Readjusting

Whew! Life is whizzing past at quite a rate! I am settling into working pretty much full time (I get Friday afternoons off at the moment) and after two weeks I'm pleasantly surprised by how well it is working out. Tevye and I are cooking dinner between us - I plan and leave instructions as he is either already home or gets home earlier than I do, or I put something in the crockpot and he cooks veggies. Cherub went to after school club for the first time today and liked it - one of the girls in her class goes on Mondays and they played together. The big girls pick her up on their way home from school, so she only needs to go for about 40 minutes. The rest of the week either Tevye or I can still collect her. And so far I am loving the new job. More about that another time.

I meant to post pictures after Tevye's nephew's wedding - I put some on Facebook but never got round to posting them here. They are only iPhone pictures but you get the idea!

This England: Anthems

I meant to do this neatly and post yesterday to coincide with St. George's day, but it didn't happen. Rather bizarrely for a country that has existed in more or less its present form for well over a thousand years, England does not have an official national anthem. At sporting events where the constituent parts of the United Kingdom field separate teams the English team usually plays God Save the Queen, which is the British national anthem, while the Welsh play Land of our Fathers and the Scottish Flower of Scotland. I was listening to a discussion about English anthems on the radio on the way to work yesterday. They were holding a public vote on the best choice, and there were three very clear front runners. All of them are well known and loved tunes. 

(1) Jerusalem - William Blake's poem based on the supposed visit of the boy Jesus to Glastonbury, set to music by Herbert Parry. This is now used as the English anthem at the Commonwealth Games.

(2) I Vow to Thee My Country - from Holst's Planets Suite (Jupiter)

(3) Land of Hope and Glory - one of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance marches. I already included this in my post about Elgar, but here is another version. Played before England rugby matches.

So which would you choose?

Marmite: Love It or Hate It

This pretty much sums up all you need to know about marmite.

I Went Clothes Shopping!

Fashion is not a topic that comes up often on this blog, but I went on a major clothes shopping expedition last Saturday and can't resist sharing the fruits of the most shopping fun I've had in a long while. The main purpose was to find a dress to wear for a wedding - Tevye's nephew S gets married tomorrow! - and it needed to be something that would double up for our special celebration holiday in the summer. I can't remember whether I mentioned it before, but we are going on a cruise in August to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary. We have never done anything like it before, and it will definitely require additions to my decidedly non-dressy wardrobe. That meant that as well as a dress for the wedding I was hoping I might find other dresses suitable for formal and semi-formal evenings on the ship.

I have never been a dressy, clothes oriented person, but I have found that a combination of getting older and having teenage daughters has led me to enjoy clothes more than I used to and to be a bit more confident in trying new things. I have also lost weight and being able to shop for smaller sizes was definitely fun! I have gone from a size 16/18 to a comfortable 14 (in US sizing I think that is a 10?), which made me feel a bit more adventurous. Also I was shopping alone, which meant I could take my time and experiment without anyone losing patience!

Here are the results of my successful shopping spree. First, for the wedding, a dress from Monsoon. (I had never bought anything in Monsoon before. They wrap the clothes in tissue paper before putting them into the bag. I felt very upmarket!)

Together with a matching shrug. The colour is called "peacock". I love that!


Then another shop where I have only ever looked, but not bought - it rarely seems to have much above a size 14 in stock. This was Jane Norman, which was very considerately having a 25% off day. This is my "wow" dress for formal evenings on the ship. I can't see any other occasion to wear it in my immediate future, but it was very reasonably priced, and I have never had a dress like this before. Yes. It is very pink. I like pink.



Then continuing the pink theme I found this shift dress in Marks and Spencer. Again it was reasonably priced, and I think I will be able to get quite a lot of wear out of this one. It has a scooped neckline at the back with a bow, and an all-over lacy pattern.




And last but not least, shoes ... Marks and Spencer again. These are surprisingly comfy, and I can wear them with any of the dresses.




Really, these are all very unlike my normal dressing style (casual or smart casual) but I'm actually looking forward to wearing them.

This England: Marmite

Marmite on hot buttered toast ...

Marmite sandwiches ...

Marmite flavoured crisps (potato chips) ...

Marmite flavoured cashew nuts ...

Mmmm!!!!!

Does that make you think "yum"? Or "yuck"? Or "huh????"

