I wish it were a knitting day…
Ah, who am I to complain? It’s a working and research day instead! Just have to dodge the heavy showers on the way there and back.
No time for train knitting on the way to work today, though. Instead, I’m reading feminist and Fabian, Maud Pember Reeves’, ‘Round About a Pound a Week‘. Originally printed in 1913, it really is a fascinating and at times quite shocking insight into the lives of respectable working class London families living on or around Lambeth Walk who survived on approximately 20 shillings a week. Particularly making a study of poverty and infant mortality, it was influential in making high level changes and argued for prenatual nutrition, child benefit and school dinners amongst other things.
From what I have read so far (around half), it is as important a book now as it was a century ago. In addition, and probably quite contrary to what you may think, I have found it compulsive reading which is easily digested, rather than being a dry sociological research tract. If you can get yourself a copy, it is well worth a read and will really make you think in today’s consumer-driven society.