Rebecca Ball, "A Hundred English Working-Class Lives, 1900-1945" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2024)
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Whatever you love, find it on eBay. eBay. Things people love. Welcome to the New Books Network. Welcome to New Books and Critical Theory. It's a podcast that's part of the New Books Network. On this episode, I'm talking to Rebecca Ball about 100 English working class lives, 1900 to 1945. So welcome to the podcast. Hi, thank you for having me.

This is a great book and it's absolutely fascinating, particularly in terms of kind of bringing to life, um,

as it says in the title, 100 English working class lives. But more than that, actually, I think it has major contributions about our understanding of social change and kind of the history of that period too. And I'm probably going to come back actually and ask quite a bit about this idea of social change as we go. But to kick off with, what inspired you to write the book?

Well, originally, it stemmed out of my interest in the experiences of those who really kind of lived through two world wars, one as a child and then one as an adult. And I thought that might impact quite significantly how they viewed both of those conflicts. But as I started to look

at these sort of autobiographies, it didn't have as much impact as I thought it would. And so it actually kind of grew out of the kind of what topics did they talk about? What did impact their everyday lives? And that then became the basis for my PhD thesis. And when I finished that, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity then to expand even further, introduce more working class lives and include some of the stuff that inadvertently kind of, you know, didn't make the cut for the actual thesis.

Can you say a bit actually about the autobiographies? I mean, I was fascinated both in terms of them as a kind of source, you know, a kind of classic sort of debate slash whinge in history is often around kind of quality of records and quality of sources. But I'm sort of intrigued as to both, you know, how did you kind of come across them? Where did you find them? How did you find kind of a hundred of them as well?

The first one I found was actually in another historian, Rosie Kennedy's book as a footnote. And that led me then to look at the archive that she had used. And it's an archive that's at Brunel University of working class life histories.

And it that archive grew out of a critical bibliography that was written in the 1980s by social historians, John Burnett, David Vincent and David Mayall, who had actually kind of set out to prove that the working class did, in fact, write about their lives because there's kind of this assumption that they either weren't able to or didn't have the time.

And they put out this call for any kind of autobiographical information that people might have, any life histories that they'd written or family members had written. And they collected quite a substantial amount of autobiographical material. And then they turned that into this kind of critical bibliography. And I then went through that bibliography and had a look at the ones that were kind of relevant to the time period that I was looking at.

It's a fascinating collection really, as well as the working class

lives umbrella that there's a real sort of diversity of um you know different types of individuals different i suppose we call it like social mobility uh trajectories you know really different and distinctive um experiences some of which you know you tease out when you're talking about things like um gender um divisions and it's yeah it's such a kind of fascinating um

basis for the book. And maybe one place to start, I suppose, is, you know, kind of where they start with the stories of childhood. And I wonder if you could give a kind of a sense of flavor of what childhood was like across the 100 autobiographies.

Yeah, of course. And childhood, I think, is quite a natural starting point for most people with their autobiographies. And so I think most of them kind of follow a kind of quite linear progression from childhood through to adulthood. And the fact that they're all kind of self-identified as working class is also quite important in terms of, you know, the fact that the working class have never just been one kind of group.

And sometimes it can be quite hard to kind of differentiate between even upper and working class and lower middle class. So as you say, there is quite a diversity of experiences.

And I think as a whole, their childhoods are often relatively kind of difficult or exposed in comparison to kind of what we would expect today. Some lived in very extreme poverty whilst others were slightly better off. Some had very kind of tumultuous or even uncaring relationships with their parents or their kind of wider family, whereas others have

very affectionate relationships with those in their family. And it kind of shows that there is a range of experiences in childhood amongst the working class at this kind of period of time. I mean, that story of...

a range of experiences really is the kind of central idea or indeed one of the several central ideas that comes through the book. And this, you know, is true when we're thinking about housing, school, work, and thinking about that kind of, you know, I suppose set of differences, although

As a reader, I wouldn't have liked to have grown up in most of those circumstances. And I wonder if we might jump around actually in the book, because one of the things you've just said there really reminded me of the chapter, which comes much later in the book, which is about housing. And it's interesting how...

objectively the description of housing it's all bad like none of it is great but one of the things you kind of tease out is there's a certain nostalgia about housing and I wonder if you could maybe sketch out some of the experiences of housing and a bit like kind of you know stories of childhood why there is this perhaps nostalgic element to the story

Well, as you say, the housing is generally described as quite bad. And I don't think that's necessarily that surprising when we actually kind of think about the kind of wider state of housing in Britain, particularly after kind of the First World War, when we start to kind of have the housing shortage. You know, there's still the kind of slum areas in lots of the major kind of cities. And the working class are, of course, very limited in their options, right?

