Calendargirl
Geordie’s wife suffered some sort of sexual abuse by her boss at the department store a while back.
Did she ever go back to work?
Yes, they always seemed to be really hard up, yet now quite flush. Did Geordie get a pay rise?
Does Will’s wife do all her own cleaning now, thought Mrs C was indispensable?
I think the change in Geordie's family circumstances is meant to show the increase in the standard of living (for many) from the 50s to the 60s.
I don't know if his wife went back to work. I thought the abuser chap was seen off by Mrs C (or someone else) pretending to be a shopper and reporting him? In which case, she wouldn't have had to leave.
Also, maybe fewer vicars got housekeepers as a matter of course, and were expected to do their own cleaning? They need to keep Mrs C in, as she's a good character, and gives a puritanical perspective to counter the increasing 'permissiveness' of the age.
It used to be Geordie who was the unreconstructed male, and his wife (is it Cathy?) who was more forward thinking, but that seems to have changed with this series, possibly to show how a generation of women who had been held back by societal expectations were often resentful of daughters who had very different opportunities and expectations.
I think the murder plots in this are silly, and wouldn't watch it for those, but I do like the thoughtful way it showcases how different daily life was, and the huge changes that have come to pass in living memory. I don't like it enough to watch it live, but like to binge a few episodes on a lazy Sunday afternoon if I'm doing nothing more interesting. I did see half of the first one in the new series, but got bored. I might go back to it at some point.