Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5931 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-07-09
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 240 minutes

Customer Reviews

The 1940s House Experience - A Lesson For Our Time
Channel 4 couldn't have picked a better family to live through the 1940s house experience than the delightful Hymers of Otley. Representing a typical WW2 household, the family comprised of a middle aged couple, their daughter and two small grandsons, and they threw themselves into the programme with infectious enthusiasm and lived through the war experience to their best ability, taking the rough with the smooth, laughing and crying and somehow drawing the viewer right into their front room in the process.

This year 2000 family was dropped into a 1939 furnished house, complete with thirties hairdos and clothes. Over the next nine weeks they were put through a simulated but of necessity fastforwarded wartime experience.

With rationing, shortages, disturbed nights in their self-built Anderson shelter (the house and shelter was wired for sound to simulate bombing raids), the misery of blackouts, 'Digging for Victory', Women's Voluntary Service Work, British Restaurant food, homespun entertainment, homemade hair dye, no TV but just a radio for company, no central heating, a V2 raid which left the house without water and power, contributions from the marvellous Marguerite Patten and several other real home front veterans, application to stringent wartime demands of recycling which would put today's average green supporter in the shade, this documentary brought to bear many of the experiences of those war years.

Not only is it a tremedously entertaining fly on the wall documentary, it is educational but also the sort of programme that makes one think a great deal after one has seen it. It has allowed me to understand my parents' generation a lot better, i.e. those who actually lived through those years of fear and austerity. As I think Lyn Hymers commented (the grandmother in the series), the war cast a long shadow.

The family returned to the year 2000 healthier, slimmer, wealthier (Lynne found that her newfound daily shopping routine at the local shops 'à la 1940s', as opposed to once a week at the supermarket, saved her over £100 a week!), happier and less argumentative. In short, it seems that less is more - we have too much today. It makes one want to throw one's TV out of the window and live through a self-imposed 1940s diet regime.

Of course the full misery of air raids and losing loved ones - that could not be replicated but I felt that the family made a point of trying to do their best to honour those who really did suffer such hardships. This was handled with great sensitivity.

This UK version is unabbridged (unlike the shorter USA version for DVD) and also has a most wonderful soundtrack if you like 40s music, also cut out for the most part in the US version.

I think every child in Britain should watch it - with granny nearby.

Wartime History of the 1940s brought to life
I absolutely love this Channel 4 production and I watch the dvd quite often. There is something quite fascinating about survival through the war years and what made the 1940s arguably Britain's finest era.

Our men went off to war, women stayed at home and did 'war work' outside the home if they were able. Every person did their bit and what's more - was expected to do so. This production is a fast-moving yet comprehensive snapshot of what it must have been like on the 'Home Front', with interesting archives and news footage on all other aspects of war time.

The family were certainly well-selected, comprising of an older Mother and Father, with their single daughter in her mid-twenties with her two young boys. The Father, who was the most keen to undertake the project, was not a fundamental part of the filming as he 'went off to work' as wartime husbands did - whilst the REAL work was done at home by the Mother and her daughter, who had to learn how to work together to make the home run smoothly, without the labour-saving devices available nowadays and no 'takeaways' available.

An excellent inclusion is the visit to the ladies by Marguerite Patten, an advisor to the Ministry of Food during the war, who calls at the house for afternoon tea... a series of culinary delights.

I loved the authenticity of the air raid sirens, the sleepless nights in the air raid shelter, the drudgery and the need for the ladies' 'red badge of courage (lipstick)' to get them through the days. The boys' performance is magical, of their childlike acceptance without full understanding of what was happening, but a willingness to participate regardless.

You can't watch this programme without stopping to think what life must have been like for the family - and for the real wartime familities who also had to combat real loneliness and the never-ending waiting for news of loved ones. No programme could adequately convey how awful this must have been but this production gives, in my view, an excellent perspective and real sense of history of how things were, in addition to an unavoidable realisation of the sacrifices that were made by the men, women and children of Great Britain during those war years.

We Shall Not Forget.

The 1940s House
Excellent DVD detailling the trials of being in the second world war from the prospective view of the home - chronicles all different aspects from food to air raids,blackouts, women working out of the house - both informative and amusing at times, myself and my daughters aged 16 and 12 enjoyed it - would definately recommend it.