This interview schedule should be treated as a guide and not as a rigid questionnaire. Some respondents are happier when they feel they can rely on an interviewer to ask them questions, and in such cases it is possible to work through the schedule methodically. Others are keen to take some part in directing the interview and have definite ideas about the information they wish to give. It is always best to encourage them to do so, inserting follow-up questions as far as possible, and returning to the missing questions at a later stage when the respondent has said what he or she considers most relevant. The interview schedule can be used as a checklist and annotated when the first session is played back. A full interview with a respondent who enjoys telling stories will take several sessions. If an attempt is made at the beginning of the interview to stop an anecdote which seems irrelevant, in order to get to the point, it is important to realise that this will reduce the respondent's willingness to talk well on those subjects which are of central importance. The respondent must therefore be steered to the right period and subject matter without interrupting. In general, respondents should be encouraged and reassured; especially if they are worried by, for example, difficulty in remembering dates. It does not help at all, however, to be over-tactful. The interviewer should not be afraid of asking questions as simply and clearly as possible. An attempt to rephrase them more vaguely on sensitive matters is more likely to either produce a meaningless answer, or convey the interviewer's own embarrassment to the respondent. A question can sometimes be asked with the prefix "it says" (referring to the schedule). But it is better to know the questions, ask them directly at the right moment, and keep the schedule in the background. This makes for the most relaxed and effective interview; the schedule becomes a map for the interviewer which will then be referred to only from time to time.
You should arrive punctually for an interview or the respondent may have become tense waiting for you. It is equally important to stop before a respondent becomes tired. If a respondent is giving brief or monosyllabic answers, he/she may be feeling tired, or unwell, or watching the clock for some other engagement. You should then close the recording session as quickly as possible. On the other hand, do not rush away with indecent haste; and in particular, do not refuse to show interest in family photographs etc. or to take refreshments when offered. You need to show as much warmth and appreciation of what the respondent has been telling you as possible. But an interview is not a conversation; you should keep yourself as far as possible in the background, nodding silently so that your encouragement is not recorded, not thrusting in comments or stories of your own. Do not be afraid of pauses; they can often bring out a supplementary comment to an answer. The time for ordinary two-way conversation is afterwards, when the recorder is switched off. This time will also produce additional information, which after leaving should be noted down or dictated into the recorder. Avoid arguments (e.g. about teenage behaviour) which may make the respondent more reticent later on. Lastly, it is good to write to thank a respondent, but if you want a reply always include a stamped addressed envelope.
1 (c) Respondents are not often able to recite the names of the children in the family from eldest to youngest and the spaces between them. It is useful in these cases to ask where the respondent came in the family and then ask who was older than him and the spaces between the children who were older than him. Then ask about the younger ones. Respondents are sometimes vague about the respective ages of their siblings, e.g. "We come at pretty regular intervals". Try to find out what these intervals were, and if there were any exceptions to the average interval. Respondents sometimes find it easier to write down or tell you the ages and names of their siblings, alive and dead, at the present time.
1(d) When respondents do not know the age of their father when they were born, ask if they know how old their father was when he died (assuming he is dead) and what year that was. Or respondents may know the age their father was when he married and the date. Approximate dates will do.
1(e) See notes on 1(d).
2 (a) Select the house in which respondent spent the longest time he can remember before leaving home.
2 (c) Servants in this period who did not live in were usually charwomen or women who came in to do the rough, i.e. to do the rough housework. There were also washerwomen who came in to do the washing and young girls who came in to look after children. Where the respondent as a child came into a lot of contact with the servant, particularly if she looked after the respondent, find out what the relationship was between them, the sort of things she did for the respondent, etc.
2 (g) Older children sometimes looked after the younger children, took them out for walks, saw them to school, etc.
