"How to Be a Victorian" by Ruth Goodman (2013)

 

I ADORE Ruth Goodman ever since I first glimpsed her in BBC documentaries about living on various "historic farms" by BBC. In fact, I might even be a bit of Ruth Goodman groupie, I would always watch anything with her, with greatest interest and pleasure. However, it turned out that so far I have actually never read any of the books she wrote and as 2026 is the year where I decided to read only authors I have never read before, this was a perfect choice. It might sound strange that I decided to read this while lying next to a swimming pool in Maspalomas, but hey, nothing better than to read about other people's suffering to enjoy and appreciate one's own life.

Goodman was everything I expected and than some. She did beautiful work on researching how majority of ordinary people lived back in the day - not just aristocrats and kings who are always mentioned and described, but ordinary people from all levels of class. "How to Be a Victorian" follows 24 hours in lives of Victorians - from getting up, getting dressed, breakfast, how did they travel to work, what exactly did they eat trough the day, what did they do in their free time, etc. It was packed with wonderfully crazy details and informations, for example how undertakers often sold hair stolen from corpses, babies were given opium so mothers could leave them at home and go to work, how the original idea behind public swimming pools was actually something else completely, the details about personal hygiene (brushing hair twice a day was perfectly fine and preferred to hair washing) and much, much more. And of course, heartbreaking accounts of small children going to work, something that would absolutely not be tolerated today. 

"My research has given me tremendous sympathy and admiration for those who somehow, despite dire circumstances, battled through. People such as Tony Widger, who quietly worked away in his kitchen in his underwear at dawn, carefully preparing a cup of tea and a biscuit for him and his wife to have in bed before they embarked upon their exhausting day’s industry of fishing and housework respectively. Or Hannah Cullwick, who was required to complete two hours of work before preparing her employer’s breakfast, and then her own. And not to forget six-year-old William Arnold, who stood alone in a field in January from dawn until dusk scaring crows, without even a bite to eat until he walked home after dark. All these people, ordinary in so many ways, seem to me heroic in their endurance, fortitude, love and commitment to their families."