We were lucky enough to be on Cerys Matthews’ brilliant 6Music show on Sunday, talking about how some of the women in our book might be helpful guides during the potential stress of Christmastime. We covered Mrs Beeton and Queen Victoria’s influence on British Christmas traditions and Betty Ford and Clara Schumann on the trickier subjects of drinking and money. We also talked about the inspiring entrepreneuse Margarete Steiff, who helped make teddy bears into the popular Christmas gift they are today. Margarete doesn’t feature in the UK or US edition of the book, she’s only in the German-language version, so we’ll post her chapter here soon for anyone who’s interested (and can’t read German).
You can listen to the whole show here, including Mary Portas’ fascinating thoughts on women in the workplace. (We are about an hour and a half in).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0001h48
From Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, in the Wellcome Collection. A selection of puddings: N1) Raised Pie O1) Vol-au-vent P1) Christmas Plum Pudding in Mould Q1)Apples in Custard R1)Charlottes aux Pommes
