Wendy’s World

Wendy’s World

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History

Hot Pants and Modesty Flannels
To cover up or not to cover up in the 1970s
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Wendy Varley
95
Childhood 1960s style
What we did before the internet
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Wendy Varley
105
The original domestic goddess, Mrs Beeton
I imagined Mrs Beeton as a Victorian version of UK celebrity cook Mary Berry. I was wrong.
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Wendy Varley
86
Champagne. Unopened. 1945.
Epitaph for a WWII Spitfire pilot
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Wendy Varley
105
The WWII evacuee and her precious violin
My mum was one of 800,000 British children evacuated from cities to the countryside at the outbreak of WWII in September 1939. She spent the next four…
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Wendy Varley
99
Toy Boy
Paul was Sindy's boyfriend for just two years in the mid-1960s. What can he teach us about the life and times?
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Wendy Varley
94
Riding the waves
When I walk into my home office, I pass the sailmaker’s stool that belonged to my great-grandfather, and sometimes imagine him sitting there.
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Wendy Varley
82
Hold the front page! What was your worst mistake at work?
“It isn’t Leonardo DiCaprio in the film Tetris. It’s Taron Egerton,” Ian announced from the other side of our shared home office, while reading my piece…
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Wendy Varley
69
Dreaming of Virtual Reality in 1992
Plus: Six months on Substack!
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Wendy Varley
58
On Learning The Facts of Life
Birds and bees and wallabies, or the bald truth?
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Wendy Varley
90
Modern Woman, 1950s style
“I’ve never before felt myself to be in such a dreadful tangle”
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Wendy Varley
76
Coal dust memories
Miners' strikes, three-day weeks and scrubbing our teeth in the dark
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Wendy Varley
75
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