Please also view the interview notes.
a) Respondent's name, present address, year of birth, marital status, year of marriage, birthplace (street or district if known).
b) How many years did you live in the house where you were born? Where did you live then? CONTINUE FOR MOVES TO END OF 1918. FIND OUT ADDRESS AS NEARLY AS
POSSIBLE FOR 1911.
Do you remember why the family made these moves?
c) How many brothers and sisters did you have? Birth order and spacing.
d) How old was your father when you were born? (PROMPT: How old was he when he died? When was that?)
Where did he come from?
Occupation. (IF EMPLOYER: How many people did he employ?)
Did he have another job before or after he became that?
Did he also do any casual or part-time jobs?
CONTINUE FOR ALL JOBS UNTIL DEATH, INCLUDING AFTER 1918.
Do you remember your father ever being out of work?
e) How old was your mother when you were born? (PROMPT: How old was she when she died?
When was that?)
Where did she come from?
Had she any jobs before she married? (IF EMPLOYER: How many people did she employ?)
Did she work after she was married or not?
Part-time jobs.
Hours.
CONTINUE FOR ALL JOBS UNTIL DEATH, INCLUDING AFTER 1918.
If mother worked after she had children, who looked after the children while your mother was at work?
a) I should like now to ask you about life at home when you were a child; the time up to when you left school. Can you describe the house at ... (SELECT FROM lb)? How were the rooms used? Bedrooms; other rooms.
b) Did anyone else besides your parents and brothers and sisters live in the house? Other relatives,
or lodgers?
(IF LODGERS: Where did they eat, sleep? What meals did they get? How much did they pay?)
c) Did your mother pay anyone to help in the house?
(IF DAILY OR IRREGULAR HELP: What were her duties: cleaning; looking after children;
hours. How did you get on with her? What did she call you and your mother? What did you call her?)
IF LIVING IN HELP, GO ON TO SECTION I8
d) How was the washing done?
e) Did your mother or father make the family's clothes? Were any clothes bought new or
secondhand? Where were they bought?
Were they bought for special occasions? (PROMPT: Christmas, Easter, Sunday, school,
anniversaries)
Who mended clothes?
REPEAT FOR SHOES.
f) Did your father help your mother with any of the jobs in the house?
Cleaning; cooking; washing up; fires; decorating; repairs; improvements to the house?
Did he dress; undress: bath you; read to you; tell you stories; take you out without your mother; look after you when she was out?
g) Did you have any tasks you had to carry out regularly at home to help your mother and father?
How long did you continue to do these tasks? After you left school?
REPEAT FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
Did the older children help the younger with things they found difficult (dressing or eating) or
look after them in other ways?
Did the younger children help the older in any ways?
h) Were you expected to go to bed at a certain time in your school days?
Did your mother or anyone else put you to bed?
At what age did you put yourself to bed?
Did you share the bed with anyone? Who else slept in your bedroom?
Sleeping arrangements of whole family.
i) How did the family manage with washing and bathing?
How often did you bath?
When did you have clean clothes to put on?
a) Where did the family have their meals?
Were there any occasions when they ate in another room?
b) Where did your mother cook?
Cooking equipment (range or gas).
c) When was breakfast eaten?
What members of the family were present?
How did the others manage for their first meal?
What did you usually eat and drink?
Did you have anything different on certain days (Sundays)?
REPEAT FOR MIDDAY AND EVENING MEALS.
d) Did your mother or father bake bread; make jam; bottle fruit or vegetables; make pickles, wine,
or any medicines for the family?
Was any beer brewed for the family?
e) Did your father or mother grow vegetables and fruit?
Did they buy any? Tinned or dried vegetables or fruit?
f) Did they keep any livestock for family (hens, pigs, goats)? Who looked after them?
g) How many times a week did you eat meat? Tinned meat?
h) Did you ever get some extra meat such as rabbit from poaching? Who from? How often?
i) Do you remember seeing your mother having less food so that the family could have more? Did your father have larger helpings? Or extra food (e.g. tea time or late supper)?
j) Were you allowed to talk during meals or not?
Could you choose what you wanted to eat from what was cooked or did you have to eat a bit of
everything?
What was your parents' attitude if you left some food uneaten on the plate?
Could you ask for a second helping?
Were you expected to hold your knife and fork in a certain way and sit in a certain way?
When could you leave the table?
k) Did all the family sit at the table for the meal?
Did you always have the same places at table?
How was the meal served (by whom)? What order were you served in? Where did the younger
brothers and sisters sit before they could feed themselves? Who fed them?
IF FED SEPARATELY: When were they able to join in family meals?
l) IF EMPLOYED SERVANTS: Where did the servants eat?
Did they have different food? What was the difference?
a) Was your mother an easy person to talk to? Did she show affection?
If you had any worries could you share them with her or not?
REPEAT FOR FATHER.
How did your parents expect you to behave towards them?
As a child, was there any older person you felt more comfortable with than your parents?
b) Did your parents bring you up to behave towards your brothers and sisters in certain ways?
If you said that a child had hurt you what would your parents say? (PROMPT: Would they tell
you to hit back?)
c) What kind of people do you think your parents hoped you would grow up to be?
Did your parents bring you up to consider certain things important in life?
d) What did they think of swearing?
e) When grown-ups were talking, were you allowed to join in?
f) If you did something that your parents disapproved of, what would happen?
IF PUNISHED: By whom? How?
How often? Ever by other parent?
Do you remember any particular occasion when you were punished?
Do you remember how you felt about being punished?
g) Would you say that you received the ideas you had about how to behave from both your parents, or did one play a more important part than the other?
a) When you had a birthday would it be different from any other day?
Did you receive any presents; have anything special to eat; guests?
b) How did you spend Christmas Day? (PROMPT: church, visiting relations)
c) Did you have any musical instruments in the home?
