'Ask Audrey' shares handy hints for a happy home from a 1945 guide

Our much-loved Friday columnist, Audrey has a complicated relationship with domesticity. So we couldn’t resist handing her a republished copy of a housekeeping bible that sold 60,000 copies in 1945

YOU can imagine my surprise when my husband arrived home with The Homecraft Book by Ann Hathaway. You can imagine his surprise when I told him not to expect any sex for six months. The cheek of some people.

The book, first published in 1945, is described on the back cover as “a compendium of advice across a myriad of subjects for the post-war woman, wife and mother.” That’s ‘loads of tips’ for those of you who don’t have access to a dictionary. It’s the kind of present a man would give to his partner if they had run out of things to fight about. Or so I thought until I started reading it.