Given a time machine, which era would you head back to? I mean after slipping back to childhood and changing school, siblings and exam results. Personally, I would never choose Victorian. Too close. All the things I detested as a child can be traced back to that crabby, child-beating, sanctimonious, unheated, waste-not-want-not era. It was a time that the Rushbys, sadly robbed of their ancestral estates, I assume, spent herding other people's sheep or laying other people's bricks.
Maddy, born in the 21st century, is different. When I tell her we are going to spend a few days living as Victorians she is ecstatic. "We did it at school. Can I be a laundry maid? Can I? Can I?"
"Of course you can," I promise, "And there'll be water to fetch, fires to light, candles to snuff. If you're really good, you'll be sent to bed without supper."
Before that, however, I am to visit the 19th century on my own for a few days. Maddy and Sophie will come later.
Henley Cottage, near Church Stretton in the Shropshire Hills, is a genuine time-warped gem of Victoriana. It will be familiar to some as the location for the BBC series Victorian Farm (if you missed it: don't worry, a second series is in production). Set in magnificent English countryside on the 1,500-acre Acton Scott Estate, the cottage offers no electricity, no running water, no central heating - nothing, in fact, that could not be found in an agricultural labourer's cottage of about 1900.
When I arrive, Rupert Acton, the man behind this unusual accommodation, shows me around with glee. "I've just got hold of some genuine 19th-century hot water carriers at an auction," he tells me. "I'll put one in your bedroom."
The house, it has to be said, is delightful: a traditional black cooking range dominates the well-scrubbed kitchen. There's nothing plastic or frivolous. Everything feels solid, well-made and enduring. No fridge, of course, so there's a pantry with cold stone slab. Cheese goes under a fly guard; milk goes in a jug - no modern abominations like organic milk in plastic bottles are allowed. There is no piped water either, simply a well and a hand pump in the laundry around the back. There are also, I note on Maddy's behalf, various Dolly tubs, possers, washboards and a large mangle.
For those who cannot fully integrate with the 19th century, there is some consolation in the brick outhouse at the end of the garden: a barn door opens to reveal, Tardis-like, a modern hot shower unit, hand basin and flushing toilet.
After careful instructions on how to light the range and the oil lamps, Rupert leaves. He'll see me tomorrow at the historic working farm up the lane. "We've got you down for two courses," he says, "Tomorrow is sheep-keeping and on Saturday, restoration of historic brickwork." Somewhere, far away, I can hear my ancestors chuckling in their graves.
Before dark I go for a walk, heading towards the wooded Wenlock Edge. A cuckoo calls and I pick oak apples off the trees by the lane. Didn't the Victorians use them for ink? I could get into this self-sufficient rural knowledge thing.
Back at the cottage it is getting dark and I hurry to light the lamps. Even with them all lit, I can barely see anything and my range-lighting skills are limited, and clumsy. By the time the flames are licking around the kettle, my pale jacket is black with grime. I head outside, cursing the fact that I had not brought the laundry maid with me. Still, washing is fun by candlelight. I pound the jacket. I scour and scrub and washboard the jacket. Finally, I rinse, poss and mangle it. Shards of crushed zip fastener tinkle on to the brick floor.
I go back inside and get hold of the pulleymaid - the drying frame that hangs from the ceiling. As I am raising it, I notice that the mangle has crushed the oak apples that I had forgotten to take out of my pocket. They do indeed make wonderful yellow ink.
I rush back to the laundry. I scour, scrub, rinse, poss and mangle the jacket. I return to the kitchen. The fire is almost out. I chuck some coal on and tease it back to life. When the flames are up, I pick up the jacket, noticing belatedly that my hands are black with coaldust. It transfers readily to the wet jacket.
I'm now exhausted from being a Victorian so decide to slip temporarily back into modern times. I fling the filthy jacket in the corner for the laundry maid to deal with and go for fish and chips in Church Stretton.
Next day is sheep-keeping at Acton Scott Historic Working Farm. Rupert Acton's father decided to preserve this old farm back in the 1970s. It was either that or update the place, which he did not want to do. It was a prescient decision because a generation later historic Victorian farms are in demand, both by the public and television production companies.
As I arrive a man in a waistcoat is ploughing a field with a heavy horse. Elsewhere a cow is being milked. In the farmhouse a woman in an apron and mob cap is baking drop scones on a griddle over the range. They are delicious. The gently bucolic atmosphere is beguiling. I love the feeling that the Victorian farm was a self-reliant, self-contained universe, one that predates pesticides and hormones (not, however, all chemicals: by the 1870s British farms were spending a massive £3 per acre on artificial soil additives).
I spend the morning discovering how to keep sheep, in the contemporary rather than Victorian way. Tutor Martin Webster looks like a man from a long line of Welsh sheep farmers, but he tells me that 35 years ago he was a geography teacher. One day he was walking past a farm and seeing the farmer struggling with lambing, offered to help. His payment for that kindness - thanks a million! - was two sheep. Now he has 2,800 and doesn't teach geography.
Most people on the course are not so ambitious: they have bought a few acres and want a solution to a grass problem. Before tackling worming, vaccinating and clipping, we learn how to wrestle a ewe to the ground - surprisingly good fun since they don't bite.
