Want to live like the Queen? Then start switching off lights…
If there’s one single characteristic that sums up the 1950s it’s a horror of waste. That’s why they keep so much stuff – left over food, cupboards full of clothes, blankets, china, or sheds full of old coffee jars full of rusting screws. They might come in useful some day…
Meanwhile, we’re the generation of de-cluttering. Minimalism is good. Throw stuff out! Buy a cheap T shirt, wear it a few times and chuck it. Why not? It’s cheap and easy to buy a new one.
We clear our wardrobes, fill those bin bags, take stuff to tip or charity shops – and then go out and buy more stuff to replace it all.
Not just clothes, big items like furniture too. Sofas used to last a lifetime, now they’re lucky to make it to the next bank holiday sale.
In the 1950s they hadn’t heard of recycling. It was just what people did.
People used things until they fell apart – and then they stuck them back together and used them some more.
“Waste not, want not” and “Make do and mend” weren’t pretty slogans on a tea towel, they were the basic philosophies of life deeply ingrained into most of the population.
The Queen, with her famous thrift – even now she apparently goes round Buckingham Palace switching off unnecessary lights – is just a typical product of her generation.
Despite her fabulous wealth, she’s famous for recycling her clothes – some outfits are re-worked many years later – and her handbags last for forty years or more. These days apparently the royal household newspapers are shredded to make bedding for the many horses, worn sheets are darned, water-saving devices are fitted in every loo to cut down on the royal flush. She even re-uses wrapping paper
No detail is too small. She’s even apparently saving waste after her death. As part of the funeral ceremony for a monarch, the Lord Chamberlain snaps his white stave of office over the coffin to signify the end of his personal service to that queen or king. Her Majesty has said that they can have a detachable stave – so once it’s apparently snapped in half, it can be clicked together and used throughout the next reign.
Now that really is attention to detail.
And if one of the world’s richest women is keen not to waste money and resources then maybe we too should try living more royally.
Classic film: Rebel Without a Cause, James, Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo as delinquent teenagers. The generation wars had begun…
The Canny Time Traveller 