The book 'The Family from One End Street' by Eve Garnett was first published in 1937 by Fredrick Muller. It was published by Puffin Books in 1942 then re-printed in 1945, 1949, 1951, 1954, 1958, 1961, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1971 (twice), 1972, 1974, 1975 (twice), 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, (I have been unable to find info on any other reprinting dates for the 22 years until 2004 but as it has been reprinted in the following dates 2003- audio cassette, 2004, 2009, 2010, 2014 I would assume that it was still being reprinted in those 22 years. If you find some dates could you please let me know so I can add them to this blog.
I found a website
rarestkindofbest.com that mentions that
'this book is perhaps most notable for beating J.R.R. Tolkien’s
The Hobbit for the Carnegie Medal of 1937.' Amazing!
I have been fortunate to pick up a 1981 edition of this little book from the Life Line Bookfest that was held in Brisbane (2015).
I always like to read books at night, it gives my brain something else to think about before I go to sleep. When I picked this book up I didn't really think that I would like it and granted I nearly put it down as the beginning of the book was not something I would normally like but I decided to read more than the first page before I would cancel it out and I am glad I did.
I found this story delightful first because every story has a happy ending. Second the characters especially the mother Rosie. She has such a fierce love for her family and even though her five children test her patients she loves them dearly. She is a Washerwoman, her husband (Jo) is a Dustman and they have six children, Lily Rose (12
1/2), Kate, the twins - James (called Jim) and John, Jo (junior), Margaret Rosie (nickname Peggy to Peg), William
I love the down to earthyness of this story. They are poor but do not let that get them down, they just get on with life and not look to what other people have and regret the life they have.
Another thing I like about this story is the writing. There is soo much back information. The thoughts and think processes about why something is happening, why it is not wanted to happen, what happens if it does. These days authors are told to delete, delete, delete. Make the story short, compact and in doing so a lot of the back info that has been told to the reader in this story, I think would not be available if it was written today. It makes me wonder when I look at how many times this book has been re-printed since 1935!
I am very pleased that I have read this book and would recommend it to anyone.
I have found a few remarks other people have written about the story and thought you might be interested.
1930-1960.blogspot.com.au
A remarkable series of three books showing the lives and aspirations of
an urban working class family, children (Lily Rose, Peg, Jo and Kate) of
a refuse collector (Mr Ruddles) and his wife. We are introduced to the
Black Hand Gang (innocent by today's standards). The first title was
published before WW2. The second,
Further Adventures... takes
the three youngest children into the country where they experience
village life and farming, staying at the Dew Drop Inn. This book was
written shortly after the first, but the manuscript was damaged,
presumed destroyed, in a Blitz fire but was recovered and reconstructed
in 1956. The children return to the Dew Drop on holiday in the third
book of the series,
Holiday at Dew Drop Inn.
These books are not in print, which is a shame, since the writing is of
good quality. The most common versions are by Puffin, the second and
third made expensive by rarity. The writer (middle class) shows this
working class family in a good light, hardworking, anxious to be clean
and to better themselves whilst clearly being proud of their roles in
life. The story is told with humour, to some extent laughing at most of
the characters.
www.theguardian.com
The Family from One End Street marked a series of firsts for me.
Perhaps most importantly, it was the first book to break the
stranglehold of Enid Blyton. Much as I loved the 826 billion volumes of
Famous Five et al, the day eventually dawned when I started running a
speculative eye over library and shop shelves for stories about
something other than the spy-catching quintet. And there, suddenly, were
the Ruggles family — two parents, seven children — all rendered equally
lively and interesting but all utterly different from each other, and
all utterly real.
Episodically structured, it became therefore the first book I loved
for its characters rather than its plot. And it was the first book not
only for me, but for all of its readers when it was first published in
1937, to make urban, working-class children its heroes. Some critics
detected a patronising tone towards Garnett's characters, but others
praised her for avoiding both sentimentality and condescension and
replacing them with what one called "a careful truthfulness" instead.
Not
that I knew or cared about any of this at the time, of course. I just
knew it was a relief to spend time with book-children who, like me, had
more experience of a world bounded by building sites, patches of grubby
parkland and knackered working parents than they did of one strewn with
rolling moors, private islands and spies.
It was also the first book I owned that had been written and
illustrated by the author. Garnett had been an art student and the book
grew out of her walks through the back streets of London as she searched
for subjects to sketch. Incidentally, the drawings are lovely — sweet,
strong and deceptively simple, like the book itself.
