A photo of guest Prof Jane Hamlett smiling into camera with a shelf of books behind her
Episode 362 – The Roots of Clutter: How Britain became a nation of stuff with Professor Jane Hamlett

In this episode we’re taking a step back in time to explore a fascinating question—when did we start having 'clutter' in our homes, and why did it become a problem? We’re joined by Professor Jane Hamlett, a leading expert in the history of the British home and domestic life. Jane is a Professor of Modern British History at Royal Holloway, University of London, and her research shines a light on how our homes—and our relationships with the things inside them—have evolved. Whether you're a minimalist or a maximalist, this episode is packed with insights into how clutter has always told a deeper story about our homes, our identities, and our society."
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Transcript of this podcast episode
00:00
Today, we're taking a step back in time to explore a fascinating question, when did we start having clutter in our homes, and why has it become a problem? We are joined by Professor Jane Hamlet, a leading expert in the history of the British Home and domestic life. Jade is a professor of modern British history at Royal Holloway University of London, and her research shines a light on how our homes and our relationship with the things inside them have evolved, whether you're a minimalist or maximalist. This episode is packed with insights into how clutter has always told a deeper story about our homes, our identities and our society.

00:58
You're listening to the declutter hope podcast bringing you tried and tested no nonsense tips and advice from the leading experts in decluttering and organizing your home. Now here's your host, Ingrid Jansen,

01:20
hello and welcome listeners. I'm Ingrid. If you're new to the declutter hub podcast, you're so welcome. What you'll find is that we try and find the fun factor in the serious business of decluttering, and if you've been here for a while, you know exactly what we mean. So thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to get involved in conversations related to this podcast, it all takes place in our free Facebook group. So come and join our lovely, warm and supportive community. Go to declutter hub.com, forward slash group to find out more. Well, good morning, Jane, welcome to our podcast. I'm so delighted that you're here. Oh, thank you so much.

02:04
It's absolute pleasure. We met recently when we were both in the recording studios for a women's hour at the BBC here in London, and we got talking in the very brief moments that we had, because it was all a bit frantic recording a radio program. But I was like, right, Jane, tell me quickly, what do you do? You said, Oh, I know a lot about the history of Victorian homes and stuff and clutter, and my ears just perched up. And I was like, We need to get you on the show, and we need to know more. So tell us a little bit more about yourself and your research, and how come that you know so much about this? This is interesting.

02:48
Yeah. So I first came to this topic quite a long time ago, when I was a PhD student. Actually, I started off by researching, funnily enough, a history of student rooms. So the history of what 19th century students chose to put in their in their rooms when they went away to university for the first time. And that's that's how I really got interested in the Victorian world of things. And that led to a PhD on the home in the Victorian period. And what I was most interested was not just what the things were that people put in their home, but what the meanings were that they attached to them. Why did the Victorians fill up their houses with things? And so I researched that for my PhD, um, wrote an academic book about it that came out in 2010 so quite some time ago now, and yeah, since then, I stayed really interested in the history of material culture and the things and objects that we choose to surround ourselves with, absolutely fascinating. So why were the Victorians? And remind us please, what time are times? Are we talking about? For for those of us who are not listening here in the UK and think, oh, yeah, the Victorian times. What time are we talking about? And why was it that? What hooked your interest in that? Well, so the Victorian period, or the 19th century. So that's so we usually associate the Victorian period with Queen Victoria, and she sort of comes to a throne in 1837 and dies in 1901 so, yeah. So basically, most of the 19th century is what we're thinking about when we talk about the Victorians. Yeah. And I think, really, I think what is so interesting about that period is it is when kind of industrialization really transformed British society, and kind of brought through many aspects of kind of the modern culture that we have today. So things like it was in the mid 19th century, but more people started to live in towns and cities than the countryside for the first time. And kind of new technologies arrived.

