To show there has been a book written about everything, here is one on local government. It is a touching story of a Yorkshire community in the 1930s, covering the rich, the poor, and everything in between.
It’s shockingly contemporary in many ways. Most affecting is the story of a very bright teenage girl whose mother dies giving birth to an eighth child, and who thus has to drop out of school at 15 to look after the other kids Note, the doctor had told the mother she should not have another child, and she did not want one, but I guess she could not refuse her husband, who got a bit drunk and after all it wasn’t his death sentence and THANK GOD FOR BIRTH CONTROL.
Also THANK GOD FOR VACCINATION. The author, Winifred Holtby, died at 36, of kidney issues from the Scarlet Fever she had as a child. She knew she had only about two years to live and dedicated it to finishing this book. It was her fifth, and she was disappointed none had been very warmly received. This one, published posthumously, was a huge hit and is now considered a twentieth century classic.
Side bar, this Winifred Holtby was a dear friend of Vera Brittain (whose TESTAMOUNT OF YOUTH I read a couple of years ago). They lived together when they moved to London after university, and then, touchingly/weirdly, carried on doing so even after Vera got married. To answer your question, the husband did not like it, no.
How much do you love this line from the introduction, about how Winifred was in 1935 “staying in Hornsea on the Yorkshire coast in order to escape the distractions and fatigue of life in London . . .” The distractions and fatigue of a life in London! I hear you Winifred, I hear you.