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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8616 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
'Enchanting . . . a gloriously vivid memoir' --Daily Mail

About the Author
Born in 1914, Winifred Foley grew up in the Forest of Dean. Now in her nineties, she still lives in the area.

Customer Reviews

An excellent read..
Maybe i am a bit biased, as i grew up in the village where this book was written (I lived just above the chapel which is often mentioned, and am pretty sure I attended the same school) during the 1980s, and so all the settings are familiar to me. However, I think the writing really puts the images and pace of forest life across. There are moments when the kindness shown by some members of Winifred's family / community are extremely touching, and the characters come across very vividly. Heartily recommended to anyone who lives in/knows the forest of dean, and to all others who are looking for a slice of history which is heartwarming, sometimes very sad, but overall inspiring. A good read.

A beautiful autobiography
This is a lovely book - a fascinating autobiography of Mrs Foley as she grew up in a small mining community in the Forest of Dean. The idyll of the unspoilt forest and the sense of community that existed there are offset against the harshness of the way of life and the unremitting poverty. Her accounts of going into service at 14 remind us how lucky we are that this system is now finished, at least in this country. I would not hesitate to recommend this to anyone.

A Fascinating Read
This book, though obscure and mostly unheard-of, is completely absorbing. It's not meant to be a children's book, but the language and style are easy enough for children and I first read it at the age of about ten. I have re-read it many times since, well into adulthood. It's not great literature, nor is it exciting or amazing or anything like that, but it's a fascinating and honest insight into the life of the working classes three generations ago. It's moving, funny and informative, and is written in a simple, enjoyable and disingenuous style. Give this book to any child or teenager who is complaining about not having the latest mobile phone / trainers / CD / iPod / {insert child-type demand here} and it might bring home to them exactly how much many children DO have these days, compared with this book's author, whose most prized possession as a little girl was a rag doll made by her mother out of an old sock because the family couldn't even afford to buy her a toy for Christmas. And yet, despite the endless hard work and grinding poverty which the book describes, it seems that the family were far more robust and content (if not always happy as such) than the average family of nowadays. Interesting and very readable, and highly recommended to any age or class of reader.