Bombs at Teatime

Rainy Day Women (1984)

With BFI Southbank and BFI Player exploring life on the Home Front this month, Mediatheque visitors can take their own trip back to the 1940s. As if fighting WWII wasn’t hard enough, British people had to put up with years of rationing, baths taken in a couple of inches of water and frequent outbreaks of head lice… Bombs at Teatime is a portrait of life during one of the most extraordinary decades in our history. At times wry, affectionate and surprising, these films document that earlier age of austerity as Britain sought to retain its sanity in the shadow of war. Completing the collection are classic features from Powell & Pressburger and dramas made for the BBC’s Play for Today series.

See our Blitz Flicks season.

Ten to try

ARP: A Reminder for Peacetime (1939)
A Glasgow family prepares for the black-out, using petrol coupons and an air-raid shelter.

Love on Leave (1940)
Wayward women, lonely soldiers and a visit to the VD clinic.

The Countrywomen (1941)
Jam and Jerusalem – the Women’s Institute goes to war.

Two Cooks and a Cabbage (1941)
How to get your vitamins in times of austerity, and avoid the dreaded soggy cabbage.

Partners in Crime (1942)
A stern reprimand to housewives meddling in the black market.

Five Inch Bather (1942)
A naked Richard Massingham extols the virtues of bathwater conservation.

Unwanted Guests (1943)
From evacuees to land girls, lice were rife: pay a visit to the nit nurse.

Welcome to Britain (1943)
The Yanks are coming! But what will they do when they get here?

Fires Were Started (1943)
Spend an eventful day and night with the National Fire Service during the Blitz of 1940-41.

Rainy Day Women (1984)
Wartime tensions in a remote English village: the last great Play for Today.