I'm very late finishing this one but wanted to join the discussion anyway. Like @ChessieFL I also had an ancient interloan copy from the library, acquired in 1976, and looking like it's had a cup of coffee spilled on it, plus various underlining and marginal notes. My local library only seems to stock new books, so it was rather nice to get a book with some history to it.
I enjoyed the novel. I haven't read that much 1930s literature and I now realise that what I have read is mainly by authors from the upper classes - so lots of servants, exotic foreign travel etc. I found it fascinating to read a book about how ordinary people of the period would have lived. I was fascinated by some of the incidental details that @FuzzyCaoraDhubh also picked up - it seems to be completely unremarkable that a man in his 50s would have false teeth, for example! Also that a married couple would have separate bedrooms. I agree with others that Mrs Stevens seemed to live a life of drudgery, which I guess is partly due to the lack of modern technology. I assume that the reason she had to go to the shops everyday was that home refrigeration hadn't been invented yet? At the same time there wasn't any particular suggestion she was unhappy with her lot in life, unlike the male characters who seemed to struggle at times. I suspect her character would have been written differently by a female writer.
I enjoyed the way the author contrasted the aspirations of the older and younger generations. Mr Stevens had hoped for advancement in his firm but was disappointed, whereas Dick seems motivated to pursue his education and become an architect. Mary's holiday romance seemed to echo aspects of her parents' meeting, right down to the theatrical setting. At one point it was implied that she was expecting her beau to propose, but in the end she seems to accept the fact that it was just a holiday romance. Unlike her mother, she did not simply marry the first man who paid her any attention, and as a result there seem to be more possibilities open to her.
I thought the commentary on different types of wealth was interesting. It's clear that the Stevens are not very well off, and Mr Stevens is disappointed that he was unable to secure a promotion that would have enabled him to buy a bigger house. Yet in spite of the lack of material wealth, he has a happy family life and takes pleasure in his garden and the natural world. By contrast, the Montgomerys have a big house, but are unfulfilled in other ways - children, the barren garden etc. People who can appreciate the modest pleasures in life, like a holiday at the seaside, a walk in the country, an occasional glass of port, are rich.
I had to look up what a bloater was!