Acton Scott runs an impressive array of rural skill courses, everything from bee-keeping to door-making. When I get on to historic brick repair, I am astonished that it turns out to be a fascinating topic. Course leader Colin Richards, chief architectural conservation officer for Shropshire, manages to convince everyone - there's eight of us - that every brick is uniquely different: "A brick fired with apple wood will turn a brindled colour; birch makes them go blue."
He has us making bricks, then making a trowel to point them. I don apron and gloves and have a go at the blacksmith's forge behind the pigsties, hammering and bending my trowel in a shower of sparks. After that I take it up to Ian Wall on the traditional wood lathes and learn how to turn an ash handle for it. Finally, after mixing some traditional lime mortar, I point up a single brick in the pigsty.
Maddy and Sophie have since arrived and are also wood-turning. The real joy, however, is later when Maddy gets stuck in to Victorian living at the cottage. She insists on calling me "Master", and asking what to do next. She washes the filthy jacket thoroughly, rinses and posses, then mangles (professionally adjusting the mangle tension so as not to destroy more zip). Finally, she hangs it out to dry, swills down the laundry floor and scrubs the walls. I've run out of orders, but no problem, she fills every container available from the handpump, scrubs the kitchen table, makes the beds (horsehair mattresses, naturally), riddles the fire, and sweeps the pantry.
Cleanliness was a Victorian obsession. One catalogue listed 74 types of household brush. Maddy has tried several of them and is now on her knees scrubbing the kitchen floor. I'm starting to get unnerved. "Come on, Maddy, give it a rest - why not play some games on my mobile?"
She smiles innocently. "What is 'mobile', Master?"
It's funny at first, but she won't stop. I show her the mobile. "It does not exist, Master." She has run out of brushes and is using a cloth to polish the coppers.
"I'm your Dad, not your Master."
She looks up with tired eyes. "My parents died of a fever - I am an orphan. Please don't beat me."
"Is this what they teach you in school?"
"I have never been to school, Master."
Nothing can dislodge her from Victorian times. I promise fish and chips. She asks, "What is chips?" I wonder if I should chase her outside and wrestle her to the ground, but I know she bites. I mention ice-cream. A faint smile crosses her face. Copper-polishing continues.
Eventually, we manhandle her into the car - "Help! Help! What is this thing called 'car'?" - and go for emergency ice-cream. In the face of vanilla and chocolate, she melts. When we get back to the cottage, I ask her to light the candles.
Her face becomes crabby. She stamps her foot. "I am not your servant any more!"
Sophie and I smile. We light the candles and do all the other jobs while she plays. At last we are back in the comforting safety of the 21st century.
• Acton Scott (07976 839997, actonscott.com), historic farm museum (01694 781 207, actonscottmuseum.com). Courses, including Keeping Sheep (£45) and Brickwork Repair (£60), can be booked through Shropshire Council (01694 781307, shropshire.gov.uk/museums). Henley Cottage (sleeps up to 5) can be booked through English Country Cottages (0845 268 1568, english-country-cottages.co.uk, ref ROO4). The Shooting Lodge, sleeping between 8 and 11, and Henley Farmhouse, sleeping up to 20, are both fully modernised
Living in the past: more time travel trips
The Futurist: 1910s
Out with the old, in with the new was the general message of the Futurist movement, born in Italy in 1909. Old politics and arts were despised; its followers admired modern developments – speed, technology, cars, planes, modern arts, architecture and even "futuristic" food. It's this era that informs the next White Blackbird night, a monthly series of themed events, usually held at one of two gorgeous hotels. At the last do, a 40s-themed pyjama party, revellers in satin negligees and smoking jackets drank cocktails and petted lambs (brought in specially) on the trimmed lawns of elegant Stoke Place in Buckinghamshire, but mayhem soon ensued, with cabaret, seances, golden oldie film screenings and pillow fights in a boxing ring, which left the whole place covered in feathers.
Next Friday (19 June) at the Futurist Aerobanquet at The Olde Bell in Hurley, Berkshire, air stewardesses will entertain, there'll be visa stamping, ticket inspection and security, cocktails and a taster menu (geraniums on a stick, "cubic vegetable patch" etc), served on airplane trays .
• thewhiteblackbird.com, £80pp, £15 for return coach ticket from London. Rooms from £95 per night. Also coming up are a Village Fete on 5 July, Colourscape, a colour-themed event on 28 August, and a Gondolier Banquet in September
Jazz Age: 1930s
All the luxuries a flapper may require can be found at Burgh Island Hotel, a white modernist building set on its own island off the south Devon coast. Its original 1930s glamour has been restored, so the place is full of Jazz Age mementos and furnishings, with some rooms named after famous guests: Noel Coward, Josephine Baker, Agatha Christie and Oscar Deutsche, founder of the Odeon cinema chain. The hotel hosts regular dinner dances, balls and murder mystery nights.
• 01548 810 514, burghisland.com, doubles from £280 a night
The fabulous: 1940s
Johnny Vercoutre takes his period passion to the extreme. He dresses in tweed and bowler hats, drives 40s cars, even has a 40s-style tash. His east London home, which had been derelict since 1942 when he bought it, was restored to its former glory with flowery Liberty wallpaper and austere furniture. It already doubles as the Time For Tea cafe, and is set to open as a B&B at the end of the year, when guests will learn how an avocado bathroom can look stylish. Until then, enjoy cake rations in the caff.
• Time for Tea Cafe, 110 Shoreditch High Street, London. Open Sat and Sun only, timefortea.org.uk
