Thanks very much for uploading these. They are really good quality copies, I watched many of How We Used To Live 1936-1953 at school. I was very surprised that they said Arthur would soon be retiring in this episode - I dodn't think he was old enough, especially as Edward wasn't even 18. That means Arthur would have been 47 when Edward was born.
Well, Edward was the youngest and a bit of a 'surprise at the end' baby, born about fourteen or so years after Jimmy, the eldest. In the first episode, Jimmy is 14/15, Patricia is 13, Avril is 7-ish and Edward was just a baby/toddler. So Arthur wouldve been just 31 or 32 when Jimmy was born, which meant that he and Mabel would've have married at least a year, perhaps two, earlier. Say that Arthur was 29 or 30 when he married Mabel, who, although we never get a distinct age from her, was probably about five years younger than Arthur (this being the average in Britain and the rest of the Western world). So Mabel was probably 24 or 25 when she married 29 or 30 year old Arthur. Not very strange, as we've heard that Mabel was a teacher before she married, and Arthur and she, like Avril and Lawrence, probably wanted to 'save up' before marriage. Also, Arthur would need a 'proper job' before the responsibility of being the provider of his family, so no, how would not, could not possibly marry when he was 20, or even 21 - he wouldn't be able to provide. Besides, if Arthur is 64 in this episode in '53, this means that he was 25 and Mabel 20 when WWI broke out. Probably too old to have served in the trenches, but he would still have had to 'do his bit' at the homefront. Now, say that they were already sweethearts by then, they would've probably waited until after the war to get married... which would make them... Yup, this fits exactly; Arthur and Mabel got married after the end of WWI and a year or two later, Jimmy was born, and fifteen years later, Edward was their 'little surprise'.
Good points, and your comments about Arthur and Mabel's ages make sense. Have you ever seen the 1954-1970 series? Although the main characters were the Selby/Brady family from the 1902-1926 series, some members of the Hodgkins family also appeared including Edward in later episodes and he eventually married the Bradys' oldest daughter. Sadly, Avril and Laurence are killed in a horrific car crash/explosion in the 1965 episode, it shocked me to see this
Arthur and Mabel were only ever mentioned once in the 1954-1970 series, Edward mentioned them when his American nephew visited and he was remembering the night he was born and it was implied they were no longer alive. He also showed his nephew family photos and you got to see a few images of the characters from the older series
It was a technical goof that Edward did not recognize Edward VIII because he collects stamps and their was a short issue with his chisled face on it which was very commonly used.
