Original subtitles

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morning I'm dr. Lucy worthy chief

curator at historic royal palaces based

here at Hampton Court another daily

office as a historian though I'm

fascinated by the intimate personal bits

of history and the way they've shaped

modern life oh it's exciting it's

exciting in this series I'll be tracing

the story of British domestic life to

four News the bedroom the living room

the bathroom and the kitchen from the

homes of the Middle Ages to the present

day I'll be exploring the ways that our

attitudes and habits have changed

meeting some extraordinary people this

and doing some rather odd things

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this time the bedroom from the medieval

communal Hall to the glamorous boudoir

Vilayet oriolesman I'll be seeing how

its development has affected our most

private moments you'll see like the

person in the horror film who says that

in their Devon area called

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our houses are a reflection of our

selves they tell us so much about how we

live and who we are that the homes we

live in now have evolved over centuries

every single room in a house like this

one has got it a very interesting story

this time the room that's been through

some fascinating changes it's always

been used for sleeping but it hasn't

always been the safe haven that most of

us take for granted people's bedrooms

today a really private place if you

don't go in without an invitation

within the past bedrooms are

surprisingly noisy busy social places

this idea that they're quiet places for

sleeping is a relatively modern

invention things was very different than

this back in medieval homes the very

concept of a bedroom didn't exist for

most people in medieval England if you

belong to the household of the local

Lord and landowner the Great Hall would

have been your living and sleeping space

just the most complete and interesting

creature surviving all we've got from

the 14th century and isn't it wonderful

look at this they got the central heart

which hasn't ever been replaced by a

fireplace in the wall and this is

exactly what it would be like and it

would be full of people of course it

would have been the center of the estate

people would be coming going all the

time the Great Hall was a powerful Saxon

nation it was expected to bind the

community together and build a strong

sense of shared values people are

entirely dependent probably an order the

manor

in this case the ponies for their

existence you know they didn't really

get paid for much it wasn't that sort of

world what they got was their keep

households members were only indoors

during the hours of darkness they slept

and ate in the hall the safety found in

numbers was more important than privacy

I think it's a very different concept

from what we can imagine but of course

in the Middle Ages people were used to

doing many more things cognitively just

sleeping commonly people don't even have

beds

they certainly didn't have very

development bedrooms privacy as we

understand it didn't exist the floor of

the Great Hall would have been covered

in Russia which made things more

comfortable and soaks up any religious

so what you could do is just clean them

all up throw them all away and put down

a freshman is you could disposable

carpet yeah this is pretty true well

this is making things look a little bit

more cursive oh I like this look the

term to make the bed came from exactly

that you took a stack and fills it in

hey the fact was called the stick and

was wavin from him in fact the striped

coffin cover you still guess or

mattresses today is called kicking so

when night fell so to have locked the

doors batten down the hatches to keep

out the robbers and the scary medieval

darkness and they would have gathered

around the fire got their sacks of hay

ready to hit the hay notice origin of

expressions and then they had to cover

the fire and this leads to the

expression curfew doesn't it yes prom is

from cool the fur cover fire in the

French and it was people put her

container over the fire to keep the

ashes warm so that people weren't going

to get burnt and Russia's working catch

fire but the warmth will still be

generated and the sack is one part of

the bed we've got something missing

though we hear from the Elizabethan

traveler William Harrison that those

people in medieval England work soft and

watery like the Tudors they didn't have

pillows they slept without having a good

hard log here

the first Potter bedroom was the chamber

a separate room above the great tool for

the master and mistress of the household

it was a mark of high status to have a

private room and they used it for lots

of different things this room is set up

as a dining room today absolutely

generations used it but the medieval

family used this room which is up above

the Great Hall as a private solo also

known as a chamber also known as a bower

these little medieval words for

something that we would recognize as a

bed sitting-room they have their bed in

here but they also use it for

socialising for parties with their

friends there's an element of the home

office about it as well they brought

writers written letters in here for

example so this is a very very flexible

space for the Lord and Lady a very

high-status

version of the bedroom this separate

room was still a shared space for the

Lord

lady their family and intimate servants

their idea of privacy it was very

different from ours it was the ability

to be able to choose the people with

whom you shared the room isn't really

clever little touch it's a sneaky squint

window though the Lord and Lady can

check what's going on in the Great Hall

down there and they are literally

looking down on the club's who are so

far below us there you get a real sense

of them and up up here and it is

literally us up here in the Solar

because this is an exclusive space that

it's of the Lord

the lady their closest relatives also

their most important servants orful to

breathing the same air

this is privacy in the medieval senses

up on above the masses but nobody

expects to be all by themselves that

would be a bit weird beds were hugely

expensive so most people stay sleeping

on the SAG bed hangings were costly many

dyes are expensive and weaving was

labor-intensive you needed skilled

craftsmen to carve and construct a

wooden bed frame which meant attorneys

of rich could afford to Commission a bed

they were such status symbols that

aristocrats would take them with them

when they traveled

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but society was shifting by the

