Soundings S.
1 primary work
Book 1656
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.