Country Living with Francis Farragher

THERE was a conversation the other night at the usual location about things, names and events that haven’t been talked about for many years.

Among the topics on the agenda were Tupperware parties, pyramid sales’ schemes, pubs closing in Ireland on St. Patrick’s Day, moving statues as well as the scarcity of ghosts and banshees since the arrival of the rural electrification scheme.

Tupperware parties were, with the benefit of hindsight,  very strange affairs indeed. Mostly, but not always, such outings were the social occasions for women known at the time as ‘suburban housewives’ who gathered every month or so, to buy plastic containers and vessels.

Very unusual behaviour indeed, one might observe, but back in the early post-World War II era, when electricity, not to mind fridges was scarce, sealed storage containers were a huge seller in many countries.

So, why didn’t our suburban housewives of the time, not just go their local shops or supermarkets to pick up their little receptacles, rather than meeting in different houses.

Apparently, as the story goes, it’s all down to the entrepreneurship of one Earl Tupper [what a name!], from the USA of course, who started to manufacture the plastic containers with limited sales success in the early days.

However, he hired a saleswoman called Brownie Wise [again, note the surname], who came up with a brand new sales approach. Housewives would gather at ‘a house down the road’, where the host would provided teas, coffees, possibly other beverages too, and treats for all who turned up.

The Tupperware agents or sales people would ‘lay on’ their array of plastic boxes, nearly all with lids, with an expectation that all partygoers would make a purchase – and they normally did.

I remember many decades ago an auntie telling the story of attending one of those parties where she had purchased a small plastic box for what was a ridiculously high price at the time.

But after being dined and wined . . . not sure about the latter . . . for the night, she said that she would have been absolutely mortified if she had left emptyhanded. All of the sales on the night, reaped a commission for the host, and then it was the turn of the next woman down the road, to have her party and make her own little bit of profit.

Pictured: The ‘magic’ plastic kitchen containers of the 1960s and ‘70s.