Players?
Was there anyone in the family who sang?
Did you ever make music together as a family?
d) Did your parents play any games with you?
e) Were there books in the house? Did you belong to the library?
Newspapers? Magazines?
Do you remember your mother or father reading?
Did they ever read aloud to you or to each other?
f) Do you remember a funeral in the family? What happened?
Who attended? Did you take part?
Did you wear mourning?
g) Do you remember a wedding in the family? What happened?
Who attended?
a) Were you taken out visiting neighbours, friends or relations? With whom?
Were you taken shopping? With whom?
b) Do you remember any other outings with your parents? Bank Holidays?
c) Did you ever go away for a holiday? For how long? Regularly?
Which members of the family went? Where?
Activities?
a) Could you tell me how you spent Saturdays in those days? How about Sundays?
Did you have different clothes?
Did you play games? Did your parents think it wrong to work or play on Sunday?
b) Did your parents attend a place of worship or not? Denomination.
How often? Both mother and father?
Did either hold any position in the church/chapel?
Did you attend?
c) Did you go to a Sunday School or not?
d) Were there any Sunday School outings?
e) What other social activities organised by the church/chapel did you take part in?
f) Did you belong to the choir? Activities.
g) Did the church/chapel run any temperance club? (PROMPT: Band of Hope?)
Were you a member of that or not?
Activities (e.g. evening classes, outings, treats).
h) Did you belong to any other club organised by the church/chapel? Activities.
i) Was grace said at meals in your family? By whom?
j) Were you taught to say prayers at night? Did you ever have family prayers?
What happened?
k) How much would you say religion meant to you as a child? Why?
a) Did your father take an interest in politics? Do you know what his views were?
Why do you think he held those views?
REPEAT FOR MOTHER.
b) Do you remember your father voting in a General Election before 1919?
Do you know what party he voted for?
Do you remember your mother voting in the first election when women had the vote?
Who for?
c) In some places at that time men felt they risked losing their job or their house if they voted
differently from their employers. Do you know if your father felt himself under that kind of
pressure to vote for a particular party?
d) Was your father a member of a political party? Do you remember him working for one of the
parties at an election?
REPEAT FOR MOTHER.
e) Did your parents take part in any political activity other than at election time?
a) When your parents were not doing their work, how did they spend their time?
b) Did your mother have any interests outside the home?
c) When she went out what did she do?
Did she ever go out to enjoy herself? Who did she go with? (PROMPT: father, friend, relation)
d) When did your father get home from work in the evenings?
How many evenings a week would be spent at home? How much was he about the house at
weekends? How would he spend the time?
e) Did your father attend any clubs or pubs?
When did he go (on way home from work, after tea, Sunday dinner time)?
Did your mother go too?
f) Did your father take part in any sport? Did he watch sport?
Did he attend the races? Did he bet?
Did your mother take part in any sport or games?
g) Did your father or mother belong to any savings clubs?
Insurance; boot; sick; funeral; etc.
Do you know what arrangements your parents had about money?
a) How did you get on with your brothers and sisters?
Was there one you felt particularly close to?
Was there one you did not get on with?
b) As a child, who did you play with? Brothers; sisters; neighbours?
Did you have your own special group of friends? Did you play games against other groups?
c) Where did you play? Yard/garden/street/other homes/elsewhere?
d) What games did you play?
Were you allowed to get dirty when you played?
Did boys and girls play the same games?
e) Were you free to play with anyone you pleased?
Did your parents discourage you from playing with certain children? (IF YES: Why?)
What did they think about children fighting or gambling in the street?
f) Did you belong to any youth organisations (PROMPT: Scouts, Girl Guides)
g) I should now like to ask about how you spent your free time when you were at school.
Did you have any hobbies then? Did you keep any pets; collect anything; do gardening?
(PROMPT: Cigarette cards)
h) Did you go fishing; for walks; bicycling? With whom?
i) Did you take part in any sports?
j) Did you go to any theatres; concerts; music halls; cinemas while you were still at school?
k) Did your parents give you any pocket money? How much?
Regularly? What did you spend the money on?
a) Did anyone outside the home help your mother look after her house or family?
Relations; friends; neighbours?
In what ways? Regularly?
b) If your mother was ill or confined to bed how did she manage?
Do you remember what happened when one of your younger brothers/sisters was born?
c) What relations of your father do you remember?
Did any live nearby? When did you see them?
Do you remember them influencing you in anyway, teaching you anything?
REPEAT FOR MOTHER.
d) Did your parents have friends? Where did they live?
Where did they see them? Did they share the same friends?
Did your mother have friends of her own? Where did she see them?
Did she visit anyone who was not a relation?
REPEAT FOR FATHER
e) Were people ever invited into the home? How often?
Who were they? (PROMPT: relations, neighbours, friends)?
Would they be offered anything to eat or drink?
On any particular days or occasions?
Would you say that the people invited in were your mother's friends or your father's friends or
both of them?
f) Did people call in casually without an invitation? When?
g) Did your parents ever go out to visit friends or neighbours?
Would they call on them casually without invitation?
h) People often tell us that in those days they made their own amusements.
What do you think your parents did when they got together with their friends/neighbours?
Music? Games?
i) Many people divide society into different social classes or groups. In that time before 1918 did
you think of some people belonging to one and some to another? Could you tell me what the different ones were?
j) What class/group (RESPONDENT'S OWN TERM) would you say you belonged to yourself?
What sort of people belonged to the same class/group as yourself?
k) What sort of people belonged to the other classes/groups you have mentioned?
l) Can you remember being brought up to treat people of one sort differently from people of
another?
Were you ever told to curtsey; touch your cap; show respect in some way? To whom?
Was there anyone you called "sir" or "master/madam"?
Do you remember anyone showing respect to your parents in these ways?
m) In the district/village, who were considered the most important people?
