The final set of inter-personal relationships that impact on the temporal organization of daily life are friendships and extended family. In the 2000 data, making and coordinating time to spend with friends was important for most respondents, especially those who were single. In the 1937 diaries, friendships were also important. Only one diarist, however, wrote of the need specifically to schedule and coordinate sociable practices with friends. Mrs Cotton commented that ‘our friends phoned to cancel our arrangement for Sunday. I remarked to my husband that these particular friends were a Sunday Institution, as if anything came to interfere with either their visit to us, or us to them, they never suggested meeting during the week, or another day. Just waited for another Sunday.’ Important here is the rigidity of the arrangement: Sundays only. In other cases, spontaneous visits to or from neighbours or members of the extended were referred to on numerous occasions.
Inter-personal relationships and temporal rhythms are mutually constituted. On the one hand, the temporal ordering of togetherness impacts on the extent to which network interactions need to be scheduled and managed. In 1937, the rigidity of temporal rhythms meant that moments of togetherness were routinely allocated within the temporal order of practices. On the other hand, the spatiality (or local-ness) of networks affected how practices of togetherness were performed. More localized networks made the need to coordinate and re-schedule practices less problematic in 1937. In this respect, the temporal organization of daily life shaped the form of interaction within inter-personal relationships, and the form of those inter-personal relationships shaped the ways in which people negotiated and experienced temporal rhythms.
Temporal Experiences: Harriedness and Anxiety
In the interviews conducted in 2000, respondents talked extensively of daily life as an experience of being ‘rushed’, ‘harried’, a matter of ‘juggling’ activities, of ‘fitting it all in’, and of not ‘wasting time’ on meaningless activities. As the following selection of quotations demonstrates, such temporal experiences were also a feature of life in 1937.
7.45: Start the ironing. Must sandwich this in somehow with all the other jobs to do. (Mrs Beken, Saturday, 12 June)
8.00: Fly along to little general shop for last minute shopping. (Mrs Beken Saturday, 12 June)
10.45: The market was much busier, but I hurried my shopping so that I did not miss the bus home. (Mrs Elliot, Saturday, 12 June)
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Dale Southerton