Marmite is a peculiarly British delicacy, which even here is definitely in the "love it or hate it" category - so much so that there have been adverts based on the "love it or hate it" theme and the official Marmite website has different entry portals for lovers and haters. In our family Helen and I are the lovers and Tevye, Marie and Rose the haters. In my experience Americans tend to be baffled by marmite (basing this on expat homeschooling friends!) as it doesn't come with instructions and they don't know what to do with it. Marmite is a very salty, yeast extract based ... can't think of the right word to describe it ... goo? The consistency is a little similar to chocolate spread, but trying to use it like chocolate spread would be a disaster as it is very strong tasting. The key to marmite is that a very little goes a long way. Marmite on buttered toast is particularly good as the marmite kind of melts into the butter. Marmite is even good for you (if you ignore the high salt content!) as it contains lots of B vitamins. According to Wikipedia marmite was used in the 1930s in experiments which identified folic acid for the first time. Last but not least, the jar shape and labelling is an instantly recognisable iconic design to anyone living in England.

So ... Marmite. Do you love it or hate it?

Book 14: M is for Marigold

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel: A Novel by Deborah Moggach

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

One advantage of a long weekend suffering from a cold and mostly spent sitting limply on the sofa is that I have had plenty of time to read!  Tevye and I saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at the cinema last month. We loved it and inspired by the film I added the book to my Kindle. The film was warm, colourful and life-affirming. The premise is that a group of English pensioners travel to India to spent their later years in a ramshackle retirement home known as the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The cast is magnificent, a roll call of some of the best of the older generation of British actors - Judi Dench, Celia Imrie, Penelope Wilton, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, and Maggie Smith as a racist old Cockney sent to India for hip replacement surgery. Some adjust to their new surroundings better than others; one is able to rediscover his past; others find friendship and even romance. A sub-plot involves the young Indian hotel owner-manager and his relationships with his family and girlfriend. India itself forms a vibrant and colourful backdrop to the story.

The book - previously published as These Foolish Things - is very different. This is one of those films that is most definitely not faithful to the original. The book is grittier and more graphic. It is as much about the middle-aged children of the hotel residents and their relationships with their parents, wives, husbands and lovers as it is about the elderly characters themselves. The film writes the children out more or less completely, leaving the spotlight solely on the residents of the Marigold Hotel and the Indian characters. In the book the idea of the retirement home in India comes from the son-in-law of an old man who has been thrown out of several British homes for sexually harassing the staff; in the film it is the enterprising young Indian Sonny who thinks of marketing his hotel to an elderly clientele. In the book Sonny is 30 years older than he is in the film, and that is just for starters - relationships between the characters are quite different, plots have been transferred to different characters or just plain changed, one character who dies in the book survives in the film, and so it goes on. Beyond the basic premise and the names of the characters, the book and the film are really completely different animals. On the whole I enjoyed the book and found it a quick and easy read, though it was disconcerting in that it felt like entering a parallel universe, one where the world of the Marigold Hotel and its inmates was darker and more complex than the lighter, fluffier - and to me more enjoyable - world of the film. I wonder whether if I had read the book first I would have found the film disappointingly light and fluffy?

For more reviews visit 52 Books in 52 Weeks

This England: Edward Elgar

One of the pieces I played in my orchestra concert a couple of weeks ago was Elgar's Enigma Variations, which is one of the best loved pieces in the English classical repertoire. Here is the best of the best ... the ninth variation, Nimrod, played by a military band at the national commemoration of Remembrance Sunday at the Cenotaph in London.

Edward Elgar was born near Worcester in 1857, the son of a piano tuner and musician. He had little formal musical training and was a self-taught composer. After a short spell as a clerk he became a music teacher, conductor and musician. His reputation as a composer grew slowly during the 1890s until 1899 when the Enigma Variations was first performed to great acclaim. He was knighted in 1904, produced his last great work, his cello concerto, in 1919, and died in 1934. He was one of the first composers to make gramophone recordings of his own works. The house where Elgar was born is now a museum and the statue below stands near the cathedral in Worcester.

Elgar's other best known contribution to English music is the Pomp and Circumstance March No.1, which as "Land of Hope and Glory" has become one of the unofficial national anthems of England along with Blake's "Jerusalem". Here it is played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Last Night of the Proms (a post in itself!) and sung enthusiastically by the Promenaders (the music starts two and a half minutes into the clip).