sixteenth century a new and prosperous

middle class known as the middling sort

has emerged even middling houses like

this one were now being built as an

upper floor and more ordinary families

could afford to have a bedroom as well

as Affairs bedrooms were still sparsely

furnished but they often had chests for

valuables as well as the perch or wad

for hanging clothes heads were still

expensive one like this would have cost

almost three months wages for a skilled

craftsman - try to understand - data

toots the beds and sleep I'm going to

stay the night in this remote humans

farmhouse this is pretty spot isn't it

how much of my how much my wealth would

have been tied up in this do you think

third maybe a third of my household

goods yeah the thing is something really

special so such as upon marriage do you

know definitely yeah if you're really

lucky you get left something like this

privacy in the modern sense still didn't

exist bedrooms were shared not only by

the married couple but also by their

children and even their servants the

only really private place to the couple

was behind the bed curtains this is a

triple bed chuckle bed

hey that walls out for children servants

yeah anyone anyone who isn't as grand as

the person who gets the bedroom and this

is a straw mattress yes and then on top

of that we've got another mattress that

feels like desert sometimes gosh is that

that's quite classy

yes very football of wine tightening

tutor people were terrified at the night

and its dangers from robbers to witches

to evil spirits it's not just an idea of

making yourself comfortable it's an idea

of making yourself safe okay I've been

sending myself against the night exactly

I don't know what spirits are lurking

out there the night air is considered

dangerous and bad for your health

yeah do you sleep in the moonlight you

might go mad

where the word lunacy comes from over

the light of the lunar moon

who are lunar - exactly lots of things

to worry about right I'm going to follow

every single which I can get my hands

actly so where we're going to start is

by making sure you're nice and

comfortable and these side strings have

to be nice and tight so you can sleep

tight do you know I've always wondered

why people say sleep tight and this is

the answer isn't it and then what's our

next bit of it

don't let the bedbugs bite saying that

the bugs fly right well that's what

we're going to do next

check the beds for bugs because bed bugs

are a big problem you've just completely

put me off the idea of sleeping leather

I was quite looking forward to it until

you said that that we've got to leave

yet oh thank you thank you to keep the

bed bugs at bay they sprinkled wormwood

and herb used in traditional medicine

over the mattress followed by chamomile

to aid restful sleep to drive out damp

and warm the bed they use lock Peters in

the fire okay how do you feel then not

spending the night here good worried

about it well long as you take all the

right precautions you're okay Alison

you'll feel like the person in the

horror film he says that in there

everything I told you nightfall was

known as shutting in time in a crowded

Yeomans house like this the master of

the household would have checked and

secured his prophecy against human

intruders

but this is any part of the nightly

ritual they also have to protect

themselves against unearthly intruders

I'm going to put my shoes upside down

because Judas genuinely believed that

Pixies and spirits might come and put

them on in the night I've got here my

Tudor steeping pill which is a little

bag of aniseed which apparently I can

tie around my ears like this and the

smell of aniseed is supposed to send me

to sleep also stop me from having

nightmares

I must admit all of these rituals and

preparations it may be slightly more

nervous about the lighter heads than I

would have otherwise been there's a

theory that people had very different

sleeping patterns through the eight

hours we expect today they would start

with a thirst sleep of four hours and

then naturally wake up though doing

leisure things think that they didn't

have time to do in in the daylight like

meditating praying chatting and

obviously couples took the chance to

have calm knowledge of each other as

well in the dead of the night the only

other thing that's a week around here at

the moment is that owl so I think I'll

go back to my second sleep

okay

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I've had rather a disturbed night I