05:00
Kind of changed people's lives in all kinds of different ways, and really transformed the world of objects, the world of goods around people. So yeah, the 19th century was a moment at which people started to have more wealth and affluence and more access to

05:18
to things and objects

05:22
and what was the So, what kind of objects should we be thinking about? Because are we talking about, you know, cutlery and plates or, I mean, people. I mean everybody needs to have beds and cooking materials. But what kind of objects are you thinking about? Well, actually, I mean, if we look at the wealthier Victorians, it's kind of like, what objects are we not thinking about? They seem to multiply absolutely everything. So by by the mid 19th century, if you're in a sort of well off family, it's common to have dinner, you know, a sort of elaborate dinner with kind of at least eight pieces of cutlery per person, for example. So the Victorians really kind of multiplied, you know, certain kind of domestic activities, and they used more things, and they brought more things into the home. And I think you can really see that if you look, for example, at the drawing room, which would have been the kind of main living space or reception room for people coming into a Victorian home. And these these rooms were absolutely filled with things. So you would have your sort of standard chairs and tables and things, but also drapery curtains. You would have table cloths, you would have mantle covers. You would have kind of ornaments, probably on every surface, many pictures hanging on the walls. So I think what you really get with these Victorian rooms is this growth and multiplication of things. So you're surrounded by this kind of dense decoration, and perhaps, as we might put it clutter

07:02
for Yeah, for for the first time. And of course, you know wealthy people in history, if you go back beyond that, have also always had lots of things if they've been able to afford them and access them. But in the Victorian period, more people are able to afford these elaborately decorated homes where they bring in lots and lots of stuff,

07:23
and was it all stuff that they were then able to buy, or was it also stuff that they were able to create themselves, like crafts? Well, actually, I think that's one of the things that's really interesting about these Victorian spaces. So on one hand, you have got a lot of new things coming in. And so industrialization means that objects are manufactured in a new way. More things are mass produced. So there's actually more to go out and buy in the shops, and there's, you know, so it's possible to get more of these mass produced things. But actually, for Victorians and for women in in particular, it remains really important to keep making things for the home as well. And there's a whole huge culture of Victorian women, even very wealthy ones, making small objects for their homes and small decorative objects. So things like, for example, doilies, um, yeah, not very fashionable today, but they were, you know, the Victorians were really keen on these, and also things like anti macassars. So I think we spoke about these on the program, didn't we? So these are the things that you drape over the back of chairs. And the idea is that anyone sitting on that chair with hair oil on their head, it means they wouldn't sort of damage that chair. So there is a practical purpose. But again, they were quite elaborate. So they were often sort of really carefully embroidered, that kind of thing. And so women would make huge put huge efforts into making these things. So as well as being product of this new kind of modern industrial world, these drawing rooms are also produced by the labor and care of women. And they're a real expression of, I think, their love for the home and how much they're putting into that space. Yeah, I think it's interesting, because indeed, when you look at Victorian shows, and I love a period drama, and you know all the bridgerton said, the downside, which is a little bit later, of course, and the tutors, which is earlier. But I love all that things, but you always see a lot of needlework, and you always see a lot of

09:29
mainly the women do do the, you know, they don't really see, don't really see knitting, but you do see needlework a lot, and then that being displayed. So it does. It completely makes sense. And when you talked about the anti macassars, I had immediately a flashback to when I was growing up, because my dad used to get up really early in the morning to go to work in Amsterdam, and he had take, like the this 530 bus or something. So by the time he would come.

