Sunday 27 February 2011

Round About a Pound a Week

I haven't finished Round About a Pound a Week yet but I'm already finding it fascinating.

"Had they been well housed, well fed, well clothed, and well tended, from birth, what kind of raw material would they have shown themselves to be?" Maud Pember Reeves Round About a Pound a Week

This was first published in 1913. Polly Toynbee's 2008 introduction to this book.

'Social mobility has ground to a halt in the last twenty-five years. Birth is now almost certainly destiny. Some people may escape - but only in the same sense that some people may win the lottery....Britain now has the same distribution of wealth as it had in 1937 - and it's going backwards. At the present pace of growing inequality, we will return to 1913.' Polly Toynbee

8 comments:

  1. Makes you think doesn't it? And working in a bank I can see how many people are struggling to manage on today's equivalent of £1 a week.

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  2. rambling fancy - Absolutely. I've now read a little bit more of the book and it's fascinating.

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  3. I read this with my book group over a year ago and it generated such lengthy discussion. We were shocked at the conditions and had many comparisons to draw from the present economy. Definitely an eye-opening read.

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  4. This is one of the Persephones I don't have and I shall certainly consider buying it - one I've wanted for a long time. Thank you for bringing to our attention or, in my case, reminding me of it.
    Margaret P

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  5. Paperback Reader - it must be a good book group read. Although with my last book group where we all had quite strong and different political opinions it could have been fiery!
    galant - Oh I do hope you read it Margaret - it's fascinating. I shall mull over my thoughts and then post them sometime soon.

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  6. Thank you for your post. The quotes you selected are thought-provoking and I think that I should definately try to get a copy of this book. It's an interesting subject.

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  7. Cristina - oh do and then post your thoughts please.

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  8. I just read this this weekend and I loved it! Indeed, I think they already proved themselves to be strong women, fine material, given all they did. By oh my, I look at my life and then at theirs and I'm thinking they didn't have a fun time of it, to say the least.

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Ooh how lovely more stripes on the page...
Thank you for taking the time.