think it serves late because I live in

the middle of the city I was I'm always

longing for dark and quiet and I got

dark I didn't get quiet it was just

non-stop nice and the geese and the

horses and goodness knows what else was

making that whip happy noise I also

learnt something about you to bed base

hag it's really hard to lie flat and

it's always been a mystery to me why

people in portraits when they're seen in

bed a sort of semi sitting up like I am

like that and the answer is you can't

lie flat because they sag so much those

ropes

stretch and the featherbed that ever

sort of wiggle away from the weight of

your body so I've sort of been like this

all night I think that I am in a genuine

Tudor sleeping position as bedrooms

became more common in British houses

people use these new rooms for all sorts

of get-togethers and ceremonies because

spread chains in the past are much more

social spaces sometimes public rituals

were performed in them their chambers

were like the stages sometimes where you

might for example get to know somebody

caught them even get married the

ceremony of marriage wasn't restricted

just to a church setting until right

into the 18th century until then to the

poverty earning classes marriage

involves a written contract agreed by

both fathers followed by his formal

exchange of promises and finally a

church blessing for poor people a simple

exchange of vows in front of witnesses

was enough in order to find the right

partner though it was worth checking

your compatibility first hello there

brave people thank you in some rural

areas the bedroom is used for a

courtship ritual known as bundling the

idea was that when a young couple sort

of started to begin to like each other

their parents may well have decided to

let them do this thing which is to spend

the night in

bed together and it was kind of testing

the waters to see wherever they would in

fact make a good marriage couple and in

order to stop this lusty young man from

falling upon your daughter you might

have taken certain proportions go the

young woman would be bundled into a

stack and tied as her waist and feet

we've got make the knot lusty young man

proof he won't be able to undo that

Willie then she would be put into her

parents bed next to her potential

husband right there you are

no touching is going on there right Tim

let's get the board in place as an extra

precaution a wide wooden plank called as

bundling board would be placed between

them faster he can't even see each other

now can you it's like blind date that's

the modern equivalent to thundering Tim

you are still a black very very bizarre

characters are quite then time for the

parents to leave the room

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right the bedroom wasn't just the

courtship rituals it was part of the

marriage ceremonies as well after the

wedding had taken place the bridesmaids

will bring the bride into the bedroom

and they would publicly undress her she

would throw her stockings over her

shoulder and the person who called them

would be the next to get married just

like the person who catches the bouquet

today then the bridegroom would come in

with his friends they would undress him

they'd all have a big party with

drinking and music and so on only at the

very last minute after the husband and

wives had got into bed with their

friends leave and let them get on with

it

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the bedroom also had huge significance