3 (c) Men and women whose working day started early would often take something with them for breakfast. When asking about meals find out when the respondent took food and what he called those meals and stick to the terminology he uses. Lunch is the midday meal to some, particularly in class 1 and 2, to an agricultural labourer it is a snack eaten at about 11 a.m. Dinner is the midday meal to the majority of respondents. To some, again in class 1 and 2 it is a meal at about 7 or 8 p.m. Tea to most respondents is a meal mainly of bread and tea with occasionally something cooked, and is the last meal of the day. To some, in class 1 and 2 mainly, it is a cup of tea and bread and butter and cake at about 4 p.m. It is usually distinguished as afternoon tea in that case. Supper may be a cup of cocoa and some bread and cheese taken just before bed at 9 pm when tea has been the last meal at about 5 p.m. Or it may be a meal of two courses either hot or cold eaten at about 7 p.m.
3 (k) Sometimes a person might take his plate and sit by the corner of the fire during a meal. Or a person in a hurry might snatch some food standing up.
4 (a) Feel your way carefully here. Many respondents have never put into words their feelings about their parents and some workings of the question may get a better response than others. The first three questions in this section have all got satisfactory responses. Other questions are:
Did you feel close to your mother when you were a child?
Was your mother a motherly person?
Did you get on well with your mother?
"She was one of the best", said with emotion, may be all you will get from a respondent.
4 (c) Respondents may interpret this question as intending to ask what sort of position or job their parents hoped they would hold, or they may interpret it as a question about values and character. It is deliberately worded ambiguously to find out what the respondent remembers as his parents' main aspiration for him. With the question "Did your parents bring you up to consider certain things important in life?" prompting may often be needed, e.g. What sort of things did they bring you up to consider right and wrong? What sort of things did they consider wrong?
5 (d) Outdoor games should be asked about too. Information about family activities will often be given in the form of anecdotes, accounts of particular social events and there is likely to be a great deal of overlap of questions a, b, c, and d. This is a good way of getting this sort of information. Where you can, try to get an approximate date for a description of a particular birthday etc. or a funeral. You may realise suddenly that you are being told about something that happened after 1918. It may be upsetting to the respondent to be suddenly cut short but if you can do so inconspicuously put the pause lever down.
6 (d) Where the respondent's family lived in poverty this question may be treated with scorn by the respondent. The same applies to question 2(c). Explain that questions have been devised to apply to a wide range of income, and that as they are on the schedule they must be put in although the answer seems obvious. If you feel foolish or embarrassed asking a particular question, and occasionally a respondent does have this effect on one, it is best to disassociate yourself from the question by dropping the conversational way in which you have been asking the questions and simply read it in a neutral way from the schedule. Never apologise for the questions or you will transmit your lack of confidence in the value of the questions to the respondent.
7 (f) Some choirs had annual treats, some were paid for their services.
7 (g), (h). Possible activities are evening classes, outings, treats.
8 (a) Respondents may interpret this question as meaning an active interest in the politics of a particular party, and so deny political interest. Find out if respondent's parents talked about any particular issue, if they had any views about who should govern the country, if they thought the working man had a square deal, etc.
8 (b) It may be useful to know that the General Elections in the period are as follows:1900, 1906, 1910 (January and December), 1918. Women were eligible for the vote in 1918.
11 (i), (j), (k), Some respondents find these questions difficult and if they are unsure of their own class position evade the questions. If you don't get an answer try some of the other questions in the section, e.g. l, o, s, t which respondents who are reluctant to talk about class usually find easier as they are less personal. 11 (t) This is a particularly useful question for introducing the subject of class to a class-shy respondent. It almost always gets a response. An alternative form of wording is: "If someone was described as 'a real lady' or 'a real gentleman' what sort of person would you expect them to be?"
11 (1), (o), (s), (t). If you get some response to these questions try i, j, k again, perhaps phrasing them differently.
13 (h) and (i). Other ways of wording the question "How did you find ..." What did you think of ... Don't alter the wording of a question so that you load it, e.g. imply that the respondent liked his work, etc.
Note that this section is not asked unless the respondent was married before the end of 1918.