Finally, here is a short extract from Elgar's Cello Concerto, performed by Jacqueline du Pré.

Book 13: L is for Letters

Letters From the Trenches: A Soldier of the Great War by Bill Lamin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A quick and easy read, this book is a spin off from a blog on which Bill Lamin posted a series of letters sent by his grandfather during World War I in "real time" 90 years after they were first sent. The book combines the letters with extracts from the war diary of Harry Lamin's regiment and biographical details of his grandfather and his family. The letters were written by Harry to his brother Jack and sister Kate and run from early in 1917 when Harry was conscripted through to his final demobilisation in January 1920. Harry fought at Ypres and Passchendaele before being sent to the Italian front where he remained through the end of the war and its aftermath. His letters were simple and often repetitive, but when set in the context of the regimental diary it becomes clear just how understated they were - he described the hell that was Passchendaele as "a bit rough". Overall, a fascinating insight into World War I as seen through the eyes of an ordinary soldier from a Nottinghamshire village.

For more reviews visit 52 Books in 52 Weeks

This England

Linds suggested in the comments to my England post that I set this series up with a Mister Linky so that other people can join in. I have never used Mister Linky before, but I gave it a go and it looks as though it works! So here is the meme:

• Write about anything you like that you consider typically English - of course some will be equally applicable to the rest of the United Kingdom, but the meme is intended to celebrate England and all things English.
• Come over here and add your post to the Mister Linky. I will aim to put up a new post every Saturday, but you can add yours at any time.
• Put a picture of the English flag either into your post or on your sidebar. I am posting large and small flags below that you can use (they are free clipart downloaded from Aspex Designs).
• The title of the meme is "This England" taken from this speech in Shakespeare's Richard II: 

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, 

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by Nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war, 

This happy breed of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office of a wall, 

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands, 

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

Book 12: K is for Knitting

Knitting Around the World: A Multistranded History of a Time-Honored Tradition by Lela Nargi

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I bought this book with a gift voucher because it looked beautiful. The illustrations of different styles of knitting, both modern and historical, are stunning. But the text! Never has a book been so sorely in need of a good editor. From about 30 pages in I admired the pictures and skimmed the rest.

For more reviews visit 52 Books in 52 Weeks

This England: Evenin' All

A combination of spring and the upcoming Diamond Jubilee made me think it would be nice to do a series of England themed posts about things, people or aspects of life here that make me happy and that I think of as particularly English.

First up ... we have a police force in which it is the exception not the norm for officers to carry firearms (this of course also applies to Wales and Scotland, not just England). While there are designated armed response units and certain specialist forces carry arms - police with machine guns at airports are now routine, for example - most policemen and women do not. Todays police force isn't in the Dixon of Dock Green era any more, but it is one of very, very few in the world that is not routinely armed. The only others I found in a quick search were Iceland, New Zealand and Norway.

Dixon of Dock Green, the lead character in a gentle British TV series which ran from 1955 to 1976. Dixon  fought petty crime in the East End of London armed only with his trusty truncheon! Each programme began with the catchphrase "evenin' all" - which police in certain forces are no longer supposed to say, as apparently the word "evening" is subjective. Huh?

A few English police facts:

• The first English police force was set up in London in 1829 by Robert Peel. The nickname "bobbies" for policemen came from his name.
• Police cars were traditionally black and white, so became known as "panda" cars.
• Some police patrol on bicycles. The Metropolitan (London) Police force has 1500 police bikes.
• The last policeman killed in the line of duty was PC Gary Toms of the Metropolitan Police in April 2009. 
• In 2010 there were 143,743 full time equivalent officers serving in 43 police forces in England and Wales.

Free clipart flag from Aspex Designs

Book 11: Jilted Generation

Jilted Generation: How Britain Has Bankrupted Its Youth by Ed Howker

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I felt like a break from my A to Z reading challenge and picked up (can you "pick up" a book on a Kindle?) this book which I bought recently as a Kindle Daily Deal. It looks at the ways in which those aged under 30 in Britain get a raw deal compared to their parents' generation. It is divided into chapters on housing, jobs, inheritance and politics. Some of the points made are interesting and thought provoking, but there were sections where I felt the authors were either misinterpreting the evidence or being over selective in their use of facts to support their points. Overall it left me with as many questions as answers.