as the place where life began

traditionally childbirth was a

women-only event it was in a sense quite

social it was the women's occasion that

not only would the woman have a midwife

and possibly her mother or female

relative with her it requires often be

her neighbors the women who attended the

birth were known as God's siblings or

God's imps ironically the origin of the

term gossip clearly it's very dangerous

very dangerous and I think possibly one

of the reasons to have other women there

is that these are kind women who've got

through it you know it's already period

and their experience and they have the

other twerk one might almost think good

karma of having survived childbirth to

bring for the occasion yeah but it was

dangerous maternal mortality was very

high and so was infant mortality one in

five women died in childbirth until the

18th century it was the most common

cause of death in young women midwives

had no formal training their knowledge

was gained through experience they were

hired by reputation and their equipment

was pretty limited

well they specially designed groaning

chairs had been in use since the

medieval period birthing chairs have

recently been reintroduced into many

modern obstetric units this is the

complete midwives companion written by a

woman who was a midwife in the 17th

century and you've got this illustration

here of the scene in the bedroom and

you've got the woman she's always just

given birth and you've got several other

women around and one of them is feeding

the mother with presumably cord or

something sort of between the porridge

and a drink

really that was made for to sustain

women in childbirth and to sustain the

women who were supporting them and it

was include alcohol it included oatmeal

it included various herbs and spices so

it was it had a medicinal purpose but it

was also some

sense of celebratory drink bedrooms were

still very public places for the ridge

along with the constant presence of

servants they were used to receiving

guests the very notion of privacy in the

bedroom didn't exist in the modern sense

a tam house in Richmond we can see some

of the very first completely private

rooms for runners as the modern bedroom

Lady Elizabeth II I saw inherited ham

house from her father in 1642 the house

is famous for its closet now rather than

bedrooms closets a small private room

specifically designed for solitude if a

closets are these funny little rooms off

a bedchamber it's quite extraordinary

that she's got to those this one and

then an even more exactly and I feel I

guess with this is that some people were

coming into this room and maybe for her

bathroom through there was absolutely

Saxon no one came in there well this is

really quite something isn't it I think

it's just so personal it just expresses

one person and they're like so much it's

a limb that's died out in our modern

houses you don't really have closet

absolutely I mean the use is still there

in our modern day bedroom

ladies I start prophets were quite

understated compared to her father's

which were much more in line with

contemporary male pace if they can't

isn't it yeah but I think that's half

times have changed and you know this was

what a sophisticated man we've wanted

his room to look as richer humanly

possible yeah this is very definitely

mr. Murray's room no else is allowed in

here and it was locked at all times

well you didn't sell out because it's

just totally decorated all over this

road every space I do you think it's

quite touching if you think of 1710 she

has two class whose lives and lives on

display they're always performing that

audience who don't met when they're in

there is a moment where you just have to

have a bit of peace and quiet just want

to be on your own

yeah the King and Queen had closets but

at Hampton Court they also each had a

private bedroom but the rituals of

course were so entrenched that they

still have public bedrooms for social

and court events

the medbay or ceremony of dressing the

king or queen in front of the court

arrived from France in the 17th century

50 years later Queen Caroline the wife

of Joseph ii was dressed by her

ladies-in-waiting every day in front of

visitors I'm standing in for Queen

Caroline this morning and when she got

dressed in the morning she didn't do it

by herself it was all done here in her

public bedroom and quite a lot of people

helped her out here are my bedchamber

staff aside and these nice people from

Australia their visitors to the palace

and the Queen did actually let visitors

into her bedroom while this was going on

it's like a public ceremony hello the

occasion was extremely hierarchical and

the rules were extraordinarily detailed

at the tops of the mistresses of robes

then the lady of the bedchamber

