Review: Dear Dory by Tom Kreffer

Synopsis: Imagine discovering you're about to become a parent, even though doctors told you the chances of making a baby were close to zero.

Now, a soon-to-be first-time father is charting a course through the perilous and choppy waters of living with a pregnant woman. He's dodging hormonal right hooks, evading emotional explosions, saying all the wrong things (like 'Are you okay?') and trying to figure out how the hell you install a car seat.

Written as a journal to his unborn child, Dear Dory is the unfiltered, irreverently funny, honest and heartfelt account of one man's journey to fatherhood as he contemplates his new identity as a Daddy and prepares for the responsibility of a lifetime.

WARNING: This book contains a truckload of profanity. 

I will go out on a limb and say that this is not typical of the type of book I would normally pick up - I have a huge penchant for history and its related memoir genre. However, this book, offered by the author, Tom Kreffer, was a blast!

It is one man's documenting of his personal perspective of the events from the discovery to the leading up to that all important delivery date and his own impending fatherhood. It is written by a man for his child -- it covers the highs and lows of living with a pregnant woman - and many men will find a kinship with Tom in this - how he got away with much contained therein with his manhood still intact is a miracle!.

The diary style entries are humourous, satirical, reflective, refreshing, and heartfelt. Tom recounts his fear, joys, relief as both he and his wife travel the much worn path of scans, appointments, false alarms, "to tell or not to tell" family and friends, baby expos, mood swings (and the appearance of what Tom refers to as "Miss Heidi"). And as Tom reflects ... "... this pregnancy stuff is fucking nuts! .."

Just keep swimming, Dory! How I loved that name! I do hope Tom continues to use it as a nickname for the young squib when they arrive!

This is a must read for every prospective parent - and those already with children will no doubt be sagely nodding their heads amid bursts of laughter and self-recognition!

Visit the trailer here >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iIiQo9EnsE

Review: The Legitimacy of Bastards by Helen Matthews

"The Legitimacy of Bastards" is the first book to consider the individuals who had illegitimate children, the ways in which they provided for them and attitudes towards both the parents and the bastard children. It also highlights important differences between the views of illegitimacy taken by the Church and by the English law.

Heads up - this work does not deal with royal bastards if that is what you are looking for - the main focus is on the legalities of bastards among the aristocratic and gentry, with a heavy focus on inheritance and social standing.

Matthews' book is broken down into manageable chapters dealing with the legal complexities defining what constitutes (or not) marriage under both canon and common law, which in itself then sets up the definition and status of those born out of wedlock.

After providing a case study of the de Warenne family to put things into context, we proceed to what is defined as sexual misconduct - adultery, adulterers, society's view of them and their offspring, but more importantly, how the child was viewed within the context of the family. The next chapters cover inheritance, social status and opportunity. Finally, we are told, the shift in attitude towards bastards developed in the fifteenth century as pedigree and genealogy became more and more important, and sometimes these by-blows were simply written out of the family tree. And with the heralding of religious change and the rise of puritanism in the sixteenth century, attitudes again changed.

Matthews cites many examples in her book - but don't worry if you start to lose track of them all as she provides the readers with a concise list at the end, neatly cross-referenced with the chapter in which they are discussed. Having extensively read myself, a fair number of names were familiar - but it never occurred to me to delve deeper into both the social and legal complexities of bastardy in the medieval period. Most of what we know of bastards in this period tends to be attached to our reading and study of royalty, whose attitudes to bastards was very different to those on society's lower rungs.

This is a well researched tome - the mind boggles at the number of resources consulted, and this reader in particular is glad that the leg-work has already been done. I can see this as a valuable resource in itself for those interested in medieval family and law; but also for those who dabbled in historical fiction, you may also want to add this to your reference shelf, as it will certainly aid in adding a touch of realism and authenticity to some storylines.  I still have this book sitting on my desk as I type as I am not quite ready to consign it to the book shelves just yet.

Supporting London's Bastard Children

From University of Cambridge: 

Cambridge historian uncovers new evidence of 18th and 19th century London's 'Child Support Agency'.

A new book, Unmarried Motherhood in the Metropolis: 1700-1850, by Cambridge historian Dr Samantha Williams, reveals, using London’s few surviving ‘bastardy books’, how the parishes of Lambeth, Southwark and Chelsea pursued the fathers of illegitimate babies, and the lengths some errant fathers went to in order to escape not only their moral and financial obligations, but the clutches of parish constables and the feared houses of correction. 

"Bastardy books must have existed in many parishes, but very few now survive from the hundreds of parishes in and around London – at a time when illegitimacy was very high. "The numbers of illegitimate children goes up and up after the Restoration from 1650-1850. Of all first births, half were pregnant brides and a quarter were illegitimate.

"Unwed women and their children were the casualties of a metropolitan sexual culture and a frequently unsympathetic welfare system. 

"They faced very significant difficulties in their pregnancies, during childbirth and in raising their children, not least in the difficulties many women encountered in terms of gaining financial support from the fathers of their children."

read more here @ University of Cambridge

Jennifer Worth: Shadows of the Workhouse

Workhouse of horrors: How this medieval hell of beatings and sack cloth exists within living memory | Daily Mail Online

In a new book by Jennifer Worth, Shadows Of The Workhouse, the former nurse and midwife recounts stories told to her by inmates of a 20th century workhouse in London's East End.

Worth's generation grew up in the shadow of the workhouse. Thousands of people lived in constant dread that some accident or illness would overtake them, leading to destitution and to that place where husbands were separated from their wives, and mothers from their children. People who witnessed neighbours going into the workhouse never forgot what they saw.

The workhouse, in its heyday, was intended to be a form of social welfare for those with nothing. In practice, it was seen as a dark and terrible fate. Not only the destitute were confined in them: workhouses were used as a dump for the mentally and chronically ill, and the disabled.

The workhouses were officially closed in 1930. But since there was nowhere else to house thousands of institutionalised people who could not be expected to adjust to the outside world, they continued under other names well into the second half of the 20th century.

Inmates were allowed out; creature comforts were provided and families were kept together. But they continued to be run as institutions, by masters and officers whose attitudes were often set still in the 1900s.

Read full article here - Workhouse of Horrors

See list of Jennifer's books here: Jennifer Worth on Amazon
Biography of Jennifer Worth (author: Call The Midwife) on wikipedia