For more reviews visit 52 Books in 52 Weeks

Book 10: J is for Jobs

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am an Apple geek - Windows makes me shudder! - and have been wanting to read this biography of Steve Jobs since it was published at the end of last year. I was intrigued to find out what made Jobs tick and just how he managed to come up with products that have, quite literally, changed the world - graphical user interfaces for computers (remember the DOS prompts that they replaced?), digital music players, smartphones and tablet computers. Apple was the first company to popularise all of those products because in each case it produced something simple, beautiful and user friendly.

So how did Jobs do it? By being a flawed genius. He knew when something was right, he knew good design, and his aim was always to make the best possible product rather than to maximize profits. He was a visionary who refused to do market research because he didn't care what customers thought they wanted - his aim was to make the things they didn't yet know that they would want. The flaws? He was a control freak, temperamental, self-centred and often utterly horrendous to deal with - yet that control freakery and his determination that the laws of the possible didn't apply to him or to Apple (people who knew him called it his reality distortion field) meant that time and again he was able to achieve the seemingly impossible. It may also ultimately have killed him, or at least shortened his life, because his refusal to accept that it was necessary led him to put off surgery on his pancreatic cancer for several months.

The book was written at Jobs' instigation and with his approval, though he knew that it would not always be flattering. It is well written, and so far as I can tell well researched and balanced. I found the insight into Jobs' personality and the history of the various Apple products fascinating. Goodreads marker for 5 stars is "absolutely amazing", so maybe not quite a 5 star but if I could I'd give it a 4 and a half.

All Change!

Another week that whizzed by at 100 miles per hour!

The good news ... after my interview on Thursday I was offered a part-time job as an archivist. This means that from the middle of April I will have TWO jobs in the same place - I will still be doing 2.5 days a week cataloguing and will also be working as an archivist for another 2 days a week. That adds up to pretty much full time, which is a bit scary! In September the hours will change to 2 days a week cataloguing and 3 days a week as an archivist, so will be truly full time. Fortunately that is only going to be a temporary thing. When my existing contract expires in July 2013 I will be left with the three days a week archivist's job, which is exactly what I was hoping for when I started out on this road. So, the next year or so is going to be pretty hectic.

Working full time isn't ideal but it is manageable, though I'm glad it is only going to be temporary. Fortunately Tevye works at home two days a week and will be able to get home early enough on one other day to collect Rose from school. I will be able to collect her on Fridays, and she will go to after school club for about three-quarters of an hour on Mondays until Helen can pick her up on her way home from school. Between my holidays from work (I get 26 days annual leave), Tevye's work at home days and some baby sitting help from Helen and Marie we can cover school holidays without it getting too stressful.

Oh, and I'm still going to be studying for my archive qualification. Eek! I'm looking forward to starting the job and getting the chance to put theory into practice though.

Muthers Day

Today is Mother's Day in the UK, or "Muthers Day" as Rose spells it. (If you are Catholic, note the liturgical connection - Mother's Day falls on Laetare Sunday, a day of celebration in the middle of Lent.) She presented me with a poem she wrote on the computer at school - all her own idea, done independently - which I just have to share:

My Mum

My mum kind
She is polite
Her voice is sweet

My mum is pretty
She is lovely

My mum is clever
She is always cuddling me
Her hair is byootfall

My mum is cute
She is lovable
Her vois is pretty and soft

Almost entirely inaccurate - for starters my hair is not byootfall, neither is my voice pretty and soft! - but super, super cute.

7 Quick Takes: 16th March 2012

It has been a while since I did one of these ...

1. Yesterday was Helen's 17th birthday. In the UK that is the magic age for DRIVING! She has her provisional licence ready to go and will be heading off for her first driving lesson after school today. Before she is allowed to drive solo she has to pass a theory test and a rigorous practical test. She has saved the money to pay for her lessons and we have said we will insure our small car for her to drive. Fortunately it is in a low insurance group - car insurance for teenagers is horrendously expensive.

2. Changes are happening at work and I have an internal job interview next Thursday. If all goes well things will be good but busy!

3. This week's most bizarre parenting moment ... Marie phoned just after she had left for school to say she had just remembered she urgently needed a pair of chopsticks painting black for that evening. Apparently she had promised her ballet teacher she would take them to use as wands (no, I don't know why!). And yes, I was very kind and found and painted a pair for her.

