Social History books

[Solasum]

I recently picked up The Road to Wigan Pier, and was very interested by the first section, which discusses real life for ordinary people, not just the upper classes that appear in many other books.

Can anyone recommend anything similar that I might enjoy? Readable Social history, basically.

Many Thanks

Any of the Mass Observation books. Simon Garfield has written books using the sources but giving the writers pseudonyms. One of them was really named Jean Lucey Pratt and her journals were published as A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt and were edited by Simon Garfield. She wrote them from 1925 until her death in 1986z

I also always bang on about recommend on here Can Any Mother Help Me? Compiled by Jenna Bailey. It's an extraordinary non fiction book. Most if the women are middle class who were educated but were now married and constrained by the times to look after husbands and children and home. Stemming from a small ad in a magazine asking for help with feelings of isolation and loneliness. the women formed a private magazine telling other members about their frustrations of early 20th century domestic life..

I've seen it described as a sort of Mumsnet of its day.

The call the midwife books are brilliant for this.

For more recent social history (60s to 80s)- along with political and economic history, Dominic Sandbrooks’ books are great.

I agree re Call The Midwife too. They are not just about mothers and babies but cover district nursing too - there are some harrowing stories about people who survived the workhouses.

A Ragged Schooling by Robert Roberts. Highly recommended. It’s a memoir. He also wrote about the area he grew up in (Salford) in The Classic Slum, also recommended.

If you enjoyed the road to Wigan pier have a go at Wigan pier revisited by Beatrix Campbell. It is all about women in the same place but in the 80s under thatcher. Very interesting