By Christopher Stevens for the Daily Mail
Published: 01:46 BST, 12 June 2019 | Updated: 01:46 BST, 12 June 2019
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The 1900 Island
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The Thames: Britain's Great River
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An outdoor loo, no hot taps, and on bath night you heat up the water in copper pans. To younger viewers that might sound medieval — but for Margaret Thatcher it was part of a normal childhood.
The Iron Lady was seen telling inquisitor Miriam Stoppard, in the superlative BBC2 biography A Very English Revolution, that she once asked her mother why their home in Thirties Grantham didn't have 'mod cons'. 'We're not situated like that,' came the reply.
The four families eking a living beside the Welsh coast on The 1900 Island (BBC2) are not situated too comfortably either.
Four families are living in a row of stone cottages beside the Welsh coast with hardly any food and no electricity
This engrossing four-part reality series, running until Thursday, has set them up in a row of stone cottages off Anglesey, without electricity and barely enough food for one decent meal.
To scrape together a few pennies to buy essentials such as soap and candles from the local shop, they rely on selling the few mackerel they can catch and mussels foraged from the seashore.
Stew is cooked, water is boiled, plates are washed and clothes are scrubbed all in the one saucepan.
It's a harsh existence, but there's an undeniable romantic glow about the life. The thought of huddling up while a storm rages outside is enticing.
Never mind smartphones and the internet, there was no radio back in 1900. Social media meant
