Turbulent Times: Growing up in the Edwardian Era

This heart-warming account is based on a real life case of a young working class boy, born in the final years of the 19th century and growing up in abject poverty and illiterateness in a slum environment during the Edwardian era. Born to a mother, who could neither read nor write, and with his father deserting him when he was two, it is the valiant story of a struggle for survival and ultimate escape from his own ignorance and penury and the multiple epidemics of disease which assailed working class people of his background at a time. At the time environmental pollution from the mills and factories and domestic conditions and sanitary facilities were contributing to high levels of infant and youth mortality. Life expectancy for persons of his social background and slum domestic environment was approximately eighteen years at the time and something in the order of 30% of infants did not live to their fifth birthday.

Consequently the young boy’s life is blighted by the successive deaths of relatives, friends, neighbours and eventually his own mother.

The book traces the other challenges he faces in the newly reformed elementary school system after the 1902 legislation and his striving to overcome his illiteracy in a house with no books and in poverty with no money at home. The struggle includes the first years of his work life in the wool bins of a textile factory and his efforts as a young Trade Union activist for justice for his mother, sister and the ordinary women mill workers, the majority of workers in the textile industry at the time, for justice and equity. The book concludes with his growing affection for a female fellow mill worker and his volunteering at the age of 17 years to fight in the First World War in one of the newly raised Pals battalions.