Shiny Pennies & Grubby Pinafores – Winifred Foley

A bit of a mad week means that I'm a bit behind where I want to be on book reviews right now. Children sleeping a bit better (hope I've not just jinxed that!) and a need to shut my brain off from thinking about other stuff before going to sleep means that I'm actually reading more that I have done in ages.

Back for my birthday I was lucky enough to be given some National Trust gift vouchers and as I always love the selection of books they have in their gift shops that's exactly what I headed towards. I picked up a copy of Shiny Pennies And Grubby Pinafores to go with The 1950s Housewife which I read a couple of months ago. I figured that as I was reading a selection of anecdotes about what being a housewife in the 1950s was like in one a story with a subtitle of "how we overcame hardship to raise a happy family in the 1950s" would fit right in. And it sort of did.

What I hadn't realised at first was that this was Winifred Foley's second book, to follow Full Hearts And Empty Bellies which tells the story of her childhood in the 1920s.

Shiny Pennies and Grubby Pinafores starts in London where Winifred lives with her family, but she has always dreamed of moving back to the Forest of Dean and that is exactly what they finally manage to do. The difference in moving from a city to the countryside is huge – not only in terms of surroundings, but also when you consider the amenities that you have at home. And as a housewife these are a key part of day to day life.

The first part of this book tells of this journey back to the Forest and how hard Winifred had to work to look after and nurture her family. I absolutely loved this part of the book and it was exactly what I hoped of in terms of giving a real insight into what life as a housewife in the 1950s in the countryside was like for this particular family. Winifred writes very well and you're quickly transported to her cottage as it was then.

Where I felt the book really let me down was the second part, entitled No Pipe Dreams for Father. This latter section is a series of short vignettes of Winifred's life in the Forest as a child. What I found really strange was the fact that they come with no introduction and are all in a  bit of a random order. Well, I think they are as it was really difficult to place them all in time. Many of them are filled with quite a bit of dialog, all heavily accented, and they just didn't seem to fit at all well with the rest of the book in my mind. It almost felt like a let down to have completed the excellent first section and then have to wade through these to get to the end. A real shame.