A Backward Glance, by Jean Barber
Published by the Ilkeston and District Local History Society in 1997, 78 pages. Paperback (N6795)
Ilkeston is a small town situated on the banks of the River Erewash in Derbyshire, and it lies a couple of miles from the very western edge of the city of Nottingham, and in this book the author provides a fascianting short account of her childhood and growing up and working in the town in times gone by.
From the introduction: Jean Barber was born in 1924. Her mother died in childbirth, so she was informally adopted by an aunt and uncle, and always thought of them, and referred to them, as her mother and father. Her 'Dad' Charlie Rose was a night shift deputy at Mapperley Colliery. Jean's school years were spent successively at Gladstone Infants', Chaucer Street Junior, and Hallcroft Central schools - all of them now gone. A few years after her fourteenth birthday she started work in a local hosiery factory, which was the lot of many girl school-leavers in those days, as were the coal mines for the boys. Early in World War II she was drafted to work at Stanton Ironworks' Dale Plant, producing 500-pound bombs. To help the war effort she trained as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VA.D.) nurse at the old Ilkeston General Hospital, and later at Nottingham General. She also served in the Women's Home Defence.
Condition of the book is generally very good. The cover has one or two very minor scuffs but is clean and bright, the spine is intact, and all pages are clean, intact, unblemished and tightly bound. Their is very slight roll along the left and right hand edges of the book from where it has been stored flat on the shelves.