From Library Journal
Foley's vivid yet low-key reminiscences (first presented on a BBC radio series) tell of her childhood as a coal miner's daughter in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire and her teenage years in domestic service in London and the Cotswalds. Born in 1914 in a geographically isolated part of England, she re-creates details of a seemingly timeless way of life: poverty warmed by close family relationships, village school, chapel, Sunday-school excursions, and the matter-of-fact awareness that by 14 a girl must leave home to earn her keep. Despite the attractive illustrations, the book is not intended for children, though it should be enjoyed by young adults and general readers and provides primary material for social historians. Sally Mitchell, English Dept., Temple Univ., Philadelphia
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
'Few people visited the Forest of Dean. They thought us primitive, and looked down on us.'
Winifred Foley grew up in the 1920s, a bright, determined miner's daughter - in a world of unspoilt beauty and desperate hardship, in which women were widowed at thirty and children died of starvation. Living hand-to-mouth in a tumbledown cottage in the Forest of Dean, Foley - 'our Poll' - had a loving family and the woods and streams of a forest 'better than heaven' as a playground. But a brother and sister were dead in infancy, bread had to be begged from kindly neighbours and she never had a new pair of shoes or a shop-bought doll. And most terrible of all, like her sister before her, at fourteen little Poll had to leave her beloved forest for the city, bound for a life in service among London's grey terraces.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