Did you come into contact with them?
Why were they considered important?
IF RESPONDENT MIDDLE OR UPPER CLASS: Would these people have been considered at
that time to be "in society"?
n) What about the shopkeepers: who did they associate with?
REPEAT FOR OTHER LOCAL SOCIAL GROUPS: e.g. clergy, teachers, employers, farmers.
o) What sort of people would you say went to the church? And the chapel?
p) Where you lived, did all the people in the working (OR lower OR OTHER TERM USED DY
RESPONDENT) class have the same standard of living, or would you say there were different
groups?
Describe a family within each group.
Do you think that one group felt itself superior to the rest?
Were some families thought of as rough, and others as respectable?
Do you remember a distinction of this kind between craftsmen and labourers?
(PROMPT: What made a family seem tough?)
q) How did your mother behave towards people who were not in the same class as herself?
(PROMPT: Minister, doctor's wife, dustman's wife) (other racial groups)
REPEAT FOR FATHER
r) Do you think your mother thought of herself as a member of a class? (PROMPT: middle class,
working class?)
Why?/Why not?
What made her put herself in that class? (PROMPT: own home background, her job, her type of
house, your father's position?)
s) Was it possible at that time to move from one class to another?
Can you remember anyone who did?
t) Do you remember anyone being described as a "real gentleman"/"real lady"?
Why do you think that was?
u) Do you remember seeing a policeman around where you lived as a child?
What did you think of him (e.g. when you were naughty, did your mother ever say "I'll call a policeman")?
v) How do you think he treated the people?
w) Was your home rented?
IF YES: Did you see anything of your landlord?
What did you feel about him as a landlord?
x) Do you remember feeling that your parents had to struggle to make ends meet?
IF NO: Did they help poorer people in any way?
Did they belong to any philanthropic organisations?
IF YES: What did you think about that?
What difference did it make to the family when your father was ill or out of work?
How often?
Did you ever get help from the Guardians or the parish or any charity?
How did they treat you? How did you feel about that?
y) When there was someone in the district whom the people disapproved of very strongly, was there
any special way in which they showed it?
Do you remember anyone being made to leave by "rough music"? What for? Was an effigy made?
a) Were you given lessons by one of your parents, a tutor or governess?
IF NO: Go on to 12 b.
IF YES: Where?
Hours? Did they increase when older?
Alone/with other children?
What lessons did you have? How did you feel about ... as a teacher?
Did they emphasise certain things as important in life?
Manners; tidiness; punctuality; ways of speaking?
If you did something they disapproved of, what would happen? Would they punish you?
How? What for?
How long were you taught by ...?
Did you then go to school? IF NO: Why not?
b) How old were you when you first went to school?
When you first started, what time of the morning did you go and when did you come back?
c) What kind of school was it (board/private/church; day/boarding; boys/girls/mixed)?
IF BOARDING, SEE ALSO SECTION 19 and OMIT 12 d.
d) How did you get to school? How long did it take you? Who went with you?
e) Where did you have your midday meal then?
IF NOT AT HOME: What did you have to eat?
f) What did you think of school? Did you like it or dislike it?
How did you feel about the teachers?
g) Did the teachers emphasise certain things as important in life?
Manners; how to treat the opposite sex; tidiness; punctuality; ways of speaking?
Did they encourage intellectual discussion?
Was any science taught?
h) What games did you play? Compulsory?
i) If you did something the teachers disapproved of, what would happen?
How did they punish the children? Girls the same as boys?
For what offences?
j) Did your parents show an interest in your school work?
Did they ask you what you did at school; visit the school; meet the teachers?
k) What sort of homes did most of the other children come from? (Some worse dressed than others?)
l) Did the teachers single out some children for different treatment from the others?
m) Were there any gangs or groups in the school? (PROMPT: From different streets or parts of the
town?)
Were there any children who were left out of things?
n) Did you go on to another school afterwards?
IF YES: REPEAT 12 b - 12 n.
IF AT A SECONDARY SCHOOL: Did you join a cadet corps? Were you a prefect?
o) How old were you when you left school?
Would you have stayed longer if you had had the opportunity?
Did you attend any part-time education afterwards? (e.g. evening classes).
p) Do you have any regrets about your education?
Do you think you benefitted from attending school?
q) IF AT UNIVERSITY: Subjects? New friends? New attitudes?
Influence of tutors? Intellectual discussion? Religion? Clubs and Societies?
Other leisure?
How were women regarded at University at that time?
a) While you were at school, did you have a part-time job or any means of earning a little regular
money?
IF NO: GO ON TO 13 1.
b) How did you get it? (Through parents?)
c) What exactly did you have to do in this job?
How did you learn? Were any practical jokes played on you?
d) What hours did you work? Sunday? Saturday? Half-day?
Were there breaks for meals?
Did you have any holidays with pay?
e) What were you paid?
Did you feel that was a fair wage, or not?
f) Did you give any of the money to your mother?
What was it spent on?
g) How did you get on with the other people you worked with?
Did men and women work together? Could you talk or relax at all?
(Could you play games in the breaks?)
Was there a works club? A works outing? Any other entertainments for employees?
Was there a presentation when a worker retired? Did any of the employers or wives visit workers
and their wives at times of sickness or bereavement?
h) How did your employer treat you? How did you feel about him?
i) How did you feel about the work? Did you like it or dislike it? Why did you give it up?
j) Did the job alter your attitude to school?
k) Did you do any other part-time jobs before you left school?
IF YES: REPEAT 13 b. - k.
l) Now I should like to ask you about your first full-time job.
What was that?
REPEAT 13 b. - i.
IF LIVING-IN DOMESTIC SERVANT, ASK SECTION 18, THEN RETURN HERE.
How long did you do that for? What did you do after that?