Similarly, questions about the birth of children and their upbringing will be asked only when the children were born before the end of 1918.
17 (ii) (a) Select the house in which the respondent spent the greater part of his married life up to the end of 1918.
17 (ii) (f) Husband's help with children: If the respondent had one child only before 1919 and one or more children after that, take care to ask the questions about the pre-1919 child. Call him by name if possible and emphasise that you are interested in his life before 1919, similarly if two or more of the respondent's children were before 1919. This applies to all questions of which children are the subject. Parents find it difficult to make these distinctions and you are bound to get information about children for the period after 1918. This does not matter. Do not omit questions because they are inappropriate to the age of the child before 1918.
17 (n) Do not worry about asking respondents who appear to have been well off if they had a struggle to make ends meet. It was just as possible to live beyond one's income and feel the pinch at £1,000 per annum as at £100!
Interviews with respondents who have (a) been in domestic service, (b) had parents who employed domestic servants, (c) employed servants themselves, will be more complicated and longer than most other interviews. Prepare carefully for interviews where section 18 will be asked, working out the order of the interview beforehand. Unless you are interviewing a respondent whose parents employed servants you will not usually reach section 18 until the second interview. The following two examples of respondents and the pattern of their interviews have been given as a guide. There will, of course, be far more of the first type than the second, as non-manual workers are only one-fifth of our sample and they employed nearly all the domestic servants in private houses. Domestic service absorbed a very large proportion of the women workers in the period 1900-1918, so we will be interviewing more respondents who worked as servants than employed them.
1. Respondent born 1898. 1912-1918 employed as a housemaid. Had very little to do with the children in the household, looking after them only once a week when the nanny was out. Married 1918. Two children born 1919 and 1923. Lived in the village in which she was born all her married life.
Sections
1 to 12.
13 a to 1.
18 i; ii ab; iii a to i; v b to f; vi b; vii; viii; ix; xi.
13 m to r.
14.
15.
16 a.
17 i; ii a to f; iii a to i; v b, c, e; vi c, d; vii a-e, g-h; viii; ix; x; xi a - i,n;
20.
2. Respondent born 1890. Cared for by nanny as a child. Educated at home. Never had paid employment. Married 1915. First child born January 1917. Second child born June, 1920. When married set up house in another town from that in which she grew up. Household contained cook, housemaid, nurse and nursery maid.
Sections
2. a - c.
3. i a-c; ii; iii; iv; v; vi a;
7 to 11.
12
13 a. 1.
14 to 16.
17 i; ii a -c;
18 i a - c; ii a - e; iii a - k
19 iv a, b, d - i; v; vi; vii; viii; ix; xi.
20.
18 ii (b) Servants responsible for the children have been called "nannies" for convenience in the following questions. But when putting the questions the title used for this particular servant by the respondent should be used, e.g. maid, nursemaid, nurse, or the nanny's own name. Servant responsible for the children includes servants in households where the mother cared for the children too. In some households the nanny virtually brought up the children in separate quarters of the house, in others a girl lived with the family who took the children for walks, helped in the kitchen and house, put the children to bed and gave them their food, sharing these tasks a lot of the tine with the children's mother. Both types of servant will be called nanny for the purpose of this schedule and both will be considered "responsible for the children". The purpose of the questions about the nanny's role is to find out what sort of contact the children had with their parents, how much time they spent with them, what effect the nanny's care of the children had on their relationship with their parents, etc.
18 ii (b-e). The word "child" or "children" has been used so that the questions can be asked of respondents when children themselves, when they had married and had their own children. It will generally be better to substitute "you" in the former case and "your children" in the latter.
18 iv. General relationship with Parents and Nanny: Influence and Discipline. This section has been designed so that the questions can be asked of (a) respondents who were nannies (abbreviated cue IF NANNY). (b) Respondents who were looked after by nannies (abbreviated cue IF CHILD). The questions will be rephrased appropriately.