4. Odd question this morning from Rose ... is it earwigs or woodlice that bite? As far as I am aware neither of them do, but she is convinced she has been bitten by one or the other. We came to the conclusion that if she really had been bitten by one of them then it must be an earwig. So, I'll pass the question on ... do earwigs bite???

5. I am now driving instead of catching the train to work. Since I have been working longer hours it was getting more and more of a juggling act to fit in my hours around train times - there is only one train an hour which meant I was losing a lot of the benefit of flexible working hours. The drive takes me about 40 minutes, which isn't too bad.

6. J-next-door (age 17) is now an apprentice hairdresser and is here doing a job lot of hair cuts - Mum, Rose and myself. She has wanted to be a hairdresser since she was two (really!) and worked in hair salons as a Saturday girl for two and a half years before starting her apprenticeship last summer. She is very good!

7. Small siblings of teenage sisters tend to be precociously aware of social media. Marie told Rose that she would take a photo of her in her new glasses. "Yes," said Rose, full of enthusiasm, "and then you can put it on Facebook!"

Visit Conversion Diary for more quick takes

The Poor Laws

I have had to do quite a bit of research on the Poor Laws lately, first for my archive course and then to give a talk at work, and have found it fascinating. Before this, the little I knew about provision for the poor was that unemployment benefit (in certain circumstances) and old age pensions were introduced in the early 20th century and expanded into more generous payments with the introduction of the Welfare State in the 1940s. I kind of assumed that before that there were workhouses for the most destitute but otherwise the poor were pretty much left to sink or swim. I was wrong. In fact, England has had a formal system of provision for the poor for over 400 years. While it is fresh in my mind, I thought I would jot down the outline of the history of the Poor Laws. If you like history, carry on reading. If not, feel free to skip!

The original English Poor Law (different laws applied in Scotland) was introduced in 1597 and replaced in 1601 with a Poor Law that lasted for over 200 years. Under this "Old" Poor Law parishes were responsible for providing for the poor and needy within their bounds. Each parish appointed overseers of the poor to dispense relief as necessary, and all property holders within the parish had to pay a compulsory Poor Rate to finance it. Most parishes had some sort of poorhouse or workhouse where paupers unable to support themselves (mainly the old, the sick and children) could live - the standard of these varied widely, and could be pretty grim - but most support for the poor was given as cash payments, either to replace earnings for those unable to work or to supplement inadequate earnings. This interesting article about research based on records in the archive where I work estimates that in the late 18th century the elderly could receive pensions from the poor rate amounting to as much as 70% of the typical labourer's income.

By the late 18th and early 19th century the cost of providing for the poor was rising under the pressure of economic changes, bad harvests and the Napoleonic wars, and economic theorists began to argue that providing poor relief undermined the labour market and people's willingness and ability to provide for themselves (the concept of "scroungers" is not a new one!). By 1834 these ideas had become mainstream and triggered the introduction of a New Poor Law, which was intended to deter all but the most destitute from claiming relief. The New Poor Law tried to standardise provision for the poor through a central Poor Law Board that issued instructions to local Poor Law Unions which combined all the parishes in a local area. Each Union was expected to build a workhouse to accommodate all paupers within its boundaries. Workhouses were supposed to be as unappealing as possible, with a bland diet, no luxuries whatsoever, uniform clothing, hard and demeaning work (breaking stones and picking apart old ropes were common tasks), and the separation of families. Cash payments to paupers were supposed to end and those unable to support themselves were supposed to have no option but to enter the workhouse. In practice, this was never the way it worked. Workhouses were generally unpleasant places, though rarely as bad as Charles Dickens painted them (think Oliver Twist!), but payments continued to be made to many paupers living in their own homes. Local Boards of Guardians, who ran the Poor Law Unions, tended to resent central interference and to ignore or only partially implement instructions from the Poor Law Board. Putting a family into the workhouse was far more expensive than simply giving them help to stay in their own home, and in times of high unemployment forcing all paupers into the workhouse would have been impossible. In the end most workhouse inmates were those unable to work - the old, the sick, the incapable and children. The workhouse carried a terrible stigma and for the elderly the idea that they may have to end their days in the workhouse was a matter of dread.