REPEAT 13 b. - i. FOR ALL JOBS (INCLUDING PART-TIME) UP TO END OF 1918.
IF ANY ARE AS DOMESTIC SERVANT, ASK SECTION 18, THEN RETURN HERE.
NOTE: Remember to ask how many months/years each job lasted.
m) What jobs have you done since the First World War?
n) Would you have preferred another type of occupation?
o) Did you serve an apprenticeship or training period for any of your jobs?
p) Did you (or any of your employees) belong to any trade union/professional organisation?
Did you take part in any of its activities?
Did you feel that employers and workers had the same interests, or different?
q) Did you feel that there were divisions of interest among workers?
Some people say that in those days there was a great division between trained craftsmen and
other workers. Did you feel that, or not?
r) IF AN EMPLOYER OR MANAGER: Can you tell me who owned the business (partnership,
limited company)? How was it founded? How was it run?
How did you learn about the different sides of the business (technology, sales, staffing, finance)?
Which interested you most?
Did you become a partner? What share did you have in the profits and losses?
Did senior partners/directors share a social life together? Invite each other to dinner?
What did the workers call you? Which of them did you know by name?
Did you meet any of them outside work?
s) Would you say that full-time work changed your general attitude to life in any way?
a) I'd like to ask you about your life at home after you left school.
Did you continue to live at home then? For how long?
IF AT HOME: Did you have your own room where you could entertain friends privately?
IF SEPARATELY: Did you live alone or share with anyone? Describe house.
Did you have any domestic help? Where did you mainly eat?
b) IF WORKING: Did starting full-time work change your relationship with your parents at all?
With brothers and sisters?
IF NOT WORKING: How did you manage for money? Would you have rather done something
else? How did you spend your time (housework, social calls, family business)?
c) Did you spend your Sunday any differently? Church/chapel; Sunday School?
Did religion mean more or less to you after childhood? Why do you think that was?
d) Did you take an interest in politics? (Did you take up any voluntary work?)
IF RESPONDENT MARRIED AFTER 1918 OR NEVER MARRIED, ASK SECTION l7viii AND
OMIT 'REPEAT FOR HUSBAND/WIFE'. THEN RETURN HERE.
e) Can you tell me something of how you spent your spare time as a young man/woman?
Did your interests change?
Did you belong to any clubs or youth organisations; take part in sports or games (cards; tennis);
go to dances; hobbies; collect anything; go for outings or away for weekends; concerts, theatre,
music hall, cinema; pubs?
f) Did you go out in the evening? Where to?
Who with? Holidays? Where; who with?
g) Did you make any new friends - boys or girls - at this time?
How did you meet them? Did you stick to a group of friends? What did you do with them?
Where?
Did you ever bring friends home?
h) Did you have any special friends at this time? Boys or girls?
Were there any special places where boys and girls could meet? Where would you go with
them? Were you allowed to be with them alone?
i) Did your parents meet your friends? Did they tell you what they thought about them? Did they
expect to know where you were? Did you have to be home by a certain time?
Did your parents disapprove of any of your activities at this time?
What did they think of young people who got into fights; gambling; pinching things?
a) What age were you when you married?
b) How long had you known your husband/wife then? How did you meet?
Where did he/she come from? From what kind of family?
c) How long were you engaged?
Did you save up money before getting married, or not?
Did your parents help you in setting up a home?
Did they help you later on? (or leave you anything?)
(Or by that stage, did you have to help them?)
d) Could you describe the wedding? Presents? Guests?
Did you have a honeymoon?
e) Where did you live after you married? How many years?
(Did you ever consider moving out of the area when you first married?)
Where did you live then?
CONTINUE FOR MOVES TO END OF 1918.
f) How old was your husband/wife when you married?
g) IF WOMAN: What was your husband's job when you married?
Did he have other jobs before or after?
ASK FOR ALL JOBS: DO NOT STOP AT 1918.
Did he also do any casual or part-time jobs?
IF RESPONDENT WORKED AFTER MARRIAGE (see 13 1.): How did your husband feel about
your working?
IF MAN: Did your wife have a job when you married? Had she any other jobs before that? Did
she continue working after your marriage?
IF YES: How did you feel about that? What jobs had she had since then?
ASK FOR ALL FULL-TIME JOBS: PART-TIME JOBS ONLY TO END OF 1918.
h) How do you think your husband/wife felt about his/her work? Like or dislike?
a) Did you have any children?IF NO GO ON TO 17.
How many? Names (who were they named after)?
Dates of birth of all children.
b) Were your children born at home?
IF WOMAN: Did you know what to expect in childbirth? How did you get on?
Did you read any books about birth or infant care?
c) Did you have any medical help? Did your husband/you help?
How soon were you/was your wife out of bed? For the whole day?
How did you/she manage while you were/she was in bed?
Did any of your relations or neighbours help? How exactly?
Did you have a nurse? For how long?
IF FOR MORE THAN TWO MONTHS: What did the nurse do for the baby?
d) IF WOMAN: How did you feed your first baby?
IF ANY BREAST FEEDING: did you enjoy feeding the baby?
IF LITTLE OR NO BREAST FEEDING: did you have any special reasons for not breast feeding?
What method did you use instead?
e) IF WOMAN: Did you have any difficulties in feeding? If you needed advice, who did you ask?
If the baby was asleep, would you wake it for a feed? If it cried before the normal time, would
you feed it? What did you do if it didn't seem hungry? How long would you let it go on feeding?
When did you first give it solid food? When did you wean the baby? Did the baby mind?
f) IF WOMAN: Did you think at the time that it did any harm to a baby to let it cry, or not?
Did you punish it when it was naughty? How? For what?
g) How much did your husband/you (IF MAN) have to do with your children when they were babies
under one year?
Did you/he feed/bath them; change their nappies; play with them; get them to sleep; attend to
them in the night; take them out without you/your wife?
