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.

Full Hearts and Empty Bellies: A 1920s Childhood from the Forest of Dean to the Streets of London

Biographies & Memoirs

Foley, Winifred

Memoirs

Little, Brown Book Group

After her years in domestic service, Winifred Foley married and started a family. But, while scraping a living as a charwoman in a rundown north London tenement, she continued to long for her home in the Forest of Dean and the cherished relatives she had left behind. Determined to give their children the rural upbringing she had enjoyed, the young couple moved to an isolated, crumbling cottage not far from the Forest. But even in the 1950s they lacked heating or running water, and money was tight. Food was begged, borrowed, or home-grown, and their clothes were hand-me-downs. It was a primitive life of hard work on the land, struggling to make ends meet, and finding strength in the embrace of a loving family.

Shiny Pennies and Grubby Pinafores: How We Overcame Hardship to Raise a Happy Family in the 1950s

Community & Culture

Back to the forest

History

Europe

Macdonald

Winifred Foley's best-selling account of a childhood in the Forest of Dean in the first half of this century. She describes how life in a small mining community was one of economic hardship, faced with humor and overcome with fortitude. She describes the many lively characters that peopled her small world, and the events that made up her daily life for the community, as well as her first ventures into the world of work at the age of 14 when she left school.

A child in the forest

British Broadcasting Corp.

A Child in the Forest (Ariel Books)

BBC Books

Back to the Forest

Futura Publications

A Child in the Forest

Few people visited the Forest of Dean. They thought us primitive, and looked down on us.Â Winifred Foley grew up in the 1920s, a bright, determined minerâ€™s daughter in a world of unspoiled beauty and desperate hardship, in which women were widowed at 30 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 neighbors, and she never had a new pair of shoes or a shop-bought doll. And most terrible of all, like her sister before her, atÂ 14 little Poll had to leave her beloved forest for the city, bound for a life in service among Londonâ€™s grey terraces.

Historical

Henry Holt Co.

Writing Your Life Story: A Step-by-step Guide to Writing Your Autobiography

Smith, Nancy

Literature & Fiction

Judy Piatkus(publishers) Ltd

Recounting time spent with her mother & Auntie doing the family laundry, "the worst day of the week', happy summer days with her sister fetching water from the well in the early morning sun; & memories of Granny's treacle puddings! These were also difficult times. With her father earning a pittance as a miner, they ran up debts with the doctor, having to borrow money form their equally poor neighbors tro pay him back; & watching friend & neighbors die from what are now, common, treatable ailments.

No Pipe Dreams For Father

Isis Audio Books

Back to the Forest (ISIS Large Print)

Contemporary

ISIS Publishing

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