Well! This plopped unexpectedly through the door a few days ago and by rights it should have taken its place on the TBR pile, but I just opened it for a quick look and was instantly seduced. I suppose I had a vague idea of what the kind of life described here was like, but had never experienced it told with such extraordinary vividness.
Grace Foakes was born in the East End of London, 'in the year Queen Victoria died' -- for those of you not absolutely up in English history, that's 1901, so 110 years ago. She was the second eldest child of a family of five, though those were just the ones that survived. Her mother had a new baby every year,
and this was always a great surprise to us. We would wake up one morning and my father would say, "You have a new brother", or "You have another sister", as the case might be. I think she had fourteen children altogether, but I am not quite sure of this, for some died at birth and some lived just a few weeks.
You can perhaps see from that extract how simply Grace writes, but how extraordinarily delightful that is. She tells stories about her home, her parents, her neighbours, her school and London itself. She was fortunate in having parents who were Methodists and non-drinkers, so that at least the very small amount of money that her father managed to earn did not get consumed in the pub, forcing the family to pawn everything apart from the clothes they stood up in, apparently quite a common situation in the neighbourhood. Nevertheless the family, like all those in the area, lived in extreme poverty. They were lucky to have meat on a Sunday, but the rest of the week their mother made improvised meals such as 'Pepper and Salt Slosh' -- a slice of bread in a mug with boiling water poured over it, with a teaspoon of margarine, salt and pepper stirred into it -- 'and it was surprising how good it tasted'. Clothes were cast-off bought from the rag and bone man. Baths were once a week, and everybody used the same water. Education was primitive and uncaring. As for health care, really it's a miracle that anyone survived. There's a horrific story of Grace, aged about twelve, having to carry her younger sister to the London Hospital -- a journey of well over an hour -- when the child was in terrible pain with a mastoid. After a long wait they saw the doctor who said she must be admitted, but as there were no beds, Grace had to carry her home again, wrapped in newspaper because it was pouring with rain. She was finally admitted to the local infirmary and did recover, but many people did not. Really you get the impression that the people of the East End of London were viewed as dispensable.
If this all sounds depressing, I can assure you it's not. The most wonderful thing about Grace is her absolute optimism throughout it all, and her determination not to let her own children suffer the poverty and deprivation of her own childhood. She takes delight in the simplest things and finds ways of making the most of the little she has. Longing for a garden, she manages to persuade a local park-keeper to give her some bags of earth, which she sprinkles between the cracks in the paving stones in the yard, adding some chaff gathered from the local horse feed, and soon some shoots of grass start to appear.
The satisfaction and joy I experienced when looking at my grass far outweighed any bouquet or flowers I have since been bought. The colour was there as a result of something I had thought of and grown by myself. It was a truly wonderful feeling of achievement in such a grey world.
I could go on, but really this is a book you should read for yourself. Grace actually wrote three books, which were published in the 1970s, and this is a compilation of all three, edited by Joanna Goldsworthy. I'm tempted to try to get hold of the originals, but meanwhile, as you can see, I was very happy to have read it.