I want to ask you how you and your husband/wife managed the housekeeping in those years before 1919.
(i) Budget and Control of Household
a) IF HUSBAND: How much of your earnings would you give to your wife at that time?
(Did your wife have a personal allowance?)
Did you pay any of the house bills yourself? Which?
IF WIFE: Did you know what your husband earned? How much of that would he give to you?
Did he pay any of the bills himself? Which?
(Did you have a dress allowance?)
Did you discuss with your wife/husband how the money should be spent?
IF WIFE EARNED: What were your wife's earnings spent on?
b) Who chose new furniture; food; drink; doctor; church; clothes of children, husband; presents;
outings; holidays; who should be invited to stay or to meals?
Who looked after the garden?
(ii) Domestic Routine
a) Can you describe the house at ... (SELECT FROM 15 e.)? What were the rooms used for?
b) Were there any relatives or lodgers living with you? (Terms?)
c) Paid help in the house? Living-in?
IF YES: GO ON TO SECTION 18.
IF DAILY OR IRREGULAR HELP: What were her duties: cleaning, looking after children?
Hours? What did you call each other?
d) How was the washing done?
e) Clothes made by wife and/or husband? Bought new or second-hand?
Where bought? When? Who mended them?
REPEAT FOR SHOES.
f) Husband's help with jobs in the house: cleaning; cooking; washing; washing-up; fires;
decorating; repairs; improvements to the house?
IF CHILDLESS,, GO ON TO iii (Meals).
Husband's help with children: dressing; undressing; bathing; reading aloud; telling stories;
taking out without mother; looking after children when mother out?
g) Regular household tasks for children to help you?
h) Time at which children went to bed? Put to bed by themselves or a parent?
Did children share a bed or bedroom? Sleeping arrangements for whole family?
i) Washing and bathing arrangements? When?
When did children have clean clothes?
(iii) Meals
a) Where were meals eaten?
Occasions, if any, when eaten in another room?
b) Where did wife cook? Cooking equipment (range or gas)?
c) When was breakfast eaten? What members of the family were present?
How did the others manage for their first meal? What did you usually eat and drink?
Did you have anything different on certain days (Sundays)?
REPEAT FOR MIDDAY AND EVENING MEALS.
d) Making of bread; jam; pickles; wine; beer; medicines; bottled fruit or vegetables.
e) Vegetables and fruit grown and/or bought?
Tinned or dried vegetables or fruit?
f) Livestock kept for family (hens, pigs, goats)?
Looked after by whom?
g) How many times a week did you eat meat? Tinned meat?
h) Extra meat obtained from poaching. From whom? How often?
i) Did wife ever have to go short so that husband or children could have more?
Did husband have larger helpings of food? Extra food at teatime or supper?
IF CHILDLESS GO ON TO (v) (Family Activities in the Home)
j) Table manners of children: allowed to talk during meals or not?
Choose what they wanted to eat from what was cooked or have to eat a bit of everything?
Parents' attitude if some food left uneaten on the plate?
Hold knife and fork in a certain way and sit in a certain way?
When did members of the family leave the table?
k) Did all the family present for the meal sit at the table? Regular places at table?
Meal served (by whom; serving order)?
Method of feeding and seating children too young to feed themselves?
IF SEPARATELY. When did they join in family meals?
(iv) General Relationships with Children: Influence and Discipline.
a) When your children were young did you feel that there was a right way/wrong way of bringing up
children?
Did you and your wife/husband have the same ideas about bringing up children, or different
ideas? Did you talk about this?
Was there anyone you used to talk to if you were worried about the children?
Was your mother alive when your children were small? How often did you see her?
Did you ask her advice in bringing up the children?
Did you and she have the same ideas on this?
REPEAT FOR MOTHER-IN-LAW.
IF EMPLOYED NANNY: Did you discuss with the nanny how you wanted the children brought
up? Were her ideas the same as yours, or different? Did you ever disagree with the way she
managed the children? Why was this?
b) Can you tell me some of the things you felt you ought to do for your children? Affection; safety;
food; discipline. Did you want them to share their worries with you? How did you want them to
behave towards you? What did they call you and your wife/husband?
IF NANNY EMPLOYED: How did you want them to behave towards their nanny?
c) (OMIT IF NANNY EMPLOYED) When the children were young, did you both ever manage to
leave them so that you could go out? When?
Did somebody come in to look after them? Relation/friend/neighbour/older child: stays in
house/looks in occasionally/listens from elsewhere/nobody responsible.
d) Did you let your children join in when grown-ups were talking?
e) What did you bring them up to consider important in life?
f) Did you tell them they should hit back or not if another child hurt them?
g) Were there any other children you discouraged them from playing with?
What was it you did not like about those children?
h) If your children did something you disapproved of, what would happen?
IF PUNISHED: By whom? How? How often? Ever by other parent?
IF NANNY EMPLOYED: Ever by nanny?
Do you remember any particular occasion when you punished them?
i) Would you say that your children received the ideas they had about how to behave from both
parents, or did one of you play a more important part than the other?
(e.g. father with sons, mother with daughters)?
IF NANNY EMPLOYED: What influence did their nanny have on them? What did the children
feel about her?
j) Did you believe that girls should be treated the same way as boys when you had your children?
That they should be taught the same skills and the same games (e.g. girls carpentry, hunting;
boys sewing, cooking, dancing, piano)?
How did you teach your boy to behave to his sister (e.g. opening doors, carry things)?; your girl
to her brother (sew for him, wait on him)?
k) IF WIFE WORKED AFTER HAVING CHILDREN: Who looked after the children while
you/your wife was at work? How did you feel about leaving the children with somebody else?
Some people think that children should be with the mother all the time, others think it is not
necessary and does them good to be with other people quite a lot too.
