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A Small Boy in the Sixties
order this bookGeorge Sturt Price £20.00  In this evocative autobiography, George Sturt recreates for the reader the world of a small boy in a provincial market town in the 1860's. Born in Farnham, Surrey in 1863, Sturt describes all aspects of his childhood, and using his writing powers to the full, he brings alive small town life in a way no other Victorian writer has done previously. An account is given of his family's wheel-wright shop as seen from the perspective of a child, along with descriptions of the people that impinged on Sturt's life at this time. Anyone interested in historical autobiography will find this book fascinating reading.From Chapter 7, "Hops": "A spectacle in itself for an hour or two in the autumn evening - from before sunset until dark - was this piecemeal home-going of the Farnham 'hoppers.' Not that they went, all of them, home every night. There were many gangs of 'out-pickers'- families from far away villages, or from the slums of Reading or of West London; and these came to stay until the hopping was over. Certainly it was one of the sights of the town to see some waggon load of village folk arriving; or weeks later, to see the families going off again in their waggons, close packed; to see, to hear them; for especially on the return journey (glad to be sitting down again and going home) the villagers wedged into their waggons would be singing all along the streets-probably having money in their pockets, or wearing new clothes, or new boots bought in Farnham town. The slum dwellers too had no home to go to. They had but 'barricks '- mere shelters with absolutely no sanitary conveniences; while many 'gyppoes '- many of 'the royal family '- had pitched their tents in the same hop-grounds where they worked all day. But besides all these there were hundreds from the villages near Farnham - fathers, mothers, children, and all-hundreds who had locked up their cottages and trudged in out of the country for the day's work, wet or fine; who every nightfall trudged back again their mile or two, tired, dirty, hungry. "I was not aware, then, that anybody saw anything sorrowful in these endless streams of shabby-looking people along all the country lanes at nightfall - the women pushing perambulators, the children too often squalling, many a boy or girl dragging a piece of 'spile'- a broken hop-pole-perhaps for cooking a supper. But after many years I did hear men like Bettesworth (as I never at any time heard their 'betters') speak compassionately of the women's weary days. Truly it must have been weary work for many a cottage woman (though I have no doubt many husbands helped), seeing that in the cottages, reached at last, the beds wanted making, while there was some washing up to be done, no water without going to the well, no tap, no fire or gas. But these things I did not know; and I never thought of the hoppers' home-going as anything but jolly. After a day amongst hops, and out of doors, they were sure to sleep well; and they would not only be hungry; they would have plenty of relishing food. There was no doubt about that. If a 'hopping morning' was one sign of the season, so, no less surely, was the smell every night of herrings frying! 'Red herrings' ('Sojers') were the meal everywhere. Every street or lane rejoiced in the crisp appetising smell of their cooking. The night air was fragrant with it." |