The Poor Law came to an end in 1930 and was replaced first by provision for the poor through County and Borough Councils and after World War II by a centralised Welfare State. Most of the workhouses continued to be used for related purposes, either as hospitals for the poor or old people's homes, and many were eventually taken over by the National Health Service - in fact, I wonder whether the NHS would have been feasible in its existing form without the network of infrastructure it inherited from the Poor Law Unions.

Checking In

Updates on the various medical matters ... the hospital discharged Mum on Tuesday, only six days after her op which is a record for her, and she is staying with us until we decide she is well enough to go home. Not surprisingly given the spectacular bruising her leg is still very painful, but she is gradually getting more mobile. We took her out for a walk to the end of the drive yesterday, the first time she has been outside since the op. It is still very slow as she is having to learn how to use her joints all over again - her walking was so poor before that even the leg that wasn't operated on is struggling to remember what to do! I was a little concerned about the incision on Saturday and took advantage of the out-of-hours District Nurse service. A lovely nurse came out, checked the wound over (all fine!) and dressed it. The first time Mum had a hip replacement a nurse came out on New Year's Day to put a new dressing on. Great service!

My chest is better. Not quite 100% yet, but the cough has almost gone and I didn't end up with a chest infection. Phew! Rose went back for her follow up appointment with the optician. This time her eyes behaved better and although she does need glasses for reading, school work, using the computer and watching TV, the prescription isn't as strong as the optician thought it might be and he expects her to outgrow the need for glasses in time. She has picked out "dark pink" (her description) metallic frames with a little picture of Snow White on the side. Very five year old girl.  The orthodontist is happy with the way Marie's teeth are progressing, and says that even with the current braces the wires should soon get more stable as the gaps where she had teeth extracted close up. I hope so!

Helen had a parent-tutor evening at school last week. Her tutor is very happy with her - she works hard, is making good progress, and is predicted decent grades. Quite a number of kids in her year had taken their first AS level exams in January and got their grades back. Apparently a lot of people were very unhappy with their maths results - there is a big jump in difficulty between the GCSEs they took last year and AS level and it showed - which has put her off the idea of picking up maths again next year and she is now thinking she will just continue with the three subjects she is doing this year (English Language, Media Studies and Photography) and add in ICT as an extra.

Oops! Just realised I should have woken the girls up quarter of an hour ago! Have a horrible feeling this morning is going to degenerate into a frantic rush.

Book 9: I is for Immortal

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It was coincidental that I read this after The Help, but it made a good follow on as it also tells the story of a black woman in mid-20th century America. This time it was non-fiction rather than fiction, and about both life and death. Henrietta Lacks, a young mother of five, died from a virulent cervical cancer in the 1950s but a cell culture taken from her tumour became the first to be kept alive successfully in the laboratory. The extraordinary vigour of HeLa cells has made them central to scientific and medical research ever since. This book hits the sweet spot between human interest and science, merging the stories of Henrietta herself, the family who outlived her, and the cells she left behind. It also opens up an ethical can of worms - while HeLa cells became a multi-million (or billion?) pound business, her family did not learn about them until 20 years after her death and when they did discover that Henrietta's cells were alive they were left to flounder in a mix of incomprehension and resentment. Even today the legal position regarding the use of medical tissue samples is murky. My verdict? A fascinating story, thoroughly researched and well told.

Book 8: H is for Help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book tells the story of life in a Mississippi town in the early 1960s in the voice of one white woman and two black maids and does it very well, managing to communicate some of the subtleties that existed under the extreme racist veneer of that time and place and bringing in a wide and varied cast of characters. It is a book I am glad I read and one I would definitely recommend. Having said that, I didn't find it an easy book.

Many years ago Tevye visited relatives in South Africa. He remembers it as the most beautiful place he has ever been, but also remembers the profound discomfort he felt on seeing the "Whites Only" signs and the guilt he felt at using "Whites Only" facilities. This book left me feeling a bit of the same discomfort as it brought home to me just what the entrenched divide between black and white in mid-20th century Mississippi really meant - I already knew a fair amount intellectually, but this helped me to understand it on a more personal and emotional level. As a result I both enjoyed the book but was simultaneously disturbed by the insight into attitudes and a way of life that dehumanised so many people.

I'm slipping behind a bit on my 52 books in 52 weeks which has now reached week 10, though as I was a bit slow to review  The Help I am already nearly at the end of Book 9, so not doing too badly!