But I think the reason that they're so nostalgic is because I think it's maybe part of just the kind of, I don't know, the human condition in some ways that they're reflecting back on this time where, you know, they kind of view it as relatively innocent and simple. So whilst a lot of the housing is very subpar, you know, potentially even simple.

slum-like, it's still the kind of centre of their family and their community. And I think that's why they're quite nostalgic in particular about their housing, because it's very much linked to kind of that almost carefree childhood period of their life. I mean, you also mentioned the war there, and it's almost impossible to kind of pick out a single

a chapter or a single theme because the war runs you know sort of right through the book and it's probably you know a kind of strange question to be like so what happened to them in the war but i wonder if you could give a sense of the way that as much as their life experiences of you know childhood of housing etc were varied also their experience of the war was too

I think that's why I was so interested originally, as I say, in this kind of two different kind of periods of wartime and the differences between being a child in one and an adult in another. As you say, it really does impact on most of the areas. What kind of surprised me the most was how little kind of time they actually dedicate, a lot of them in their narratives, to what we consider, particularly as historians, very major significant events in

Instead for them, they're often background events that kind of just cause issues. In childhood, it tends to be very much related to things such as difficulties in obtaining kind of food, the impact of rationing on their family, almost this kind of, again, childlike complaints. But they also kind of identify some positives. You know, they quite enjoy the aftermath of air raids, for example, particularly those that live in London.

And the war kind of, even for some, brings some excitement to their lives. I think the reason that they have so many varied wartime experiences is because absence and death isn't really very central to most of their experiences. Obviously, the autobiographers themselves survive the Second World War into adulthood. And as children, most of them are quite fortunate that their father died

or even for most, their siblings are not in active service. In fact, of the 100 autobiographies, only two actually have their father killed during the First World War. And so it gives quite a unique insight, I think, then into life on the home front that's not necessarily dominated just by death and absence, although it naturally is still kind of part of their experiences anyway, on a wider sense.

as they move sort of through their lives, the war, as you say, like, you know, kind of,

forms the background but I suppose actually the sort of everyday life is much more kind of prominent in the narratives and one I mean there are several examples we can dive into but one of them is school and education and partially there was I suppose the sort of mundane elements of thinking about what was it like you know like what were you learning were there teachers you liked you know like but then there are some real I think insights into how

how education intersects with poverty and with social class, particularly around the idea of going to

I suppose, you know, kind of grammar schools or, you know, more academic institutions where things like scholarships and money are involved. And some of, from a personal point of view, the most kind of poignant passages in the book are those moments where kids who are, you know, 10 or 11 are reflecting on, I kind of decided it would be easier to fail an exam because I knew my parents couldn't afford it. And I wonder if you could kind of bring to life, I suppose, the differences in terms of educational experiences. Yeah.

Yeah, and just on a kind of even a kind of personal level. So as you say, a lot of a lot of the autobiographies kind of go through kind of school as a kind of just natural progression and they leave mostly around the kind of age of 14, as is kind of expected of them, although...

For some, they could have maybe left a little bit earlier. But there are a few who have that opportunity, as you mentioned, to progress into secondary and some do and even onto further education. But those are very, very limited still by their own family circumstances and responsibilities.

Even in cases where they know that their parents would have supported them in studying, that they can't actually provide the extra income that would have been needed to cover one, their child not working.

And two, the extras that would have been required, even if they got a scholarship to attend school, because they needed books and uniforms and other such items that they just couldn't afford. And as you say, some even purposefully failed their exams so that their parents wouldn't have to be in that position of telling them that they couldn't actually continue on into education. And I think we kind of associate that as being quite a, you know, a

an outdated kind of, well, not outdated attitude, but something that's kind of obviously been long gone. But it was actually the experience of my own grandmother. She had to turn down a scholarship to go to further education into secondary school, into grammar school, because of family responsibilities and other financial restraints, just as these other children did, you know, only kind of 30, 40 years earlier. So I think it's quite insightful,

you know, of the kind of maturity that they had at that age, but also the very real limitations that were still present for the working class, you know, and then even still after, really, even still after 1945, when my, you know, when my grandmother was, you know, going to school.

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kids, younger people to go out to work. So like what happens, I suppose, maybe in two stages. One is kind of when they first enter the labour market, what kind of jobs are they getting? What are they doing? What are their kind of reflections on their early experiences of work? As they kind of go into the working world, it does seem to be very, very quick. You know, they're almost expected to kind of take any sort of job.

And they are in that kind of category of being relatively low paid at that point because they wouldn't be skilled. And so there is, I think, quite a lot of opportunities for them to kind of get work quite quickly. It becomes more of an issue as they kind of progress, maybe in terms of actual opportunities open to them. And this is also where we see gender having an impact as well.

As long as I in addition to kind of all the family responsibilities, particularly following marriage as they get older as well and raising a family. But in the kind of initial stages of work, it's kind of really kind of accept, I suppose, kind of anything that you can kind of get just to kind of start bringing income into the family home.