10:00
In from work, he would always have a little nap on the sofa. But because my dad, I don't know, maybe had oily hair or something that would use anything on his hair, but he had maybe oily hair, and there was always a little like fabric cloth on my on the sofa, so that my dad could lay his head on the sofa. And when you talked about that in the radio program, I just immediate, like this flashback to my dad, and also definitely the doilies that would be like crocheted. And I remember them from when I was younger. Your heart. You don't see them at all anymore now, but definitely it was a thing when I was growing up in my house. They would be, like, on little tables, and a vase would be put on it. And, yeah, we've gone a lot more minimalist now, I think, yeah, no, absolutely. And those things, doilies, mountain castles, were actually quite, you know, they stayed with us in 20th century Britain as well. And actually, I remember too, seeing more of those in, you know, sort of homes of older people that you would kind of go around to when I was growing up. So, yeah, so those both, but those things, I think, sort of came from the Victorians and stuck with us for for quite a long time. And, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's really interesting that you bring up Victorian, you know, the needle work side of it, because, again, it's sort of something that you can look at in different ways. On one hand, Victorian women are kind of expected by their society to do needlework as part of their gendered role. And I think one of the things that's really important not to forget about the Victorian period is although, you know, I find it quite fun and attractive in lots of ways, and it's also a period at which women don't have the same political and legal rights that they have today, and they also had very rigid gendered ideologies, so really strong expectations about what it meant to be a man or a woman. And so actually, sort of doing sewing and performing sewing, you know, very conspicuously showing you were doing it, would be part of that. And I think I one of the reasons I find these handmade objects so fascinating is, on one hand, you know, yes, I think sort of women, you know, they were, were constrained by their society, and this was something they were very much pushed into doing. But at the same time, I do think some people still really enjoyed both craft activities, and it was very much this kind of really personal expression of their love for their domestic life, and also sometimes, you know, for their care for family members too. So it's quite, it's quite a complex story. I think about these, these hand worked objects, yeah, yeah, definitely. So

12:39
absolutely fascinating. I really love, you know, talking about the history, because we see, you know, we see the changes through through time, right? Because, of course, my question is, when did it become a problem? Because, of course, you know, the Victorians had this, if you were affluent, you had these big houses with this beautiful stuff, and you wanted to show of what you had. So when did people start to see it as a clutter problem and no longer as a look at me with all my amazing things?

13:12
Well, actually, in the Victorian period, people did start to criticize these very, these very kind of elaborate interiors. And actually, yeah, someone like Charles Dickens wrote about sort of newly wealthy middle class people who had this over elaborate furniture in their homes. And he used it to suggest that they were kind of quite sort of shallow people, or people who, you know, didn't have the kind of appropriate kind of moral values for the time. So actually, the Victorians themselves were often quite self critical about these new things that they had. But often what the Victorians were criticizing was the potential kind of immorality inherent in those things. And while people were kind of buying this new stuff to show off. There was also kind of this big criticism of people who were too showy or too ostentatious. And many Victorians were very strongly Christian as well. And so sometimes it was seen as, you know, it was seen as sort of not, not sort of appropriate to be too ostentatious and too showy. So there were definitely these criticisms going around. But I think our own, you know, our own ideas about decluttering. When we talk about decluttering someone's home, we're actually not necessarily taking a moral stance in the same way, you know, we're not judging people or saying that the objects themselves are inherently wrong or carrying the wrong kind of moral values. We're just saying this is actually a problem that has perhaps been produced by someone's life or lifestyle, the cares and concerns that they have.

14:53
So I think,

14:55
I think the difference between these Victorian criticisms of very cluttered into.

15:00
Areas and our own are, you know, sort of it's different in terms of the ideas that we have about the objects. That's definitely changed,

15:08
interesting, interesting. And I think what we see now is that there is a lot of judgment on people who have very full houses, because people or people feel judged, you know, and then they are don't want to let people in their houses. They feel that they can't open the door. They don't want to invite their neighbors in anymore. So we do see that when people have got very full houses and feel very unhappy about that, and actually in close themselves off more and more. So they go out to not be in their house and be confronted by the clutter. And we've heard stories, you know, of of people in our in our Facebook group, from that respond to the podcast that are in our membership, that are like, well, you know, my my friend from school said, oh, when that child came to over the plane, they said something about it, and they were like, Well, I heard that you've got a very busy house and you know, so the kids probably say something about it. So it's still very much seen as negative. But what we're hoping to, of course, with this podcast and with our membership and everything that we do, is to go, you don't necessarily need to go all minimalist. But how can you create the space around you that you love and enjoy? And it seems there's always a very fine line between, you know, what?

