A poor man's house

by Stephen Sydney Reynolds

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1908

About the author

1881-1919

Reviews

[Felicity · Rating 3 out of 5]

I admire the author's immersion in, commitment to and respect for the life of a Sidmouth fisherman in the early years of the nineteenth century. He shows commendable willingness to suspend and ultimately abandon his own middle-class privileges and presumptions about poverty, material possessions, dirt, diet and domestic hygiene. What I do not appreciate is his phonetic rendering of the speech of his host family and community, a discomfort also expressed by Roy Hattersley's concession, in the introduction to this edition, that 'attempts to reproduce dialect rarely succeed and perhaps the best that can be said for Stephen Reynolds's efforts is that they cause no more embarrassment than the parallel failures of more illustrious writers', a concession that merely damns the author with faint praise. Like all recorders of other people's speech, Reynolds never applies the same principle to his own supposedly 'received pronunciation' of the language. The mote in one's own eye so easily migrates to the ear. As Burns might have said, in his own self-styled dialect, 'O wad some Pow'r the giftie us / To hear oursels as ithers hear us!' Had Reynolds succeeded in overcoming the sole residual prejudice of his privileged background, I would have found his conversion more convincing. But perhaps I am nursing an insuperable prejudice of my own against the middle-class transcription of working-class speech.

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

I seem to be in a minority, but I really hated this book. The author presents himself as a middle-class man who chooses to live with a working class family because he sees them as his 'superiors', yet the whole book is filled with a subtly patronising attitude which belies his claim.

For example, when he first stays with the 'Widger' family (the real-life Woolley family), he names two of their daughters Curly and Straighty because he claims he can't remember their names. Which makes him no different from the rest of his class who would rename a serving girl because her given name was 'inappropriate to her station in life'. A little later, he complains when a fellow lodger remarks to him in private that Mrs Widger has a wide mouth: "Mrs Widger has a noticeably wide mouth; I know that perfectly well; but I can hardly say how indignant I felt at his light remark; how insulted; as if he had spoken slightingly of someone belonging to me." So it is offensive for another men to mention her mouth in private, but quite ok for Reynolds to comment on it in a book that will be read by thousands? His only justification appears to be that he views Mrs Wider as "belonging" to him.

Most of the time, he seems to view his 'friends' as some kind of experiment - rather as if they were animals he were studying. At one point, he takes them a cup of tea first thing in the morning because they looked "so jolly in bed" and he goes on to describe their appearance. I felt quite queasy reading this, and wasn't surprised to discover from an article on Reynolds that the couple were mortified by this invasion of their privacy.

When he attends the Regatta with the family, he complains that wider members of the family are also invited and dislikes them being dressed in their best clothes - he feels deeply uncomfortable any time a member of the 'lower classes' dresses up smartly, although he dresses it up in the pretence that it's not natural for them. "Worst of all, one party had brought the family idiot..." He goes on to speak of this poor man in horribly disparaging terms. Obviously owning smart clothes and having a relative with learning difficulties are both things that don't fit in with his 'vision' of the working class family.

In the preface to the second edition, he demands sympathy because "It is no holiday to be a buffer between two classes, continually subject on both sides to misunderstanding..." and talks about sometimes wishing he could return to his own class, yet this is a situation entirely of his own choosing, and he has the freedom to change it whenever he wishes. Unfortunately, the Widgers do not have the same freedom of choice, and whenever one of them shows an inclination to seek a slightly easier and better off life, perhaps by working in a shop instead of as a servant or a sailor, he discourages them because he has this sentimental, romantic idea of the nobility of their hard life.

Midway through the book, Tony Widger says "Aye! the likes o' us slaves an' slaves all our life, an' us never gets no for'arder...Come the time when yu'm past work, an' yu be done an' wearied out, then all yer slavin's gone for nort...Tain't right like." Yet this is the life that Reynolds is adamant is best for the Widger family and he does everything he can to makes sure that is the life they keep having. His life is easy by contrast, and he can choose to walk away and make it even easier at any point, yet he is determined that his 'friends' shall not have the same opportunities.

It isn't all bad - there are moments when he seems to forget his 'superiority' and writes very movingly and honestly, and for this reason, I've reluctantly awarded 2 stars. But I can't honestly recommend this book, unless you want to see how deep-rooted the middle class urge to patronise the poor really is - so deep-rooted that they think they are doing it even when they are not.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible glimpse into the past.

[Chiefdonkey Bradey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Artless confessional, poignant and wise