Love & Marriage: A 20th Century Romance

Sorry for the lack of blogging recently my dear internet decided to go on strike, for what has seemed like an eternity. I personally think its done so in protest due to the fact that Bradley Cooper is not appearing on Strictly Come Dancing this year, but the engineer disagrees. Who could resist him in tight shirts and sequins shaking his pecks? My cat Jasper is drooling just thinking about it now.
 
So apart from crying over the loss of being able to access Asos every day,(no shopaholic should have to deal with that situation) I've been cuddling down with Jasper and a pack of Fox's biscuits watching some pretty Kleenex worthy tv. I've been engrossed in The Bletchley Circle, Mrs Biggs and developed quite a crush on the Queen of baking, Mary Berry from The Great British Bake Off.

 

'Love and Marriage: A 20th Century Romance' explores love and relationships through the decades starting of in the early 1900s. Last weeks episode looked at the period between the 1900s and the late 1950s, when life was more about surviving two world wars together, then having date nights each week. There were no 2 for 1 Orange cinema tickets in those days.
 
Last Tuesday BBC Four began a new series on love. I'm not talking about the 4 shots for a £1 let's have a quick fumble kind of love, I mean real deep never ending love that when you see between two people makes you go all mushy inside and start putting hearts over your i's, or is that just me?
 

There are some lovely stories involved in the programme, including one from John who was in the Merchant Navy. "I took Dorothy to Sefton Park, and we sat down on a bench and I said, ‘Darling, I’ve got 25 quid. Will you marry me?" It's hard to imagine a man saying that now, I mean what are you going to get with 25 quid, a Chinese takeaway to celebrate?
 
Divorce wasn't an option in peoples minds at this time and the most important thing was providing a stable and loving home for yourself and your children. Many marriages began with friendship, there was no third date rules, it took two years for my Granddad to hold my Grandma's hand, now that's taking it slow.
 
Marriages survived the terrifying effects of the wars with men leaving home to go and fight, with their wives and girlfriends not knowing whether they would see each other again. The thought of not knowing whether I'd see Mr.Boyfriend and his smile again or not would just terrify me. I'd miss our Dad's Army and Porridge marathons a hell of a lot too. Women used to religiously write to their sweethearts every day and had to deal with the agonising wait for a letter back. Thank god for email and Twitter now.
 

The programme also covered the naivity of people in those days going into a relationship. How many partners you had was not a question and not many people knew about the intimate side of relationships and what it actually involved. There was no Cosmopolitan magazine telling us '50 things he'll love' and 'How to Unleash your inner goddess' in those days.
 
The programme contained some beautiful and moving love stories with some of the couples still being married today for over 70 years, that's an awful lot of anniversaries to have to subtly remind your husband of. The series continues tonight with episode two out of three focusing on relationships in the 1960's and 1970's, when the idea of marriage was questioned, divorce was on the rise and mixed race marriages were bravely happening.

 
I urge you to check this programme out, you can catch up here. It's available for another two weeks, so you have plenty of time to snuggle down with some Galaxy and watch real love stories in action. It continues tonight on BBC Four at 9pm. Who needs Hollwood when you have real can't live without love stories going on around you every day. I won't lie, Liam Hemsworth is pretty hot though.
 
Second Hand Rose
XxxX
 

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