16:34
If the houses are like, when, when the Victorian times there's lots of nice stuff too. Oh, that's now suddenly too much, and now it's too ostentatious. And you know that balance is all is apparently tricky throughout the centuries. Yeah, no, I think, I think that's absolutely right, yes. So it was sort of about treading a fine balance. And I think,

16:58
I think that the Victorians were very they were very aware of how they appeared publicly and things like, so a drawing room if you're in a middle class family, or your parlor in Yes, sort of working class homes, is about presenting the face of the family to the outside world. And I think that, I think, yeah, the Victorians would have felt equally worried sometimes about kind of people coming in and looking at what they had and perhaps saying that they didn't kind of, you know, they didn't quite match up, or they weren't, you know, meeting the standards of the day. And I think

17:34
today is when I suppose

17:37
some of the Yes, I mean, I suppose we have a standard, don't we, of what we think a home should be, and that's perhaps something that makes people feel anxious or worried when, for whatever reason, they're not able to, sort of, you know, completely control what's going on there in in their houses. And yeah, and I think, yeah, the Victorians were the same. There were the particular standards, I think for them, it was a bit more about certain kinds of class identities and certain kinds of morality. And often, cleanliness was really important to the Victorians. I mean, it obviously is still to us today, but cleanliness was associated with with purity, and also with living the kind of right kind of religious life as well. So they had, they had a kind of slightly different take on it. I think, yeah, yeah. It's so interesting that you say that, because I am, maybe you know, you don't know, but I'm from the Netherlands, and of course, in the 17th century, when we had our voc ships and there was a lot of wealth in the Netherlands, and beautiful canal houses were built. A lot of them had very big windows on the ground floor. And often it is asked why that is, and I've visited many of them. I've learned a lot about the history, not nearly enough issue. Jane, so if I'm telling wrong, they'll tell me. But what I've understood is a lot of Dutch people always had big winners on the ground floor, so they can indeed, almost, kind of show off. And almost the curtains were never drawn, so the curtains are open, so people could see that they were like, keeping a nice house, and that they were seen cleaning all the time. And maybe that's why I love cleaning so much, because it's in my genes, I don't know, but yeah, that's really how it was seen at the time. So I think there's a thread you could see right throughout the centuries as well. Yeah, great. Because I think we often think of homes as quite kind of closed off and away from everybody else, don't we, but actually, a lot of what we do in the home is about presenting ourselves to the outside world, and kind of, to a certain extent, it's a bit of a performance sometimes, isn't it? Yes, yeah, let's go for a break I would after the break.

20:00
Love to talk more about kind of how it changed after the Victorians, and how post war changed a lot as well. So to you after the break. Thanks. Listeners. Well, hello. Listeners, welcome back. I hope you're as fascinated as I am to hear about the Victorians and their clutter and their houses and all of the amazing stuff they created themselves and that they bought,

20:25
Jane, I would love to now kind of go after the Victorians, you know, kind of go into the 20th century, of course, World War One, World War Two, it all changed a bit, didn't it? It all changed? Yeah, absolutely. So I think the way in which people live really changes in the first half of the 20th century. For the middle and upper classes, they're gradually getting used to

20:54
making do or less money, and the social gaps changed a bit. So they and they also,

21:00
they also sort of stopped depending on servant labor to the same extent. So they're kind of the way they're living. Is really changing for the working classes. What we're seeing actually is a gradual increase in affluence, and we're seeing also a rise in standards of living. We're seeing better housing thanks to, sort of, partly thanks to kind of council housing that's being built in the 20th century, but also so actually, housing itself becomes more affordable. More people than ever before are getting mortgages in the late 1920s so we're seeing Yes. So we're seeing sort of growth in

21:42
in housing, in home ownership, and across the board, people are living in better conditions.