Yeah, I mean, the gender stuff is really fascinating and maybe we'll address that in a couple of ways. One is, as you've sort of touched on there, just how different the...

gender roles, gender expectations and heavily gendered experience of, you know, the men finding jobs to work and the women, you know, being in the home doing a variety of kind of social reproduction, domestic labor. Um, so that's probably one question. And then the other question in that space is what happens when these men are like not providing. And there are several incredibly brutal stories, um,

of, I guess, really unpleasant men who, you know, the women are finding themselves, I guess, kind of negotiating around or in some cases are kind of lucky enough to leave. Yeah, and gender, the kind of impact of gender, I think, is most important.

clearly apparent in the chapter on employment or kind of when they're kind of discussing their employment opportunities. As you say, the men, interestingly, do seem to have quite a variety of occupations that they go into. Mostly it's blue collar work, which is perhaps, again, not that surprising considering most of them would have left school around the kind of age of 14. But what surprised me most about the men's employment is that they do just seem to go into anything and everything, right?

There's one, he works selling bundles of sticks, then he tries to become a fishmonger, then he gets a job in a tailor's shop, and none of these things are in any way related. He just goes to any sort of interviews or job opportunities to see if he can find employment.

I did expect that maybe more of the men would follow the same employment patterns as their father, particularly in very established areas of work. And that does seem to be the case in certain areas such as mining. But that might also be because there is limited job opportunities within that area as well. But more often than not, it is a case of just kind of taking any sort of job that they can.

The women in comparison are very much encouraged or forced, I suppose, into jobs that would have been considered appropriate for them. There's still quite a large amount who go into domestic work. Though we do see the kind of rise of office work as well as a kind of new opportunity, I suppose, or a newer opportunity for working class women within this sample as well.

But inevitably, most of them have to leave their employment when they are, not necessarily just when they're married, because some still kind of stay in work, but particularly when they have children. And again, that's partly due to this kind of expectation of them as women, but also kind of practical reasons, because they don't have, you know, childcare, you know, somebody has to stay with the children as well. Yeah. And it's a thinking, I suppose, the

with professional lives where they're like formal marriage bars. Here it's, I guess, the combination of some formal expectations of leaving with marriage and children, but also that kind of practical question. This, I guess, and you mentioned domestic service, this is not the class who are hiring the nannies, basically. Yeah.

And in that kind of context, it brings me, I suppose, one problem or kind of worry that there is in this space sometimes is, and we sort of mentioned this in terms of housing, is a potential kind of grimness that comes through these narratives, particularly when they're kind of added together. But one of the things the book does really well is it also presents people

some quite sweet narratives about romance, marriage, sex lives of the hundred, and then also kind of what they do for fun alongside actually the structures of religious observance in their lives. And again, you know, maybe we'll do them in turn. What, I guess, the kind of like the romantic stories that come through of things like courtship and I guess the kind of positive tales of marriage. Yeah.

I love some of the kind of more romantic stories that they have and the slightly more emotional stories, I suppose, that they include. As you say, sometimes when we kind of view these things, it seems to us maybe is quite grim. And I know you mentioned before just briefly as well about some of the kind of more violent relationships that some of the autobiographers had.

But on the whole, most of them do appear to have fortunately quite loving relationships with their spouses when they eventually marry. And in fact, it actually turned out to be that the male writers were the ones who tended to be more

poetic in their reminiscences of their wives, which again was perhaps a little bit unexpected. They're the ones that tend to say, oh, she was my rock. She was my everything. You know, I lent upon her. She was my soulmate. And sometimes I think the female autobiographers are a little bit more to the point and just said, oh yeah, we enjoyed going out rambling and he seemed nice and we, you know, we got married.

But overall, they're definitely stories of, very often, of togetherness and at least for the most part, it seems relative harmony. And I kind of made the point in the book

that that could suggest that for some working class that they are working towards or kind of aiming for kind of a more companionate style of marriage where they do spend a little bit more leisure time together. And it's not just this very, very rigid male breadwinner sphere and female domestic sphere. Not to say that the responsibilities can emerge though. What were they doing for fun then? And again, actually it's striking the, um,

the differences between their kind of childhood fun and then I guess kind of what we think of as more formal leisure in adulthood. In childhood it's very much this outdoor sort of carefree play that they describe, playing games out on the streets,

Chasing games, skipping rope, things like that. Also time with family, of course, as well. Very often they describe gathering around, for those that are fortunate enough to be able to afford a piano, gathering around, singing songs, walking with their family, but mostly that kind of peer-related play that tends to be kind of outdoor and slightly rambunctious most of the time.

