Back in Time for Tea

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The Ellis family see what life was like for working class families over the past 100 years

The Ellis family travel back in time to discover how changing food in the north of England reveals what life was like for working class families over the past 100 years.

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Sara Cox

Polly Russell

Emily Shields

Christina Nutter

Wall to Wall Media

Back in Time for Tea: Series 1: Episode 4

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Episode 4

Series 1

BBC Two - Back in Time for Tea, Series 1, Episode 4

In the 1970s the family enjoy time together with their first record player and car.

The Ellis family see how life changed for northern working-class families in the 1970s, enjoying rare time together, helped by the acquisition of their first record player and car.

The Ellis family from Bradford are embarking on an extraordinary time-travelling adventure to discover how a transformation in the food eaten in the north of England can reveal how life has changed for northern working-class families over the past 100 years. The family's own home is their time machine, transporting them through a different era each week - from the sparse furnishings and meagre provisions of 1918 to the modern home comforts and bulging freezer of 1999. Guided through their time travel by Bolton-born presenter Sara Cox and social historian Polly Russell, everything the family of five experience, from the jobs they do to the food they eat, is based on historical data and spending surveys of the era. The family live through a time of dramatic change in the industrial north - experiencing everything from the mill to the mine, The Beatles to Thatcher and bland potato pie to the spicy delights of the curry capital of the UK.

For many northern families, the 70s saw a rise in living standards and the smallest gap in income ever recorded between rich and poor. Despite power cuts and strikes, this is a golden era for working-class families, and the Ellises enjoy rare time together, helped by the acquisition of their first ever record player and car!

A visit from the pop man, not to mention Brookside actress Claire Sweeney, bringing her family's speciality 'Scouse' round for tea, puts some sparkle into their kitchen. Mum Lesley tries her hand at being a dinner lady, and the family get their heads round the new monetary system.

They enjoy a family day trip on a canal boat and marvel as they cruise past mills similar to the one they worked in back in 1919, and wrestle with saveloy sausages whilst watching Big Daddy - all as part of their incredible journey back in time through the era 'that taste forgot'!

Back in Time for Tea: Series 1

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