21:49
So all that, I think, on one hand, means that you've got perhaps less of these very high end, elaborate spaces that the middle classes and upper classes can have, and they're no longer being supported by servants. They have to do their own dusting. So perhaps that means they're a bit less likely to accumulate lots of things, but also, working people have more space in their homes, and family sizes are also getting a bit smaller as well. So from the 1920s we're moving towards the typical family which we have by the 1950s which is kind of 2.4 children, rather than having lots of children living in the same house. So all these things actually are perhaps opening up a bit more space in the home for ordinary people to engage with their homes. And certainly in the 20th century, we get a steady increase in things like domestic people are interested in domestic gardening, in home crafts, and there's a DIY movement in the 1950s as well. So people are in the 20th century, people are investing more in their homes, but slightly different, different approach, yeah. And of course, you know, especially after World War Two, there was a lot of shortage about everything, right? So we probably had to be more DIY minded. We had to, because we see that a lot, right with especially the older generations. That just in case, I'm going to keep it just in case, you never know when it might come in handy one day I can patch that up and and fix it. And that whole mindset comes, of course, I think mainly after World War Two, when there was so much shortage of everything. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah. So people have a very different attitude towards waste, and that's certainly really brought to a head during World War Two, when rationing means that many things are restricted. Clothing in particular, was rationed. So you really had to make things, you know, you had to make things last for as long as possible. And you know, so young people might sort of use older clothes belonging to their parents and have them made over into new dresses or, you know, so you take everything you can possibly get hold of and you try and make the most of that. And of course, if you're going to do that, you do need to keep hold of things. So it's a case of, oh yes, I'll keep this and I'll save this for a rainy day. So that culture really does encourage people to keep hold of things. And I think as well, there's a longer term culture of just sort of mending and making do, particularly, again practiced by women in the home. All women would have had sewing kits and been able to mend things like buttons and darning. That's a great kind of lost art, but used to be very common in mid 20th century Britain. So if you've got a sock horse and tights with a hole in it, you don't prove them away, just get your darning needle out and you repair them. So yeah, I mean, so this was a completely different attitude, particularly to clothing that's definitely encouraged by this kind of rationing during the Second World War and Dean.

25:00
Oh, Jane, why? Specifically, clothing was rationed so much. What was it because they needed to make uniforms for soldiers? Or what was why was that? I think it, yes, I think you've got it there. I think it was absolutely to do with creating uniforms for soldiers. I think also, I think you know, as part of the war effort, just

25:24
resources were just diverted into all kinds of different directions. So lots of men, obviously were fighting, women were coming into their roles. So sort of everything shifted, if you like. So yeah, but yes, uniforms were really important. And then after the war, there was a huge problem actually trying to find clothing to support displaced people. And, you know, people coming out of the concentration camps had nothing.

25:54
So there was an absolute huge problem post war with, you know, in 20th century Europe, and actually, sort of clothing led into that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow. So, so interesting. So, when did things then change again? I mean, we see kind of, you know, we have, we can see that whole kind of make do, and men era, kind of, I think, probably go into the 70s. Maybe it does it all change again from the 80s and 90s? Well, things do. I think things seem to change in the 80s and 90s, and particularly with the growth of fast fashion. So we do at that point, we do get a wider range of much cheaper items of clothing being very readily available to people. And I think that's part of the problem with clutter. Is for actually, one of the things that we're most inclined to stockpile is clothing, isn't it? And actually, so you know, you see people with sort of hundreds of pairs of shoes they might never wear, or, you know, many dresses and things. And actually, if you go back 100 years, it would have been much harder to stockpile a huge range of clothing in that way, because it relatively it was just more expensive. So there's, you know, certainly, that that's been a big kind of economic change has really changed how, how we're able to kind of access objects, yeah, yeah. I think that's really true. I mean, it has become so cheap that you can just now pick up so many items of clothing. And