What did you think at that time?
l) Did you send your children to the local county school?
IF NO: Why not? Who chose the school?
Did you think that boys needed a different education from girls?
(v) Family Activities in the Home
a) (OMIT IF CHILDLESS) When your children had a birthday, would it be different from any
other day? Did they receive presents; have anything different to eat; guests?
b) What did you and (IF ANY) your children do on Christmas Day?
c) Did you have any musical instruments in the home? Players? Did any of you sing? Did you ever make music together?
d) (OMIT IF CHILDLESS) Did you play any games with the children?
Did your wife/husband join in the games or play different ones?
e) Were there books; newspapers; magazines in the house? Where did you get them from?
Did you belong to a library? Did you read aloud to each other or to the children?
(OMIT IF CHILDLESS)
IF NANNY EMPLOYED: Did the nanny read to the children?
(vi) Family Activities Outside the Home.
a) (IF CHILDLESS: START AT c.)
Were the children taken out visiting neighbours, friends or relations? By whom? Were they
taken shopping? By whom?
IF NANNY EMPLOYED: Did the children ever visit their nanny's family?
b) Did the children ever go out with just their father?
c) Could the children go out by themselves? Where to? Girls as well as boys?
d) What did you do on Bank Holidays? With children and nanny (IF ANY)?
e) Did you ever go away for a holiday? For how long? Regularly? Where? Why did you choose
to go there?
Did you all go (wife; husband; children; nanny)? Activities.
(vii) Weekends and Religion
a) Could you tell me how you spent Saturdays in those days?
Sundays?
Did you or the children (IF ANY) put on different clothes?
Did you think it wrong to work or to enjoy yourself on a Sunday or did you think it did not
matter?
(OMIT IF CHILDLESS) Did you allow your children to play games?
b) Did you attend a place of worship or not? Denomination? How often?
Did your husband/wife attend too?
c) Did you belong to the choir?
d) Did the church/chapel run any temperance club? Were you a member?
Activities.
e) Did you belong to any other clubs organised by the church/chapel? Activities.
Did you or your husband/wife hold any position in the church/chapel organisation?
f) (OMIT IF CHILDLESS) Did your children go to Sunday School?
Did they go to any adult or family services at the church/chapel?
g) Was grace said at meals?
h) Did you have family prayers?
i) (OMIT IF CHILDLESS) Were your children taught to say prayers? Who taught them their prayers? Did you talk to your children about God?
j) Did religion come to mean more or less to you after you were married? Why do you think that was?
(viii) Political Attitudes.
a) Did you take an interest in politics? What were your views?
Why did you think that?
REPEAT FOR HUSBAND/WIFE.
b) IF HUSBAND: Did you vote in a General Election before 1919?
IF WIFE: Did you vote in the first General Election when women had the vote?
c) Did you or your husband/wife ever feel under any pressure from anybody to vote for a particular party (e.g. from an employer)?
d) Were you a member of a political party?
Did you ever work for one of the parties at an election?
e) Did you take part in any political activity other than at election time?
(ix) Other Interests and Leisure.
a) When you and your wife/husband were not doing your work, how did you spend your time? Did you ever go out together in the evening? Where? How often?
b) When did you (IF MAN)/your husband get home from work in the evenings?
How many evenings a week would you/he spend at home?
c) Did either of you go to any clubs, institutes or pubs? How often did you go?
Did you go together?
d) Did you belong to any savings clubs? Insurance, boot, sick, funeral, etc.
e) Did either of you take part in any sport? (PROMPT: cricket, football, fishing, shooting,
bicycling, walking, racing).
Did either of you bet on anything?
f) Did you go to any theatres, concerts, music halls or cinemas?
g) Did you have any hobbies? Did you keep any pets, collect anything, or do gardening?
h) Did you (IF WOMAN)/your wife have any other interests outside the home?
Did you (IF WOMAN) your wife ever go out to enjoy yourself/herself? With whom?
(x) Relations, Friends and Neighbours.
a) Did anyone outside the home help you (IF WOMAN)/your wife look after her house or family?
Relations, friends or neighbours?
In what ways? Regularly?
b) If you (IF WOMAN) /your wife was confined to bed, how did you manage?
c) Did either of you have any relatives living nearby? How much did you see of them? Where?
d) Did you have friends? Where did they live? Did you share the same friends?
e) Were people ever invited into the home? How often?
Who were these people? Would they be offered anything to eat or drink?
On particular days or occasions? (Sunday?)
Would you say that the people invited in were your wife's/husband's friends or relations or both?
IF EMPLOYED NANNY: Did the children meet people who came to call or have meals(casual or
formal) with you?
f) Did people call in casually without an invitation? When?
g) Did you ever go out to visit friends or neighbours? Did you call in casually without an invitation?
h) People often tell us that in these days they made their own amusements. What did you do when you got together with friends or neighbours? Music? Games?
i) Was your home rented?
IF YES: Did you see anything of your landlord?
How did you feel about him as a landlord?
j) (IF RESPONDENT HAS NOT MOVED FROM COMMUNITY DESCRIBED EARLIER, GO ON
TO n.) In the district/village where you lived then, who were considered the most important
people?
Did you come into contact with them? Why were they considered important?
k) What about the shopkeepers? Who did they associate with?
REPEAT for clergy, teachers, farmers, employers.
l) What sort of people would you say went to the church? And to chapel?
m) Where you lived, did all the people in the working class have the same standard of living, or would you say there were different groups? Describe a family in each group. Do you think that one group felt itself superior to the rest? Were some families thought of as rough, and some as respectable? Do you remember a distinction of this kind between craftsmen and labourers?
n) Did you have a struggle to make ends meet at that time?
IF NO: Did you help poorer people in any way? (Did you join any philanthropic organisations?)
IF YES: What did you think about that?