followed by the woman as a bedchamber

next was the dresser who did most of the

work while the page at the very bottom

of the heap had to wait around until

calls in to place the shoes on the

Queen's feet yeah so so weird I'm

standing with practically no clothes on

in front of lots of people who don't

know me kissing

so I suppose the Queen must have just

got used to it

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so Libby you're not touching the dresser

because you're too important

as if Deirdre and this hierarchy at the

incident dissolved it's just so

important it's make-or-break

life-or-death to these people

it seems very unfair but you should get

paid a lot more than the others even

though you're not doing any work I think

it's fair

what think it's home furnishing the

shoes someone call the page page keeping

issues thank you very much page Tiki

actually to be honest I could not

physically bend down and do it for

myself I am out in your hand

thank you very much

so all the rest of you can aspire to

doing what Deirdre is now day if you've

work cards and Mary well you ready hey

I'm good to go

thank you ladies you may go see you same

time same place tomorrow

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Queen Caroline didn't sleep in the

public bedroom her private bedroom was

on the other side of the palace this is

a sneaky special door we're going into

the private rooms now but she doesn't

use these rooms except when when people

are here visitors are here

it's quite interesting the way all these

rooms run one into another there's no

corridor there's no privacy the whole

thing is like a railway carriage

[Music]

and this is the Queen's private bedroom

at last this is where she's really slept

and you could tell that she really did

expect to be alone in here because

there's an amazing contraption for

locking the door it works on the sort of

pulley system and when she was lying in

bed and she didn't have any servants in

them the door could actually be locked

by her so she didn't have to leap out

and get cold and this is also the room

where it's the king her husband wanted

to sleep with her this is where he came

to do it so you can imagine those two in

bed locking the doors on everybody else

when he wanted to sleep with her I say

either post for sleeping with his

mistress and his mistress would travel

to his bedroom in his part of the palace

when they were going to get together all

across the country

Alistair crap desperately hopes that the

king would sleep the night in one of

their country houses so they created

exclusive state bedrooms for visiting

royalty furnished with hugely expensive

state bed they were reserved purely in

case a king or queen came to stay that's

what happened here at Kedleston hall

ruled Scarsdale in the 1760s

commissioned this bed in the hope that

George desert will come and sleep in it

the designer was Robert Adam top

architect of the day and the very design

includes references to royalty and

kingship the palms symbolize kingship

and fidelity the ostrich feathers up at

the top though they're a symbol of power

now very sadly for Lords gospel

although this bed has been here for over

200 years no king or queen has ever

slept in it privacy was about to become

a possibility for the middling sort the

expanding Georgian economy led to an

urban housing boom with a radical idea

the private middle-class bedroom

this is a classic health plan as a

seventeenth-century four houses a

middling sort what's interesting about

it is the way that the bedrooms are all

interconnected so to get to that room

you have to walk through that person's

bedroom and through that person's

bedroom there's very little concepts of

privacy

in the 18th century this changes this is

a classic 18th century health plan

design and here on the first floor you

can see corridors stairwells circulation

space in fact look a quarter of the

whole houses area is given over to the

circulation so that each of these rooms

can be accessed independently this is

quite a luxurious use of space you might

think it had happened previously in

royal palaces and grand houses but now

is becoming standard everybody wants

privacy this is a Georgian bedroom and

it's not the main bedroom of this

particular house it's a secondary one

would have been used by the children

maybe even by lodgers and when we've

seen bedrooms like this in the past

they've been accessed through the main

bedroom you had to go through one into

another but here's a big step forward

this bedroom now has its own door

there's privacy here for the occupants

of this room and these are the public

areas that's the private area the back

stairs the corridor key steps and

separating out the different occupants

of the house and it's good news for mr.