27:35
I think we, you know, we, we've all also been conditioned to buy more and more and more to keep the economy going and to but so there's a whole shift towards that, and we get bombarded with marketing and sales and marketing messages everywhere all day that you need to buy more stuff, right? Do you now see a tailing awful? Is it like, is it it's a bit like a roller coaster that goes up and down, right? Do you see a tailing off now more in the current years, with younger people being more environmental, not only younger people, everybody being more environmental. Is there? Do you see movement against fast fashion, or are we not there yet? Do you can you say anything about that? Do you see things? Hmm, well, I don't really know, being, you know, I Yeah, it's harder for historians to kind of, you know, pinpoint what's going on now, because it's much harder to see what's happening when you're living through that moment, isn't it? But certainly it does seem, doesn't it? But actually, we have got these movements against fast fashion, so obviously the rise of secondhand clothing and vintage, of course, which lots of us are now buying things secondhand from there, obviously, there's always been a secondhand market, but it seems to have become kind of particularly trendy.

28:57
And yeah, and as you say, kind of the environment people are much more aware of the kind of environmental impact of what they're doing when they buy their clothes, and there is more pressure, isn't there on the big companies to manufacture things in a sustainable way? And certainly we're seeing in in marketing campaigns, you know, things like Primark, for example, are marketing some of their goods as being created in a more sustainable way? So, yeah, so certainly, there's certainly been a reaction, hasn't there? Yeah, yeah. So if you look back now over, over, over the period of time as an historian, are there things that were that we now think of that's clutter that used to be cherished in the past.

29:45
Well, I certainly think having lots of ornaments and lots of doilies and lots of drapery hanging on furniture, those things would definitely be seen as clutter to them

29:59
and.

30:00
Um, and I think again, it's we've just part, we've partly changed how we live. And I think also, but also a modernist, more minimalist kind of esthetic is very much in opposition to that style of decorating your home, isn't it? So, so it is. It is partly. It's just partly about a change in taste. Yes. I mean, I think, though, but we do remain very emotionally attached to objects, don't we, and I think that attachment just expresses itself in different ways. Yeah, I think it's so interesting because I can see it within my own family. So my mother is quite she's organized. She doesn't have a lot of stuff, but she's got like, one display cabinet with her little Swarovski crystals that she absolutely adores. And once a year the door opens, and then she takes everything out, and it gets dusted, and it gets Yeah, yeah. It all gets cleaned in the in the yearly spring clean, because, of course, with it's behind glass, so it doesn't get dusty. But she's really precious about it. Well, in my house, there's no Swarovski crystal to be seen. You know, my my grandpa, mother might have had some, you know, figurines and you know the little, little statues and little porcelain dolls and things that's not of this time now anymore, is it it the I think it's it, indeed, the taste changed so much as well. Of people, yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting, isn't it, to think about why those things would have been so appealing in the first place. And I do think, you know, lots of people from that time were coming from a position of not having very much when they started off with or certainly having quite a lot less than us. And in a way, you know, we have for luxury, don't we, of most of the time being able to, you know, we could go out and buy hundreds of ornaments if we wanted to. Well, you know, we, you know, so we, in a way, you know, having one doesn't have quite the same kind of cache or meaning does it would have done in the past when, you know, you would have had to kind of save up for it. But, I mean, it is also, it is also about fashion and about taste, and, you know, it's about sort of what we see around us in society, and what the, you know, What the What's held up to us as a good, good home. And I think, sort of minimalism is very powerful, isn't it? We do see that a lot, sort of on television, for example, it's often, you know, yeah, yeah. Do you think also the traveling? Because I know that a lot of when you hear about the history is that people would go traveling on the continent, you know, when, when they were, like, finished with their education, and they would do a trip around Europe. But of course, now we can snap 10,000 pictures in one holiday, but they probably maybe had to get the reminders of buying like a souvenir or a painting or whatever they could afford. I know normally if you could travel around the continent, you probably were more affluent anyway, so they would probably buy things to share their, you know, their stories about their travel. So maybe that's where the whole souvenir I'm just this is really just pops into my head. Maybe that's where the whole souvenir collecting comes from. But of course, now we've got a camera that, you know, we could only take 24 pictures when we were young. That was it one roll that was said, but now we make 24 pictures in 10 minutes. So it has changed, hasn't it? It has Yes, yes, and so, yeah, that's right. So the way we're remembering our experiences is really different. I do hope, though, that we still carry on using objects,

