I’m slowly getting into reading more again after I basically completely stopped reading for pleasure in my free time during my PhD due to the demands of my research work. I mostly love non-fiction history books that are engagingly written and open up a window for me into another person’s life.
Before Mrs Beeton: Elizabeth Raffald, England’s Most Influential Housekeeper – by Neil Buttery
This book chronicles the life of chef, entrepreneur and restaurateur Elizabeth Raffald – and what a powerhouse she was! Elizabeth Raffald lived in the 18th century, from 1733 until 1781. The
author Neil Buttery does a beautiful job tracing Elizabeth Raffald in the records and fleshing out the details of her life in an engaging style while always based on rigorous research.
The density of Elizabeth Raffald’s achievements, nowadays too little known, is breathtaking. She was housekeeper (an upper servant role of great responsibility) in an aristocratic family’s
mansion in Cheshire at a remarkably young age, before marrying and entering the new chapter of her life by starting a whole flurry of food-based businesses.
With a knack for a market opportunity and for delectable treats, she tackled a catering business, a cooking school, writing cookbooks and compiling a business directory, as well as running an
inn, alongside motherhood, head on. Her publications on cooking and housekeeping were huge hits in her lifetime. This was, as Neil Buttery highlights so well, chiefly due to the genuine
practicability of her self-tested recipes as well as her straight-forward but respectful style which met working- and middle-class wives at eye level. Her recipes have remained true classics and
were picked up by other, more famous authors later on, such as by Mrs Beeton. Elizabeth Raffald also provides an early, possibly the first, written recipe of the ‘bridal cake’ – essentially
establishing the practice of wedding cakes in society.
I read this book within very few days and greatly enjoyed it. The author also has a very informative food history podcast called “British Food History”.
ISBN 978-1399084475
Blighty or Bust: The Epic 2,000-Mile Escape of WWII prisoner-of-war, Raymond Bailey. In His Own Words – Edited by David Wilkins
This memoir of Private Raymond Bailey of Luton has been published in August 2024 and it is probably the first WW2 escape memoir to have been written. It started as an auction find by Dorset-based
author David Wilkins of a box of volumes which turned out to contain an astonishing story. Raymond Bailey was deployed to the Western Front in France during the war, was captured but successfully
managed to escape and evade recapture while trekking all the way to Spain. He was repatriated to Britain where he wrote the memoir while awaiting redeployment in 1942. This makes it a remarkable
historical document and it is a very engaging read.
Raymond’s own text has been gently prepared for this publication which allows you to really hear his tale in his own words – the words of a young, working-class lad in a foreign country in the
middle of a war. Ray remains incorrigibly positive and often writes in a humorous style, referencing pop-culture such as films along his journeys almost as a means of reminding himself that there
is a world and a life beyond the trenches and beyond hiding as an escapee in the woods. Contextual information has been added by the editor David Wilkins where appropriate, but this isn’t
primarily a military history book. This story would be of great interest to everyone with a curiosity for WW2 history, but it is written to ensure you don’t need a tremendous amount of prior
knowledge and as it explores a human story it is generally fascinating to any social history and memoir lover like myself. It is a story of true courage, endurance. It is a display how far a bold
and free-spirited mind can take you, and how in the face of hardly imaginable horrors a wide variety of people is determined to help others with touching humanity.
ISBN 978-1839527937
Neither of these reviews are sponsored or paid for and the reviews here represent only my own opinion.