But better even than the book was this: it had a sequel. Two, in
fact: The Further Adventures of the Family from One End Street, and
Holiday at the Dew Drop Inn, which were, if you can believe it, even
better. This gave me a wholly misguided sense of life as a process of
cumulative improvement, which would take several painful years of
experience to dispel, but on the plus side, Holiday at the Dew Drop Inn
gave me my first understanding of just how deep the pleasures of reading
could run.
It was as if, with the story of Kate Ruggles' summer-long stay at the
eponymous hostelry and enthusiastic embrace of village life, Eve
Garnett had peered into my mind and written down exactly what she knew
would delight me most. That seemed to me magic of the highest order and I
raced off to other shelves to find it again.
shelflove.wordpress.com
The book is a wonderful, crammed-full, meandering affair, exactly
like the prose you just read. Each chapter follows the adventure of one
of the children (if adventure it can really be called; it’s more like
day-in-the-life, but life is very full in a large family at One End
Street.) Lily Rose tries to help her mother with the ironing, but the
iron is too hot, and the artificial-silk petticoat shrinks to doll’s
size. The calamity is enormous: how will they pay to replace it? But in
this, as in every other chapter, disaster is averted, and Lily Rose goes
home with nothing worse than her mother’s scolding and a slice of cake.
And so it goes: Kate takes a scholarship but loses her school hat, and
demonstrates intelligence and resourcefulness getting another; the twins
James and John have day-long adventures for a secret society; the whole
family has a Day Out to London. Every moment is both suspenseful and
gloriously ordinary.
I have a colleague who is writing an article about the representation
of poverty in children’s books. This is a perfect example. This family
is living on the very edge of respectability, keeping everyone fed and
clothed. Sixpences matter dreadfully. When Kate gets her scholarship,
and it pays for tuition but not the uniform, it’s clear she won’t be
able to go to school at all, because she’s required to have things like a
tennis-racket and shoe bags. But there’s no misery here. Frustration,
sometimes; longing for a trip to see family, certainly; sharp reminders
of necessity, in almost every chapter. Mr. Ruggles has dreams of finding
as much as five pounds in the trash he picks up! But the tone of this
book overall is from a child’s point of view: there’s much more interest
in adventure and exploration than in the ordinary world of getting
enough to eat. Garnett’s skill is that we see a little of both in this
book.
rarestkindofbest.com
Several episodes in the life of the Ruggles, a large working class
family in a small English town. Mr. Ruggles is a dustman and Mrs.
Ruggles takes in washing, and their seven children are well-meaning but
occasionally disobedient, resulting in many adventures and mishaps.
The Ruggles family is quite poor but morally upstanding, hardworking,
loyal and supportive of each other. A little rough around the edges,
but fun-loving and lively. The book is a series of separate episodes
loosely strung together: Lily Rose’s desire to do a good deed results in
an ironing mishap, Kate wins a coveted scholarship but must scramble to
afford the uniform, the twins James and John fall in with a gang of
older boys and in an effort to impress them have two wildly different
adventures, Jo schemes to sneak into the cinema to see the new colour
Mickey Mouse cartoon, and baby William wins first prize at the fair. In
the final chapters father Jo finds lost money in a dustbin and the
reward for returning it allows him to take the whole family to London
for a grand holiday.
In the 1930s in Britain it was very unusual for a children’s book to
have working class characters. Eve Garnett provided ordinary children
from the poorer areas of England stories which reflected their reality.
And the Ruggles’ poverty is not underplayed – in every chapter the cost
of things is a continual worry, and every penny scraped together is done
so with great effort (and sometimes, luck).
Today the book is still charming but quite old-fashioned. Children
will be amazed by the freedom which the Ruggles children enjoy, as they
wander about town and countryside without adult supervision. Nothing
terrible transpires, as their fellow villagers and all the strangers
they meet are kindly and help them out of difficulties. In particular
the rich folk they encounter are without exception generous and giving –
a gentler outlook on society than later books about class warfare in
Britain.
This book was, and still is, a sentimental favourite in the U.K., as
it appeared in the top ten favourites of all the Carnegie winners on the
70th anniversary of the awards. Relatively unknown outside of Britain,
this book is perhaps most notable for beating J.R.R. Tolkien’s
The Hobbit for the Carnegie Medal of 1937.
