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Isabella Muir

For fans of historical fiction, from WW2 through to the 1960s

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Category Archives: writing

Calm your nerves…

Originally posted on Outset Publishing:
With the knowledge we have now about the dangers of smoking, it’s hard to believe that in 1940s Britain even doctors might advise lighting up as a way of calming a patient’s nerves. It would be a common sight to see GPs smoking in a surgery, doctors and patients smoking…

Posted byIsabella MuirJune 20, 2022Posted inwritingLeave a comment on Calm your nerves…

What’s a teenager?

Originally posted on Outset Publishing:
It might be strange to think about a time not so very long ago when the term ‘teenager’ didn’t exist. Now we accept it, but in 1940s Britain young people aged between thirteen and nineteen lived a very different life to the life they might live today. School leaving age…

Posted byIsabella MuirJune 11, 2022Posted inwritingLeave a comment on What’s a teenager?

Don’t stop for breath

Originally posted on Outset Publishing:
Factories offering no protection to their workers might be something we associate with Dickensian Britain. Workers subjected to long hours in harsh, polluting conditions – surely this belonged to the 19th century? Sadly, no. Thousands of factory and mine workers in 1940s Britain were subjected to dangerous working conditions that…

Posted byIsabella MuirJune 5, 2022Posted inwritingLeave a comment on Don’t stop for breath

What’s your number?

Originally posted on Outset Publishing:
Nowadays telecommunication is considered so vital that even some children have mobile phones. Yet in 1940s Britain a landline telephone was so rare that barely ten percent of households had one. And if you did decide to have a phone installed you might choose to have a shared line to…

Posted byIsabella MuirJune 3, 2022Posted inwritingLeave a comment on What’s your number?

Combatting polio

Originally posted on Outset Publishing:
There were many horrors to contend with in 1940s Britain and cruelly it was often children who suffered, despite adults’ overwhelming desire to protect them. For during the latter part of that decade there were annual polio epidemics, striking down thousands of people in Britain – many of them children.…

Posted byIsabella MuirJune 1, 2022Posted inwritingLeave a comment on Combatting polio

No more than 2.4

Originally posted on Outset Publishing:
I’m sure there are many things that might trigger a rise in the birth rate – but consider these particular influencing factors for post-war Britain: couples were finally able to celebrate the end of six years of war wives and girlfriends could welcome the return of a loved one from…

Posted byIsabella MuirMay 29, 2022Posted inwritingLeave a comment on No more than 2.4

This will do nicely…

Originally posted on Outset Publishing:
Consider how it must have been after the Second World War for millions of families who were all desperate for somewhere to live – somewhere ‘fit for purpose’, many having lost everything during the wartime London Blitz and similar devastation across the country. House building on a grand scale was…

Posted byIsabella MuirMay 28, 2022Posted inwritingLeave a comment on This will do nicely…

Lessons to learn

Originally posted on Outset Publishing:
‘A landmark has been set up in English education’ Times Educational Supplement, 1944 Such was the general reception to the Butler Act of 1944. The paper’s editor went on to comment that ‘there shall be equality of opportunity, and diversity of provision without impairment of the social unity’. So why…

Posted byIsabella MuirMay 25, 2022Posted inwritingLeave a comment on Lessons to learn

Choosing four wheels over two

Originally posted on Outset Publishing:
If you wanted to travel around Britain in the 1940s it’s likely you would have been walking, cycling or travelling on public transport. And if you were a critical worker, delivering milk to doorsteps early mornings, then you might even still be relying on a horse-drawn cart. The average distance…

Posted byIsabella MuirMay 22, 2022Posted inwritingLeave a comment on Choosing four wheels over two

I do…or I shouldn’t have…

Originally posted on Outset Publishing:
The perils of war concentrate the mind when it comes to romance. If your sweetheart is about to go off to fight and you couldn’t be sure when or if you would see them again, then it would make sense to confirm your love for each other by ‘tying the…

Posted byIsabella MuirMay 20, 2022Posted inwritingLeave a comment on I do…or I shouldn’t have…

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