18. vi b; vii; viii; ix; xi. Some employers of servants were not very different in their style of life from the families whose children entered their households as servants. Others were heads of grand establishments keeping a large number of servants, holding house parties, large dinner parties, etc. The questions in these sections are a guide to the kind of information wanted about the employers and the lives of the servants they employed. We are interested in how the servants saw their employers, what they remember about their personalities, manners, relationships with members of their family, servants, friends and acquaintances. Where respondents are keen to talk about their lives as domestic servants encourage them to range freely over life below and above stairs. We have used "master" and "mistress" but it is best to use the name that the respondent uses of his employer.
20. The information about jobs is wanted of all children and siblings of the respondent, those born after as well as before 1918. The jobs of those who have died must also be asked. This information should be written down, not recorded. Detail is not necessary here unless the status of a job is obscure: e.g. if a plumber; ask if he owned his own business; a school teacher, ask what kind of school.
1 (a) If female respondents were married in 1911 ask the date of their marriage.
1 (b) If respondent moved to another part of the same city or conurbation ask for of street or district.
2 (c) The duties are the duties of the servant or helper who did not live in, not of the mother.
3 (i) There is no need to feel embarrassed about asking this question of respondents who were not short of money. In quite prosperous households there might be a shortage sometimes of a particular foodstuff or less of an appetising dish that was in demand, a pudding for example. You might ask: Do you remember if there was a great demand for a particular dish at a meal that your mother would have less so that the family could have more?
If respondents are Roman Catholic or Jewish ask about any additional practices which may not be mentioned in the schedule. If you are uncertain about what to ask, tell the respondent that you do not know much about his religion and ask him to tell you about the feasts, festivals, observances, baptisms, etc.
ll (o) This question is designed to elicit information about the social differences between Non-Conformist (Chapel) and the Church of England (Church). Where there are a considerable number of Roman Catholics in the area, ask a supplementary question about them, and also ask whether there was any friction between Roman Catholics and Protestants.
11 (y) "Rough music" would be produced by a crowd banging saucepans and tin cans, with shouts of "clear out" at intervals, outside the offender's house. Sometimes an effigy of the offending person was made and paraded about with the accompanying "music". This was done for flagrant breaches of accepted standards of behaviour, e.g. if a man sold his wife to another man, beat his wife, lived with two women, etc.
12 k, l, m. Respondents may need prompting here. Many schools had their outcast children: children from the workhouse, children who were mentally handicapped, abnormally badly dressed or dirty. In some schools, clever children were favoured or children from relatively better off homes who were well dressed, or whose parents gave money to the school.
13 m. We need to know the approximate length of time that respondents held particular jobs and enough details about the jobs to enable us to classify them as professional, managerial or employer, clerical or foreman, skilled, semi-skilled, or unskilled.
Living in Servants
Other living in employees (e.g. hotel servants, shop assistants).
In a family shop or hotel the situation of the employee would be similar to that of a domestic servant, and the schedule can be followed with modification. Where the employee was not integrated with the employer's family, as section 13 b-i as normally for work, and also section 18 i a, c and d (substituting 'your employer' for 'the mistress' if necessary), and section 18 iii c (meals). Ask about leisure activities in the hotel, shop or hostel; sleeping arrangements. Also ask: What sort of people were the customers/guests? Did you find contact with them easy or difficult? When you wanted to say something to another assistant/servant without a customer/guest understanding, what did you do?
Count all "sociological" siblings or children, e.g. unofficially adopted nieces, step-children who were well-integrated into the family. Do not count half-brothers and sisters or step-children who were not part of the family. We must have enough detail about jobs to enable us to classify them. This is very important. "Worked in a hospital" or "had a job in a factory" or "engineer" is not enough. "Was a cleaner in a hospital" or "stripper in a biscuit factory" or "engineer - had served an apprenticeship" is enough.
When women were married more than once, we need to know the other husbands' jobs. When respondents were married more than once after 1918 we need to know the other spouses' jobs.
