Only My Dreams: An English Childhood.

Chicago, IL Academy Chicago Publishers, 1990. Hardcover First Edition [1990], unstated. First Edition [1990], unstated, in accordance with Academy Chicago's customary practice. Very Good+ in Near Fine DJ: Book shows indications of light use: shows light shelfwear along bottom edge of boards; fore-edge shows some faint thumb-soil. Binding square and secure; text clean. DJ shows mild rubbing; price intact; mylar-protected. Overall, remains clean, sturdy, and quite presentable. NOT a Remainder. NOT a Book-Club Edition. NOT an Ex-Library copy. 8vo. 271pp. Illustrated with Kathy Blankley's black & white line drawings. Hardback with DJ. Hilda Ann Salusbury grew up in England, and came of age during the period between the wars; this covers 1913 to 1930, a yung woman of the lower middle class . Her mother had her head turned by the dashing soldiers she'd met, and deserted Hilda & her father and 3 siblings, during the First World War . Hilda's Grannie, who had already raised 23 children of her own, took on Hilda and her brothers & sisters, making it 27 . But Granny was frail, and times were hard, so Hilda was forced to leave school to work to help out and to be a ' little mother ' to her brothers and sisters. Domestic service seemed the only path to work for an uneducated, immature, lower class girl in the 1920s. Hilda embarked on a series of adventures, in the home of a ' gentleman ' , in a houseful of invalids in a remote village in Norfolk, and in London, where she tried to seek romance amids the poverty and squalor of the East End . A unique first-hand view ' below stairs ' of a vanished way of life " , with Hilda's eventual training in nursing, and midwifery; nurse and midwife assistant in London's slums, and district nurse. Unaffected and eloquent. There are recollections of sadness but also of exuberantly funny times.