Flicking through dusty old 1920’s editions of the Southend Pictorial, it’s no big shock to see that these really weren’t the most politically correct of times.

Photos of tea dances for pensioners were captioned: “gatherings for old people,” destitute youngsters were called “waifs and strays,” female models “mannequins” - and we won’t even go into how people with disabilities were referred to in the newspaper. One headline from February of 1924 “Slightly deformed woman drowned in Southend” sums it up.

But it’s great to know that as many things change for the better, some things stay the same, especially when it comes to Valentine’s romance. At this time in 1924 love was in the air across South Essex.

As one photo from our nostalgic gallery shows, a Valentine’s Ball, held at the The Kursaal, on Southend seafront, attracted hundreds of young couples who danced the evening away to the Charleston and George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Other photos show the Valentine’s wedding of a Southend vicar and his bride and their adorable bridesmaid and page boy holding hands. And if you were aching to walk down the aisle yourself and didn’t find love at the Kursaal Valentine’s Ball, fortunately the Pictorial’s ‘Feminine Reflections’ column was on hand at this time to offer guidance to young ladies on how to snare a husband.

Tips included “walking for beauty” in order to provoke an attractive blush in the cheeks. However, the column guarded against young women from overdoing it: “If you are not used to walking very much, it may be a great effort to make the start but having begun it is not difficult to continue.

“The distance you walk will have to vary according to how far you can go without fatigue and strain.”

Marriage and etiquette expert Mrs Courtney James also has a column in the Pictorial, this time in 1924, advising mothers on how they could help their daughters secure a good match.

“A mother should see that her home is such that her daughters to ask the right type of man to visit,” she advised.

“Make the home a real home and then none of your children will be ashamed to ask their favourite suitor to visit. Then you can form an idea of his character and disposition.”

This was six years after women had finally secured the right to vote, but Mrs James had words of wisdom to share about women’s lib going too far when it comes to matters of the heart: “This is, of course, the day of independence. Young girls, quite juvenile in the eyes of their elders demand complete emancipation from parental control,” she wrote.

“On marriage she has decided views. She does not think it necessary to consult her parents before bringing home young men.

“However, in spite of all feminists and theorists have written on the subject it remains true that love and marriage are subjects of paramount interest to her.”

However, romance wasn’t everywhere, as the Pictorial reported, certainly not in the Millbanks household in Bournes Green.

James Alfred Milbanks of Armitage Road, made the paper when he applied to Southend Justices Court for a separation order against his wife Emma.

His grounds were that his wife was a habitual drunk. “She comes home drunk about five times a week,

She goes out to public houses playing rings and darts with men and doesn’t come home till after ten,” he complained.

“I’m asleep, and then she rolls over me like a steam roller which isn’t very pleasant at my time of life.

“Soon afterwards she rolls back for her snuff.”

Questioning Mrs Millbanks the clerk of the court asked her, “your husband says you roll over him?”

She responded: “Well I have to get into bed somehow. The bed is against the wall.” The court declined to grant the seperation order and the couple went home.