As they kind of get into their adulthood, it obviously naturally shifts from that kind of outdoor play. And this is where you see the kind of leisure being...

almost kind of constricted or shaped by other aspects. And notably, it wasn't really so much gender that seemed to impact their choices in adulthood, but more often than not, the kind of more financial restraints. So often, you know, some of them describe going to free shows or kind of activities such as the cinema, which would be relatively cost effective, particularly when they have children as well.

And it's that sort of kind of leisure that they start to kind of take part in, but also sports. You know, there's quite a lot of them that kind of seem to play in kind of sports groups and rambling still. It's one of the main kind of pastimes for quite a few of them, the kind of being outdoor and active sports.

One of the things that the book, and we've touched on this already, grapples with is this kind of sense of these big world historical events kind of going on

almost as a kind of backdrop to the important things that the autobiographers write about, which are, you know, the kind of everyday lives that they have kind of, you know, experienced and lived through. And I suppose if we move from slightly the empirical to the theoretical, one of the questions that the book comes to in the conclusion, but, you know, runs throughout the book is kind of why this is, you know, why is something like

the experience of living through two world wars so boring, if that's the right term, or at least, you know, such, it occupies a peripheral place in the narratives. And I'm intrigued as to kind of, you know, why there is that sense of continuity in the 100 stories.

And it's tricky in some ways to say exactly, you know, obviously without being able to fully ask them. I know, you know, I wish I could have interviewed so many of these people about these sort of topics because very often they'll stop anecdotes or they'll just end abruptly or they'll move on to something else. I'm like, I wish you could have just talked about that or written about that, sorry, for just a few more moments so that we could have really kind of understood exactly how you felt about it.

I wonder sometimes if it's because we often approach history from this very macro perspective and because we view the wars as being such a kind of prompt for massive social change, which they of course are, and social upheaval.

But I wonder if it's kind of in the similar way that maybe now if people were reflecting on their lives, how much COVID, for example, would be kind of present in their recollections? Or again, would it be a backdrop

as something that they can kind of consider in relation to the things like absence, separation, concerns about health, etc., that may be kind of overarching discussions with that as a backdrop. And I think that, yeah, it's an interesting one why it's kind of so much kind of in the background. I think it's because not all of the social changes that we associate with the war impacted each individual personally.

And very often there is as much kind of continuity as there is radical change for most of the individuals. So whilst there might be these kind of, as I say, overarching differences, such as the kind of removal of the marriage bar, you know, that would have only affected the women that had been in employment in those areas, such as teaching. But that would have had little impact on the kind of male writers, for example.

And so I think it's that's the reason perhaps that they're not as all encompassing is because not every direct consequence or impact of the war was actually directly impacting them during their lives.

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babbel.com slash Spotify podcast spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash Spotify podcast. Rules and restrictions may apply. I guess this is the value of what quite early on in the book you talk about as kind of micro history and as a way to sort of kind of wrap up the discussion of the book. I'm intrigued by what that is both as a subfield, but also like maybe as a kind of an approach or a methodology almost.

Yeah, I think microhistory is a very useful methodological approach that historians can use, particularly to kind of understand this kind of very, very kind of everyday sort of life experience of people. And the idea then is that you take either, you know, an event or a small group of people and explore what either that event or the experiences of those individuals can then really tell us about bigger historiographical issues.

And of course, that's not to say that these autobiographies are representative of every person in England at that time. And I would never make that claim. This isn't a social history of the working class as a whole. This is very much this kind of micro history of these lives.

But they do offer a different insight into these various different aspects of history that we've talked about, you know, education, employment, gender, family, death, absence and leisure. And we tend to approach those on quite a broad scale, whereas the micro history can really bring us back down to that very, very individual approach.

and help us understand, well, if maybe life was like that for this person, perhaps there are other experiences that we're not getting at yet, that we are not including in the story. It strikes me that microhistory could be, I guess, a kind of, you know,

almost a career, you know, in terms of setting both your sort of research agenda, but also there's, as you just mentioned, you know, it's kind of so much more and so many starting points for future research questions.

At the same time, you mentioned this is a kind of long-term project and included a PhD as well as the book. And I wonder, are you at the point where you're thinking, and now I'd like to do something kind of completely different as a historian? What are you doing, I guess, kind of now and next?

In terms of the next steps and the kind of where my research is going, one of the things that I am interested at looking at a little bit more in detail, and we didn't quite get time to talk about it just now, but is the kind of history of contraception and attitudes towards sex and kind of sexual relationships amongst the working class, because they are still very much seen as taboo.

or at least particularly in kind of conversation amongst kind of respectable groups.

whereas the autobiographies do touch upon them and I think that gives us another insight into that sort of area and I've just written a short magazine article for History Today on this topic and it's something that I would like to kind of explore even further. That and also the history of sibling relationships because I think siblings are often

excluded from a lot of our understandings of the family even though biologically speaking they're the next closest relationships to us after our parents so there's kind of a couple of irons in the fire as it were.