What difference did it make when you (IFMAN)/your husband was ill or out of work?
How often? For how long? Did you ever get help from the Guardians, the parish or a charity?
How did they treat you? How did you feel about that?
How did you spend your time when you were out of work (at home, with friends in the street, in
pub)? Did friends help you out at all.
(i) NOTE: THIS SECTION SHOULD BE USED BOTH WHEN RESPONDENT OR PARENTS EMPLOYED LIVING-IN SERVANTS, AND WHEN RESPONDENT WAS AN EMPLOYEE OF THIS KIND. IN THE LATTER CASE THE SECTION SHOULD BE REPEATED FOR ANY HOUSEHOLD WHICH THE RESPONDENT CAN REMEMBER IN SATISFACTORY DETAIL.
a) IF SERVANT: How did you get your first position in service (personal recommendation, registry
office, advertisement)?
What were you called (e.g. kitchen maid, housemaid, etc.)?
What hours did you work (weekdays/weekends)? Did you get any holidays?
What were you paid? Did you think that was a fair wage or not?
b) How many servants were there? LIST titles and work.
Where slept and ate.
Was there a division into upper and lower servants?
Was there a servant's hall, or anywhere they could sit when they were not working?
Did the mistress supervise all the housework personally? Or pass orders through the senior
servants? (PROMPT: housekeeper)?
c) Did you feel at ease with the servants/members of the family?
How did servants and members of the family address each other? Did you feel that any of them
was interested in you as a person?
d) Did the mistress give any moral guidance to her servants? Were they allowed any time to do just what they liked? When could they go out of the home? Did she mind what they did then, or when they returned?
e) IF SERVANT: Did you feel homesick? Were you lonely or did you have enough companionship? Was there anything you particularly liked or disliked about that situation?
(ii) Domestic Routine
a) How did the housework go? Was the washing sent out?
Who made or mended the family's clothes?
Who did the cooking?
Who was responsible for repairs and improvements to the house?
Did your father help with any of the jobs in the house? Did he help look after you?
b) Was there a nanny or servant responsible for the children? Was there a nursery maid?
IF NO, GO BACK TO 2f. WHEN ASKING RESPONDENT ABOUT CHILDHOOD, OR TO 17
(ii) f. WHEN ASKING ABOUT RESPONDENT 'S MARRIED LIFE: IF RESPONDENT IS A
SERVANT, NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CHILDREN,, GO ON TO (iii) Meals.
Nanny's duties, hours, time off. Holidays?
What did your mother do for you (dressing, bathing, bedtime, games, shopping, outings,
reading)?
Where child would see parents, in the house: nursery, drawing room or elsewhere?
IF MOTHER WORKING: Time spent at home.
IF CHILD: How long did nurse look after you? Until what age? What was she like? Were you
fond of her?
Were there any other servants who you were close to?
c) Did the children have any tasks to carry out regularly to help in the home?
When? How long did tasks continue? After leaving school?
REPEAT FOR BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
Did the older children help the younger with things they found difficult (dressing, eating) or look
after them in other ways?
Did the younger children help the older in any ways?
d) Children's bedtime. Who put children to bed? At what age did children put themselves to bed?
Did children share bedroom or bed with anyone?
Sleeping arrangements of whole family (including nurse)?
e) What room for bathing? How often did children bath? When were clean clothes put on?
(iii) Meals
a) Where did the adults eat their meals?
IF THERE WERE CHILDREN: Where did the children eat their meals?
Were there any exceptions to this? Were any adults with them when they ate?
Did the adult(s) eat then too? At what age did you have meals with your parents (breakfast,
lunch, tea, dinner)?
b) What cooking equipment was there in the house (range, gas)?
c) When was breakfast eaten? What members of the family were present?
When did the others have their breakfast? What food was eaten at breakfast?
Anything different on certain days (Sundays)?
REPEAT FOR OTHER MEALS.
d) Were any of the following made in the house: bread, jam, bottled fruit and vegetables, pickles, wine, beer, medicines? Who made them?
e) Were fruit and vegetables grown. Were any bought for the household?
Tinned or dried? Who did the garden?
f) Was any livestock kept for the family (hens, pigs, goats)? Who looked after them?
g) How many times a week was meat eaten? Was any tinned meat used?
h) Did children, servants and parents have the same food or different food?
What were the differences?
i) Where did the servants eat?
IF NURSE,, GOVERNESS: Where did the nurse, governess eat?
IF SERVANT NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CHILDREN, GO ON TO (v) b.
j) Were children allowed to talk at meals or not? Was this different when visitors came? Could
they choose what they wanted to eat from what was cooked or did they have to eat a bit of
everything? What was said if something was left uneaten on the plate? Could children ask for a
second helping?
Were children expected to hold their knife and fork in a certain way, sit in a certain way? Could
toys or books be brought to the table? When could they leave the table?
k) IF FAMILY ATE WITH CHILDREN: Did you always have the same places at table? Who
served the meal? In what order?
IF CHILDREN ATE SOME MEALS APART FROM PARENTS: Were there any special
preparations when the child ate with its parents (e.g. grooming, special clothes)? Who
supervised the children's meals when they ate separately? Did she have her meal with them?
Who served the meal?
Did the mother or father appear during the children's meals?
Did the mother or father take an interest in what the children had eaten and how they had
behaved? Were the children taught table manners by their parents or someone else?
IF RESPONDENT IS A PARENT, RETURN TO 17 (iv).
(iv) General Relationship with Parents and Nanny: Influence and Discipline.
a) What did you call your mother? Was she an easy person to talk to? Did she show affection?
If child had any worries, could it take them to her or not? Would you say you were
frightened of her?
REPEAT FOR FATHER AND NANNY.
How did parents expect child to behave towards them? And towards brothers and sisters? And
towards nanny? How did nanny expect child to behave towards herself?
b) Did nanny tell child how to behave towards brothers, sisters and parents?
