THE GOOD OLD TRADITIONAL KITCHEN PARTY:

 

 

The traditional Kitchen Party was really the fore-runner of today’s Hen Party.

While the groom and his best man, the lads from the football club, the old school mates, the guys from the neighbourhood and every other hanger-on that could be roped in, went on a horrendous tare-away where the normal rules and regulations were bent totally out of shape and the “invisible line in the sand” was frequently crossed, the Bride to be, her bridesmaids and friends all met in some Aunties Kitchen where they sipped tea from the best china cups that only got an airing at funerals and christenings as they played pass the parcel and some other high risk games.

This was the norm prior to the “liberation of women” in the sixties.

The kitchen party was a chance for all the female friends, mother, mother-in-law to be, aunts, grannies and cousins to give the Bride a good old send off and shower her with presents that would be useful in the area that she would spend most of the rest of her life,……the kitchen.

Then came the chip shop, the deli, the pizza parlour, the local take away and the Chinese restaurant and played a major part in the sexual revolution of the sixties, nearly as much as the mini skirt and the rock and roll music.

With the change in eating habits and husbands required to do more than smoke a pipe and wear slippers around the house the kitchen duties began to fall away and cookers and cooking utensils were not as high on the priority list as nail varnish and anti-wrinkle cream and a blow-dry.