and mrs. in the master bedroom as well

because no longer do they have people

trekking through their room to get to

the rooms beyond they can shut this door

lock it and know that they're going to

be completely on their own

for the first time also the servants

have disappeared out of this bedroom

previously they would have been right

close in maybe even sleeping on

truckle-bed x' or something like that

but now they've been banished to the

Attic to the basement in a big house

season two separate servants quarters

and this means a new innovation has to

be developed the bell to summon the

servants either you ring it and it rings

in their area or in an old-fashioned

house you just do this

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the 18th century saw clock ownership

expand as luxury filtered down the

social scale many clocks had alarms so

them using quite extraordinary methods

to wake up their owners my very favorite

Georgian alarm clock is this crazy

device where the alarm triggers the

striking of a Slynt which creates a

little spark which sets fighters and

gunpowder which then ignites a candle so

it's all ready for you to get up and out

of bed the urban bedroom was becoming a

properly private space and new

technology would make it much more

comfortable as the Industrial Revolution

swung into action the bedroom was about

to be transformed brass and iron beds

with coil sprung and mesh bases cotton

sheets and pillowcases night shirts and

night dresses were all met produced -

the first time Victorian housewives the

fairies proud of their endless supplies

of mass-produced cotton they were

obsessed with bed making and their

fastidiousness made sense a clean well

air bed reduced the risk of consumptive

illnesses there what's the most

important thing to remember if you're

making a Victorian bed well that's the

the most important thing is that it must

be strict every day and because of the

moisture content that has actually got

into your bed and also from the hinges

that you have actually made in the bed

and I want nice least injures the dunes

are Dinge is the shape that you have

made in your featherbed in my favorite

in a knife because it's like is it like

memory foam well it's in people like

memory foam and it molds to your body as

you sleep and this Dinge would retain

the moisture that you had actually exude

it overnight doesn't sound very nice no

individuality and in fact it is said

Florence Nightingale works out there's a

grown man in a 24-hour period in a

hospital would actually exhale as much

as three pipes of moisture and so that

it was pressed through through their

breath even while they were sleeping and

of course added to the dampness in the

room and the perspiration and

perspiration through your skin you would

really have quite a problem with this

very quickly and every day well it

sounds a much more serious business than

making my bed which I do wear about mine

absolutely absolutely right we're ready

to go we certainly are are you going

remember I am indeed and the idea where

the bedstead itself becomes a very

important tool for this particular job

she hides down full of Eider ducks

feathers is actually placed over the end

of the bed and then the counterpane

which now can go back over over well and

under that the various layers of

blankets this is rather an ornate

blankets at the time and there would be

far more layers depending on you know

what sort of time of the year it was you

know fires in bedrooms though fires in

bedrooms unless you were ill here we now

have the cotton sheet and you can feel

how damp this is Lucy can't you now

that's five layers libraries layers and

now we come to the pillows and sell even

a lower middle-class household like this

one would have employed and made of all

work to help the ship physical labor

a Victorian house work

there would be two more layers to go

before we get to number eight and

something that looks like a mattress

here's the feather bed looking unchanged

is the Tudor period it's like a futon

isn't very certainly is and you can

imagine as you get older this becomes

more and more of a problem so if we

placed it on the chair what a Nazi an

identikit is really well it would need a

good beating now loose again

so this is a proper match of this

diamond that Lindsay did and this is

actually made of coarse hair and this is

what gives you the stability and

firmness to your bed what's going on

underneath we haven't got to the bottom

yeah no no we've got a number of layers

after that we have a blanket woolen

blanket that just in case in there

cotton cover and then a very bottom of

the bed we have the brown Holland cover

underneath we have a mesh support and so

this protection here is against rust

this horsehair much as would be

completeness learn we can do this and

then the layers as they were thoroughly

white would receive the place it seems

to me you'd spend all morning on making

the bed then all afternoon making is

again who feels an extremely arduous

process so the million-dollar question

is is it going to be comfy now I know

what's inside I really hope it is

well this is moderately comfortable I

could definitely spend the night in here

I think on my own though because it

doesn't seem huge this bed though I

expect it was made for two people but

imagine doing that every day

no times while middle-class housewives

were hoarding bed linen a new class of

wealthy Victorian industrialists began

to invest in bespoke grand houses where

privacy was essential to the house

designer

Witek Manor in Staffordshire had ample

space to accommodate the mounting

Victorian obsession with privacy the

house takes it to a whole new level with

separate rooms for masters and servants

adults and children and even husbands

and wives this is the bedroom intended

for a Victorian married couple and

what's happened here is that the lady

and the gentleman and no longer sleeping

in the same bed this is Victorian

separation at its highest point this bed

was slept in by the lady as a couple

she got a horse hair matches to sleep on

here and that little pocket knows per se

a watch in - and these these are no

longer functional curtains the railing

stops short and they're just a gesture

towards curtains really there's a show

rather than sea use because now privacy

is within this room that has lots on the

door not within the bed itself and her

husband he's not in here at all he's

through the door here in what's called

the dressing room this is the

gentleman's dressing room but some

essentially he sleeps in here here is

his bed and you can see that he actually

has his own door out onto the landing

the design of the house was all about

separation the male servants were housed

in a completely separate outbuilding the

maid's bedrooms were right up in the

attic

most maid's rooms the decorators

according to very strict rules I've got

a book here by mrs. panthan it's cause

from kitchen to Gerrits hints the young

householders and it's written for a

fictional couple whose names were Edwin

and Angelina he was setting up home

