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Memoirs of a Surrey Labourer
order this bookGeorge Sturt Price £30.00  George Sturt's Memoirs Of A Surrey Labourer is a sequel to his Bettesworth Book, and covers the period from 1896 to 1905, the year of Frederick Grover (alias BetteswOrth)'S death. The book is not only a moving account of Grover's life as it came to an end, but is also a rich source of inform ation on the economic and social life of an agricultural labourer at the end of the nineteenth century. The combination of Sturt's skilful use of language, and his ability to capture the direct feel of rural speech, ensures his work will continue to interest not only social historians and students of English literature, but also the general reading public. The present book is an important account of life before the mechanization and suburban ization of the countryside; it is also a compelling biography written through the vivid language and experience of a Surrey labourer.From Chapter 25: "September 26, 1896. "Nor was it only of current topics that he could talk with such fullness of detail. Getting shortly afterwards into the reminiscent vein, he succeeded in paralyzing my memory with the tale of things he had observed many years before in just the same unsystematic yet thorough fashion. My hasty jottings, made afterwards, preserve only a few points, and do not tell how any of them were suggested. The talk was at one time of Basingstoke Fair, 'where they goes to hire theirselves for the year.' Of 'shepherds with a bit o' wool in their hats, carters with a bit o' whipcord, and servant gals,' and so on. 'I went once,' said Bettesworth, 'when I was a nipper - went away from Penstead; but I never got hired. . . . There's the place for games, though! They carters, when they've jest took their year's money, and be changin' "racks," as they calls it. "You bin an' changed your rack, Bill?" "What rack be you got on to?" "You got on for old Farmer So-and-so?" . . . There they be, hollerin' about. And then they all got their shillin', what bin hired. . . .' "I did not stop then to consider whether this hiring shilling, and the token in the hat, might have any relationship, in the world of old customs, to the 'King's shillings' and the bunch of ribbons of the recruit for the army." |