1. Followed the Cigarette Diet.
In Mystery by the Sea Lady Eleanor Swift thinks nothing of having an oyster and champagne breakfast followed by a slap-up lunch and then afternoon tea. In reality, led by the ‘reducing craze’ from the US, women were almost as obsessed about losing weight and counting calories as they are today. One journalist of the time stated that ‘reducing has become a national pastime, a craze, a national fanaticism, a frenzy.’
Mystery by the Sea
The average woman of the 1920s didn’t turn to diet or exercise to lose that weight, but to potions, pills and even ‘reducing soap.’ When it was obvious none of this was really working, the cigarette brand ‘Lucky Strike’ came up with the brilliant marketing idea of a ‘cigarette diet’. Basically, rather than eat, you had a cigarette. To be fair, nicotine is known as an appetite-suppressor, so there was something in the idea.
At the other end of the dieting scale, Doctor Lulu Hunt Peters took a rather more sensible (and less catastrophically damaging to health) approach. Her 1918 book ‘Diet & Health: With Key to the Calories’ advocated eating only a certain amount of calories each day - sound familiar?
2. Took part in Dance Marathons.
Lady Eleanor Swift loves dancing and in a Mystery by the Sea is taken dancing by her beau in the glamorous Brighton Ballrooms. But even Eleanor has had enough after a few hours dancing.
But what about 12 hours? Or days!
Dance Marathons became the rage in the 1920s, with couples competing for prize money. Whoever remained dancing at the end, won. The only thing was, some of the competitions went on... and on... and on. Days, sometimes even weeks. One or two even lasted over a month!! Most competitors simply keeled over on the dance floor from exhaustion. In America, they were often euphemistically called’ Walkathons’ as dancing in some states was still seen as sinful.
3. Sat up Flagpoles.
No, this isn’t a typo. Flagpole sitting was a popular endurance ‘sport’ of the 1920s along with dance marathons. Men, and women, would, you guessed it, sit on top of a flagpole for as long as they could endure it. The record was 51 days (David Blaine eat your heart out!). As Lady Swift’s butler observes in Mystery by the Sea, she was born without the virtue of patience, so perhaps it's just as well she never tried flagpole sitting while in Brighton.
4. Picnicking in cemeteries.
Lady Swift loves a picnic, even if there’s a murder investigation going on. But even she draws the line at picnicking when there’s a dead body. Edwardian women, however, liked nothing more than a Sunday picnic at the local cemetery, surrounded by the deceased. But you had to go early. Some cemeteries became so popular for picnicking they were overcrowded. Guide books were even issued of the most popular cemeteries!
5. Made jewellery from human hair.
When Lady Swift’s beau gives her a present on her birthday, surprisingly it’s not made from human hair. Perhaps it should have been. Women loved making all sorts of jewellery using their, and other people’s hair. And it wasn’t just hair from the living. Hair was taken from deceased loved ones and made into keepsakes.
6. Had their friends’ portraits painted on their nails.
Lady Swift, even though she’s inherited her uncle’s estate, never flaunts her wealth and is never afraid to get her hands dirty. Most rich and titled women of the period were very different. It was essential at every opportunity to show you were entitled and one way was by having perfectly manicured nails. This showed you never had to do manual work. Some women took this to the extreme by having portraits painted on their nails, turning their hands into works of art rather than tools of work.
7. Took part in Scavenger Hunts.
In Death at the Dance, an earlier Lady Swift book, she falls in with a group of Bright Young Things she suspects of being involved in a murder. They take her on a scavenger hunt that sees her crawling home at daybreak, wishing she were dead.
A popular activity if you were young and rich, treasure hunts, (also called scavenger hunts) had very little to do with treasure or hunting, and more to do with outraging society as much as possible. It often involved getting hideously drunk and driving at high speed around the countryside in the middle of the night shouting and screaming at all and sundry.
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A Witness to Murder. published by Bookouture, is the third book in my historical murder mystery series. The heroine, and reluctant sleuth, Lady Eleanor Swift has been brought up abroad by Bohemian parents and struggles to fit into the Downton Abbey world of male domination, endless social functions and class division... to read more click HERE