33:40
as you know, reminders of the past, but perhaps we're going to just need to use less of them, or be be a bit more sparing. Yeah, yeah. I think Leslie, I talk a lot about the quality over the quantity. So you don't need to have the whole set. You don't need to have three shelves full. One or two is enough to remind you of that lovely time and and I think we do get at some point. We do get into people's psyche, because we had, one of our members was traveling

34:11
around Europe, and she said, I actually really hardly bought any souvenirs, because I really thought about it. Where am I going to put it. How am I going to display it? Am I really taking something? And I went traveling with my sister last year because of my 50th birthday, and we went to Venice, and I bought some beautiful earrings on the little island that's in front of Venice. And that was the one thing that I bought back. I didn't buy any, you know, gondola statues or anything like that, but the nice earrings I appreciate and I love, and they're beautiful, and I wear them. You know when I think, oh, I need to dress up a bit, and it reminds me of them. So I think we're getting maybe, yeah, I think we choose the core.

35:00
Lots of over the quantity, I think, and that's, I think, a lovely thing to see. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, on a slightly more practical note, I mean, I know I've stopped buying so many things when I go on trips, just because now you can say, you know, you sort of save a bit of money on your flight by just having me and luggage, don't you. So I, whenever I go anywhere, I don't, actually don't have room, so I think that's partly what, but anyway, maybe other people are a little bit less stingy,

35:28
very, very practical.

35:30
Thank you so much, Jane. I mean, it's been absolutely phenomenal speaking with you

35:36
to talk about, you know, the history and how it's changed in people's homes, domestic life throughout the Victorians, you know, throughout the 20th century. So one question, all the tech gadgets that we have now, all the things with wires and plugs and all of those things, is that going to be our clutter in 100 years? Are people gonna go, what were they thinking at the time?

36:04
Oh, it seems likely, doesn't it? I mean, there's certainly loads. Well, I feel like we've got ours under control in our house, but there's a cupboard. There's a definite cupboard with many, many wires, yes, yes, no. And presumably, you know, future technologies will be much smaller, and, you know, more lightweight, etc, and we won't need to do it in quite the same way, exactly, exactly. Well, thanks for sharing all your knowledge with us, Jane, it's it's been absolutely fascinating. So listeners

36:34
has this? Are you intrigued about this as much as I am, tell us. Let me know. Share us. You know, send us a comment, send us an email and have a little think. What does your clutter say about you? What do you consider clutter that maybe your parents or your grandparents or your families would not have considered clutter? How has it changed for you? Are you looking at your home in a different way after this conversation, I really hope it has given you something to reflect upon. Thank you, Jane again, for being here. It's been an absolute pleasure. No thank you very much for asking me along definitely listeners. I will put Jane's details in the show notes. Jane, is there anything else that you would like to share with us before we go? Is there anything that you would like to tell us about, or have we got everything covered? I think we've got everything covered. Okay, right? Well, thanks listeners, thanks for being here, and we'll see you next week.

37:36
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Episode 362 – The Roots of Clutter: How Britain became a nation of stuff with Professor Jane Hamlett

Episode 389 – Overcoming mobility challenges when decluttering with member Rory

Episode 388 – Start as you mean to go on – plan 2026 for decluttering success

Episode 387 – Our 2025 year in review – the big Declutter Hub round-up

Episode 386 – 10 Tell-Tale Signs that you need to Declutter your House

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