together and mrs. fountain really was a

bit of a devil listen to this she says

that you shouldn't let the servants keep

their own boxes in their rooms and the

reason is she says they cannot refrain

somehow from holding all sorts of

rubbish in them she says the simpler the

servants whom astonished the better and

basically he says don't give the

servants anything nice because they will

spoil it it's quite shocking The Maids

rooms at with it would have seemed

luxurious compared to the homes in which

they had grown up and these houses was

so Colin weren't they - really really

standard living house and Lawson was

born in the late 1940s in a Victorian

factor back house in the centre of

Birmingham these houses have a living

room and kitchen combined downstairs and

two shared bedrooms upstairs so and what

exactly is a back-to-back house it's two

houses that literally back-to-back on

each other some separated by one brick

and some in some cases by half a brick

quite noisy see and how long were you

living in a house like that but all of

whom when I was young I was about 19 and

then moved to live in a similar house

and I got married where I had four

children you're a bit of a time

traveller really good from your own you

had some experience you can take us back

to light in the Victorian back to back

because it was very similar so while you

experienced do so and whatever anybody

tells you there's no way anybody would

go back to it

there would be up to nine people living

under one of these ruse to help and

explain how the sleeping arrangements

work we're joined by some children from

a local primary school right kids you

need to take your shoes off and get into

bed

sly Maalik scramble over there one at

the top one at the bottom now you'll all

but pretend you're brothers and sisters

do you think you can manage to do that

and is everyone got loop it's somebody's

foot here looks about it you know knows

but it's kind of a snap now do you think

we could sleep the whole night like this

then you like having your own space do

you think that's important

imagine doing this every night it would

really annoy you and it who was saying

that they like to chat in the middle of

the night with their brother who is it

you telling me that you quite like

having a chat with your brother in the

middle of the night that you're not in

the same bed I'll bet I hear when you

lived in a house like this

and you've got all you nice little bits

and pieces that you want only you to use

where do you think you keep them

yeah where could you hide anything you

couldn't could you

and we had two ladies that came round

and they lived in one of these houses

and where the skirting board round the

edge of the room they were able to show

us where there's a piece that was loose

and these four little things behind it

so their other brothers and sisters

would look this and shove it back into

place

they for the first 19 years of your life

you shared your bread with your sister

yep and then for the next and my brother

sometimes and your brother yeah because

he was a lot younger and we were missed

get bit scared sometimes how old were

you when you first slept in a bed by

yourself

46 so now as we don't I met my husband

had died and I had the bedroom and a bed

to myself that's the first time I'd ever

had a bed of my own and a room of my

hair so it's mine now I don't like other

people in there okay

that's all mine you've got to feel for

the mom and dad you have their kids with

them 24 hours a day but this is where

Sunday school comes into its own on a

Sunday afternoon they sent the kids off

to be educated and once they have the

bedroom to themselves for once you can

get what happened but domestic life for

working men and women was about to

change

the Great War the struggle for women's

voting light and the arrival of

Hollywood films created a heady mix that

would alter the bedroom forever female

emancipation and the glamour of the

movies transforms the Victorian bedroom

into the decadence 1930s boudoir I've

come to look at your 1930 bedroom Gareth

I saw right yup right over here

yeah this is an outfit for a film star

isn't it well that's the important thing

that's when the fashion business went

from Paris being the focal point to

Hollywood be a focal point and so

everything was influenced by Hollywood

films parodies is really when the bias

cut came in the way this works is that

normally material is weave and light

narcs right right and in the basket it's

turned so that it sort of cut diagonally

out on the diagonal to the rain as it

were and that gives it a stretch that's

what makes me cling to the curves he's

it slinky and the other thing that

transforms thirties bedroom where is

artificial silk if you've got an example

of us rayon this floral one is made from

rayon they got the bias cut all over

again but this is a mass-market version

isn't it everybody could afford this and

look just a slinky as the people who

could afford silk before so that the

woman at home could wear what she saw on

the Hollywood screen it's slink enos for

the masses isn't corrected even pajamas

appeared for women I will call this a

new sort of category of clothing that

you might call leisure wear really

because it's not just for sleeping and

it's not for being out in public but

it's sort of somewhere in the middle

it's an in-between it's definitely an

in-between however this would be

something that a woman could have worn

just before or just after she's been to

bed and then if you look at the men's

equivalence of that very exotic look at

that no man does have worn this anywhere

else but in the bedroom yeah

haha

[Music]

waiting to present oh come on in thank

you very much for useless I'm fine thank

you very much it wraps up in my book

here do you know the shake the movie

very seemingly I don't work yes well I'm

reading the book here my goodness it's

quite something real English for you

this morning

uh-huh

[Music]

the 20th century version becomes much

more about enjoyment and not just a room

for sleeping and the Victorians get into

this position where to have a very

prudish determined attitude towards the

bedroom its asleep and from nothing else

here's a great character in an Anthony

Trollope novel from 1869 her name's mrs.

family and she says that different rooms

should be used only for the purposes for

which they were intended she never

allowed pens and ink up into the

bedrooms and if she ever heard that a

guest in her house had been reading in

bed she would have made an instant

personal attack I like that bedrooms are

just for sleeping and yet before the

Victorian period they were used for

numerous other activities and this

returns in the 20th century particularly

this idea of bedrooms as boudoirs

as places for women to be rather

decadent in and to do sort of slightly

illicit things like reading naughty

novels which Victorian ladies did all

right

make no mistake but they weren't

supposed to and one of the best-selling

novels of the 1920s was a shake by e/m

hull and whore

this is a very neat

[Applause]

[Music]

