This chronicle of Victorian village life in north Lincolnshire has been gathered from the memories of the country people who were born there and captures the delight with which the author's family remember their youth. Grandfather's eight children worked in the fields before and after school, without pocket money or thanks and with regular thrashing. There were no birthday presents and only a stocking and a ceremonial kiss at Christmas. Yet their memories are full of the pleasures of a country childhood - poaching, bull-baiting, skating, bird's-nesting and flower collecting. Everyday doings such as threshing, killing a pig or shoeing a horse are described and anecdotes and family jokes included. The book is free of Victorian prudery - grandfather, a struggling tenant farmer, was harsh, ambitious and a great lover of women and the Rector slept with his maids.
- ISBN10 0094766002
- ISBN13 9780094766006
- Publish Date 22 July 1996 (first published 14 November 1977)
- Publish Status Transferred
- Out of Print 1 August 2007
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Imprint Constable
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 208
- Language English