As every year goes by the number of people able to give a first hand account of day-to-day life in the early part of the last century naturally diminishes. The small but telling detail disappears. Ethel May Elvin was born in 1906; she recalls her father's account of standing sentry at Queen Victoria's funeral, the privations and small pleasures of a working-class Edwardian childhood, growing up through the First World War and surviving the Second. Anyone intrigued by the small events of history and how the majority actually lived day-to-day, will find this a unique and fascinating book.