Couple who ‘live in 1930s’ say more people are buying vintage clothes - pushing up price of their lifestyle

A couple who live like they’re back in 1930s say everyone is now buying vintage clothing and second-hand items - pushing up prices and making their quirky lifestyle more difficult. Lisa and Neil Fletcher have transformed their home in Watchet, Somerset, into a pre-war era dwelling.

The pair live their lives forgoing the trappings of modern life and use a black and white TV as well as a 1930s fridge, lawnmower, vacuum cleaner, and car. They also refuse to use a card to pay for anything, use a landline not mobile phones, and wear exclusively second-hand clothes befitting of the pre-war era.

Lisa, a housewife, prefers to do the washing by hand using an old-fashioned mangle while engineer husband Neil brings home the bacon. But the couple say their once quirky lifestyle now seems more normal, thanks to hipsters and thrifty bargain hunters plundering charity and antique shops.

It means the bargain then-unwanted retro clothes they used to buy are now far more expensive. Lisa, 58, said: “Everybody wants vintage and second hand now and it is pushing prices up.

“I used to go to the charity shop and it would just be me and one old lady. Now everyone goes. The car boot sales too are rammed. It never used to be like this.”

The couple, like millions of other families up and down the country, have also been feeling the pinch of the cost-of-living crisis. Lisa added: “Our rooms are quite big so we have to watch the pennies - in the winter we’re having to sit the cat on our knees to keep warm.”

The summer months however are easier to get by on, especially when trying to keep to a traditional way of living. “We have picnics with our gramophone,” Lisa said.

“It’s the full works, with lots of vintage picnic hampers. Everything is homemade - there are no packets or processed food.

But much like everyone else, The Fletchers have been hit hard by soaring energy costs. “We’re just like everybody else,” Lisa said. “Even if I pay a pound for a dress, we still have huge gas bills and spend a lot on petrol.

“We have whacking great radiators - they really push our bills up. We try to the 1930s lifestyle as much as we can, but we don’t go round on penny farthings or anything like that.”

The couple however have no plans to ditch their old school lifestyle and are continuing to spruce up their house. “We’re decorating all the time and tidying things up,” added Lisa. “We recently redecorated another room done, but we’re not done yet.”