The Foolish Virginorder this book
Margaret Penn
Price £30.00

First published in 1951, The Foolish Virgin is a biographical sequel to Margaret Penn's Manchester Fourteen Miles. The book begins where the latter leaves off with Hilda Winstanley (alias Margaret Penn) arriving in London to live with her father's family. The book is both a moving and humorous account of a young girl's reaction to being taken from a highly traditional rural working-class community and plunged into the sophisticated and active life of a middle-class professional family. All those who have enjoyed Manchester Fourteen Miles will find this book fascinating reading.

From Chapter 1, "The Nation of London":

"The instant she was alone, Hilda gingerly approached the geyser, half expecting to be blown to smithereens as she lit the pilot jet. The bathroom itself did not intimidate her, for it was not so very different from the one at the Vicarage in Moss Ferry where, in a voluminous sacking apron, she had earned her first pocket-money. But the geyser was pure magic. What a letter she would be able to write to Moss Ferry about it! Hot water gushing out by merely applying a match! At the Vicarage they had to light the big kitchen range and get a great fire going before the water was even warm. They simply wouldn't believe it when she described this miracle. She could hear her foster-mother's incredulous 'Nay! Ah never did!' when Lily read out the startling news. Having washed her hands and face, she drew her palms along the smooth white surface of the bath, already impatient for the night to come when she could legitimately get into it. That of course would not be for a whole week yet. This was Saturday, and before the kitchen-fire in Moss Ferry she had only last night had her wash all over for the week. If only she had known, she would have waited another day and had it in this clean, shining room; it had not yet occurred to her that perhaps her new relations, like the Vicar in Moss Ferry, washed all over every day, and not with ritualistic thoroughness once a week as they all did in the cottages.