Born in 1948, Maureen Harvey was brought up in a poor working-class household in Birmingham at a time when the city was still a major manufacturing centre.Despite her family's poor circumstances, the author recalls a childhood filled with family pride and neighbourliness; of making do with whatever came to hand; of being thankful for small mercies. This was an age where the deserving poor could write to the Daily Mail and receive a pair of serviceable boots free of charge; when as a small child Maureen would forage for coal and wood for fuel. The industrial working classes really were 'poor, but proud and honest'.The perfect book for readers of nostalgic historical non-fiction, about life in Britain as the country emerged from the grim years of the Second World War.