When visiting a friend of mine recently, he brought out a lady’s handbag which he said he was going to give to me. I thought, "He’s having me on, giving me a lady’s handbag. What’s he up to?" As you can see from one of the photographs it does indeed look rather like a lady’s handbag. When the bag was opened, an attractive compact Astor portable radio was revealed. Then I knew I wasn’t being conned.

Above: running the set from a battery eliminator is more practical than using batteries which don't last long at all.

When you think about it, the set was probably meant to look like a lady’s handbag, with a stout brown leather case and a shoulder strap. As with all advertising there is an aim to entice various groups to purchase their wares, and so it is in the radio retailing business. This set, an Astor RQ, was produced in 1955 and probably up until that time the main emphasis had been on selling to the man of the house.

The "Little Lady" got scant attention, particularly in the portable radio market, and probably for two reasons. Sets had been much too heavy for women to comfortably carry and the sales people hadn’t yet thought of women as having a mind of their own let alone an income of their own.