This long-running daytime programme offered practical instruction on domestic management for the post-war housewife.
Presented by Joan Gilbert, About the Home was a magazine series structured as a guide to running an efficient household. Each edition provided viewers with expert advice on a wide range of domestic skills, from cookery, needlework, and shopping to personal deportment and even puppy training. A particularly successful regular feature was the home-improvement section, fronted by the unflappable Barry Bucknell, who demonstrated practical DIY tasks for the modern home.
As a cornerstone of the BBC’s afternoon schedule, About the Home was more than a simple advice programme; it was an instructional manual for the era’s ideal of domesticity. Broadcast to a nation still transitioning out of post-war austerity, its segments on making, mending, and managing the home served a practical, aspirational function. The programme’s most significant legacy, however, was the platform it gave to Barry Bucknell. His clear, no-nonsense approach to DIY resonated strongly with viewers, establishing a template for practical television that was formalised with his own successful series, Do It Yourself, in 1957.
Broadcast: BBC, Afternoons, 1951-1958
Producer: S. E. Reynolds
Presenter: Joan Gilbert
Main Contributor: Barry Bucknell