the Second World War brought suffering

sacrifice and a severe housing shortage

the nation's recovery from the war was

slow both economically and

psychologically but by the late 1940s

rebuilding began and marriage rates

started to go up twin beds were common

by the 1950s but behind its cozy cliche

lies an unexpected change in British

domestic life for me twin beds are just

a symbol of repression you have no

physical relationship between the

husband and I absolutely but do you

think that's a fair view of the 1950s I

of course that's complete if there was

the case of the 1950s then none of us

would exist today what explains it is

the fact that people would have seen you

know there would be they will be

following what they saw as a sort of

Victorian forebears posh people in the

Victorian times often steps in different

rooms as you know or certainly in

different beds and I think what would

happen is that a filter down you're

acting out your kind of posh person

fantasy if you like is where your own

bed you've got your own space you don't

have to share this is yours now of

course but that doesn't mean it doesn't

mean people weren't having fun but in

fact it's in their fifties that you see

the beginnings of what we now think of

as the sexual revolution you even get a

little kind of baby boom at the end of

the fort is from the beginning of the

1950s so you know this idea that it's

all kind of tea cozies and you know

Horlicks before bedtime

I'm afraid isn't really true so what

were the wider changes in society that

explained this transformation in the

fifties bedroom the fifties really the

biggest economic boom in British history

and what you had then was lots of people

particular young people buying into

lifestyles that their parents could

never have dreamed of

so the fifth is bedroom you know in all

sorts of ways as a temple to consumerism

and were the fifties the Golden Age of

marriage as well where people more

married in the fifties than they have

been before or since

yeah the 50s was a period of a huge cult

of marriage as the government and the

other kind of big institutional bodies

going to enormous lengths to sort of

make people fall back in love with the

idea of domesticity what you have in the

fifties is this growing emphasis on what

people

called the companion their marriage so

instead of you know just marrying

somebody you quite like and then using

kind of separate lives in the same

household you actually do things

together you go out for drives you

I don't know you play games you read

together you do all these kinds of

things and a family becomes more and

more important we've got here some books

from the 1950s about marriage about

sexual relationships they've got a

marriage guidance camps actually

government sponsored bodies would put

our sex manuals because they were so

keen to encourage the cult of

domesticity to encourage you know the

companion of marriage to encourage

couples to have a healthy happy and

fulfilling life together then we read

them today they seem pretty quaint doing

there they have all sorts of bizarre and

wacky fairies and Helena rights in the

sex factor in marriage has a whole

chapter on frigidity for example the

difficulties in the social relationship

and she says the commonest causes of

female frigidity are insufficiency of

rest lack of sleep and secondly

constipation clearly you know we now

know that the constipation is not bad

simple easy cause a lack of sexual

fulfillment in marriage

what you have to remember is in the

1950s you know before you get to sleep

in one of these twin beds before you get

out of your own bedroom you've had no

sex education at all and all from your

parents not from school not from the

church not from anybody so these kinds

of things were seen as absolutely

essential in cutting down on unwanted

pregnancies on teenage pregnancies and

it was just a messy all these kinds of

things and you know in their way they

performed a very vital and important

service I used to feel very sorry for

married women in the 50s I imagine them

sleeping in twin beds probably being on

tranquilizers and their husbands having

an affair with their secretary but I now

realized that things weren't quite like

that there was a coloreds moving food

Society in the 50s that was about

learning how to have a good sexual

relationship the fifties bedroom wasn't

such a bad place to be

this quiet domestic revolution was

building to its climax with the sexual

liberation of the 1960s homes how do you

feel about her leaning home going to

live by ourselves the first time well I

can't help of course feeling a bit

uneasy as anybody would I think the

Audrey a young girl in too low from earn

what do you want easy about sex drugs

free anything's of helpful but now it

wasn't just about who you slept with

but what you slept under the days of

sheets and ida downs were numbered a

revolutionary product survives the duvet

in the late 1960s

Terrence Conrad was credited for

bringing it to the UK after he'd spent

some passionate nights in Scandinavia

Patricia Whittington Fowle was one of

the first habitat employees to

demonstrate the shockingly different

bedding when I first saw them I mean I

didn't know what they were I thought

they were bread covering but I wasn't

sure what you did with them there when

it was your job to be selling the duvet

in your customers figuring that you

encountered this problem presumably

people didn't know what they were I used

to end up putting the dudes I cover on

and showing them how easy oh it's so

simple all you do is that and they can

go out so you'd end up with sort of I

don't know sometimes 20 30 people this

innovation I know and all the people in

the cafe will be looking down to see

what you were doing it says shake it and

so there you go you go

how much dinner do they cost them I

think the other ones about 11 pound on a

single one two possibly five pound lost

money well at the time I was only

working part-time I was earning 10 pound

a week so it was an expensive thing

at first they were called Continental

Club

lumber down after Conrad had

successfully exported the idea for fun

they became known as duvet from the

French word but down 1971 this comes the

whole idea of the lifestyle was

confirmed my children in with me we can

do things together it's all then a

bedroom was somewhere we went to sleep

but all of a sudden it became a living

room as well we've got a television in

there the bedroom was a lovely

comfortable clothes to be here it says

until you tried this method of making a

bed it's difficult to believe it could

be so simple and so comfortable but once

you've experienced it you're never

likely to change absolutely right I

don't know anybody who went back to

blankets

once they tried the river that was it

that was it for life

right in the habitat catalog for 1975 we

have the 10-second bed challenge oh my

goodness here she is taking the do day

off straightening the sheet putting the

cover back on sorting it all out and yes

you die okay but this is a single bed I

take it isn't it yeah but you're an

expert fishing you can try to do this he

only takes 10 seconds absolutely perfect

look for to this right are you ready

already obviously my time

try to give it back I love you called me

man and wife coming I'm trying to do a

shot demonstration are you done are you

done either ah

how many nine three single insane it

doesn't look very good happy you've lost

your edge here

once the do they had arrived the next

decorative thing to change about Fez

with the a t-table sessions with florals

will how'd you feel - I took yes

thankfully is nothing but a distant

the bedroom has evolved from the

bustling medieval Hall with absolutely

no privacy to the sanctuary of today

where people feel themselves off from

the rest of the house bedrooms now are

like private Kingdom where you can do

whatever you want but this is quite a

modern notion in the past bedrooms are

full of subtle and other people's bodies

it's only relatively recently the

bedrooms have become places of

relaxation intimacy and above all of

triticeae

[Music]

like in a tie war

next time for the medieval one-room

cottage - an open-plan futuristic utopia

I'll be discovering how the kitchen came

in from the cold

come on Coco you can do it not to

perhaps the beginner is it actualizing

energy

[Music]