessed by them!

I think the house would have been bigger, my reference being Diary of a Nobody

I also think Debbie is totally stunning, especially in her 1930s outfit.

I would also like to eat her food!

Alan Coren's Obit in the Jewish Chronicle is ........ interesting: www.thejc.com/on-this-day-alan-coren-dies-1.18870

You and me both BagPack

I might have contacted Rochelle via Twitter to tell her how lovely her family were and how she should be proud of her children

Here is Brandon on Twitter:
twitter.com/BrandonRobshaw

I was born in 1973 and I feel a bit sentimental about some of the products discussed this week and last week as they remind me of my childhood. I've loved watching this with my children, not just for sentimental reasons, but it really gets kids thinking about history when they see how everyday life has changed over time.

I loved the girls saying that they thought Ryvita was a 90s thing.