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Back in Time for Tea

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Factual: Food & Drink

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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 2

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Episode 2

Series 1

BBC Two - Back in Time for Tea, Series 1, Episode 2

The postwar years see the family on rations with no fridge, hot water or electric cooker.

The Ellis family discover how life has changed for northern working class families. The postwar years see the family on rations with no fridge, hot water or electric cooker.

The Ellis family from Bradford are embarking on a time-travelling adventure to discover how a transformation in the food eaten in the north of England can reveal how life has changed for 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 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 Ellis 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.

The postwar years see the Ellis family on rations without a fridge, hot water or an electric cooker. Thrifty fodder includes the regional favourites cow heel pie and yorkshire pudding made with dried eggs, and while the cost of food is low, family spirits are high. The insecurity of the hungry thirties has been replaced by the promise of a fairer society for working class families with a government commitment to full employment and better housing and healthcare.

Chickens Sara and Polly join the family and treat them to fresh eggs, a welcome replacement for the dried ones they have been forced to use before. 

Dad Jon and daughter Caitlin enjoy a three-course taste of subsidised canteen dinners while mum Lesley and daughter Freya experience the 15 hours of housework - the average undertaken by women in this era. The family have a day out as they join friends and neighbours for a coronation street party filled with games and sandwiches, ice cream and cakes fit for a queen!

Back in Time for Tea: Series 1

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