Can Any Mother Help Me? ; ... With This Plea, a Unique Writing Club Was Founded in 1935 Which Allowed Women to Pour Out Their Troubles and Secrets to Each Other. Their Words Paint a Tantalising Portrait of a Very Different Era

Daily Mail › October 03, 2007

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Summary

DURING 1935, a lonely young mother wrote an impassioned letter to the women's magazine Nursery World: 'Can any mother help me? I live a very lonely life as I have no near neighbours. I cannot afford to buy a wireless. I adore reading, but with no library am very limited with books. I dislike needlework, though I have to do a lot of it! 'I get so down and depressed after the children are in bed and I am alone in the house. I know it is bad to brood and breed hard thoughts and resentment. Can any reader suggest an occupation that will intrigue me and exclude "thinking" and cost nothing?' Women from all over the country wrote back expressing similar frustrations. Many were intelligent women who, once married and confined to the house, found that they were not ideally suited for life as a housewife and mother.

Lonely and bored, they were full of ideas and of motherhood, wartime difficulties, ANY MOT opinions but had nowhere to express them. So they decided to start a private magazine. Each woman, writing under a nom de plume, would contribute an article on any subject and post it to the editor, who would assemble the articles.

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Can Any Mother Help Me? ; ... With This Plea, a Unique Writing Club Was Founded in 1935 Which Allowed Women to Pour Out Their Troubles and Secrets to Each Other. Their Words Paint a Tantalising Portrait of a Very Different Era

She would mail the completed magazine to the first woman on a pre- arranged list, who had a set amount of time to read it, and who would add her own comments on the pages before sending it on to the next member. There were up to 24 members at any one time, and just one copy of the fortnightly magazine, so often more than one issue would be circulating at a time.

The Co-operative Correspondence Club or CCC was a place for these women to describe subjects close to their heart: the pain and elation of motherhood, wartime difficulties, marriage troubles or the struggles of daily routine. As they poured out their innermost thoughts over the years, many formed deep friendships a...

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