If child was hit by another child, would it be told to hit back or not? Who would tell child this
(nanny or parents)?
c) What kind of people did parents hope child would grow up to be? Did they consider certain things important in life? Did nanny teach child what she thought was important in life? Did she have similar attitudes to parents in this way?
d) What did parents think about swearing? What about accents?
What did nanny think about it?
e) When grown-ups were talking, was child allowed to join in?
f) If child did something parents disapproved of, what would happen?
IF PUNISHED: By whom? How? How often? Ever by other parent? By nanny?
IF CHILD: Do you remember a particular occasion when you were punished?
Do you remember how you felt about being punished?
g) IF CHILD: Would you say that you received the ideas you had about how to behave from both
your parents, or did one play a more important part than the other?
What influence did your nanny have on your behaviour? How did you feel about nanny?
IF NANNY: How did you feel about the way the parents wanted to bring up their children? If
there was any difficulty, did you ever feel yourself on the side of the children, rather than the
parents?
(v) Family Activities in the Home.
a) Were children's birthdays any different from any other day? Presents, special food, or guests?
b) Can you remember anything the family did together on Christmas Day?
c) Were there any musical instruments in the home? Players? Was there anyone in the family who sang? Did you ever make music together as a family?
d) Did parents play any games with child? Did nanny play any games with child?
e) Were there books in the house? Newspapers? Magazines?
Do you remember mother or father reading?
Did they read aloud to each other? To the child?
Did nanny read to child?
f) Do you remember a funeral in the family? Who attended? Mourning clothes.
g) Did people come to stay? How did this alter your routine?
(vii) Family Activities Outside the Home
a) IF CHILD
Were you taken out visiting neighbours, friends or relations? With whom?
Were you taken shopping? With whom?
Were you ever taken to visit nanny's family home or relations? What did they call you? Did you
enjoy it?
Did you ever go out just with your father?
Do you remember any other outings with your parents? Bank holidays.
Did nanny go? Did you ever go away for a holiday? For how long? Regularly?
Which members of the family went? Where? Activities? Did nanny go too?
What did you and she do on the holiday?
b) IF SERVANT
Did you take the child out for walks or shopping? Were you allowed to talk to people while you
were out with the children? Did you ever take the mistress's child to your own home? For how
long? How did he/she get on at home? What did your relations call him/her? What did he/she
call them?
Did you ever go out with the master and mistress on a weekend or Bank Holiday? Describe
occasion. Did you like it or dislike it?
Did you ever go with the master and mistress when they went away on a holiday or to stay with
people? For how long? Regularly? Who else went? Where? Activities? Did they seem
different on holiday from what they did at home? In what ways? Was it a holiday for you or did
you have as much work as usual?
IF CHILD, RETURN TO SECTION 7: IF SERVANT, GO ON.
(vii) Weekends and Religion
a) Did the master and mistress think it wrong to work or play on Sunday?
Did they go to church or chapel? How often? Both master and mistress?
Did the children go to church or Sunday School?
b) Did any of the servants attend the same church as the master and mistress?
Where did the servants and master and mistress sit?
c) Was grace said at meals? By whom? Did you have family prayers?
(viii) Political Attitudes
a) Did the master and mistress take an interest in politics?
(ix) Other Interests and Leisure
a) Did the master take part in sport, go to the races, play cards?
Did he go to a club? How often?
b) Did the mistress go out on her own? Where did she go?
Did she have interests outside the home? Did she do any work for charities, sit on committees,
etc?
c) Did the master and mistress go out together?
(x) Social Class
a) What was your master's occupation? Was he ever away from home? How long? What
difference did this make to the way the household was run?
REPEAT FOR MISTRESS
b) Did the master and mistress have friends?
When did you see their friends: calling, staying in the house, dining, balls?
Describe these occasions. What kind of people were these friends and callers? Were they the
same class as the master and mistress? What class would you say that was? Was the mistress the
same class as the master?
c) Did the master and mistress treat some of their friends differently from others (with more elaborate entertainment or more respect)? Why do you think that was?
d) Describe the behaviour of the guests towards the servants.
Did some guests treat you differently from others?
e) Do you think the master and mistress were content with their station in life or do you think they would have liked a higher position? What made you think so?
f) Had you known people like your master and mistress before? What did you think of them and
their way of living? Did their manners and general behaviour seem different from people you
had associated with before? In what ways?
RETURN TO SECTION 13 m. (Work)
IN ADDITION TO SECTION 12, ASK
a) Type of school/institution. Number of children.
b) How old were you when you went? For how long? Why? Did you want to go or not?
Did your parents discuss it with you? Where had they been educated themselves?
c) Typical day.
Meals (COMPARE WITH HOME)
How much time did you have to yourself to do as you liked?
How often were you allowed out (walks, church, visits to home or friends)?
Were you allowed home at weekends?
d) Were you allowed to wear your own clothes rather than uniform at any time?
Other personal possessions.
e) Did your parents visit you? How often did you see them?
Were you homesick for anything? What did you miss most?
Did your parents write you letters? Do you think it changed how you felt about them or not? Did
you feel more or less close to them or much the same?
f) Did going to school/... change your attitude to life in any way?
Did you meet children of a sort you had not met before? When you came home, did you spend
your time differently from how you had before?
With the same friends as before, or new friends?
Eldest child, first job, subsequent jobs.
CONTINUE AFTER 1918
REPEAT FOR OTHER CHILDREN
REPEAT FOR RESPONDENT'S BROTHERS, AND FOR DAUGHTERS' HUSBAND
REPEAT FOR RESPONDENT 'S SISTERS AND FOR THEIR HUSBANDS
REPEAT FOR RESPONDENT'S SPOUSE IF MARRIED AFTER 1918.
