A lovely story based on real-life facts. Alice beginning her work as an Almoner - feeling she had taken on more than she could manage finds a way through to a satisfactory resolution.
A lovely story based on real-life facts. Alice beginning her work as an Almoner - feeling she had taken on more than she could manage finds a way through to a satisfactory resolution.
This is a book that is more than just a good read, you learn something about social history and how we have, or maybe not, moved on!
I fully recommend this book a great page-turner.
A totally captivating account of a newly qualified almoner in London's East End. Well written, well researched, based on real life stories. So different from what you have read so far, a must for any historian.
I found this story fascinating and intresting. The story is about a qualified almoner in 1920s London's East End. It was a subject that I had never reallly come across before at all. The almoner Alice through her work uncovers a secret that will changes lives forever, of a father who has been abusing his daughter, who ends up pregnant. We also meet Hetty who has cancer, Jams/Jimmy who use the system to get free treatment. The use of young girls with mental health problems by males for their own needs.
This book is totally fascinating, eye opening and leaves you with the feeling of "I didn't know that could happen". You are taken on a journey by Alice who leaves you wanting to know more about this little known subject. Always informative and the stories are based on real life stories. I hope we hear more from this author.
Alice is an almoner at the Royal Free Hospital in the 1920's - she is responsible for the social care for a number of patients who we read about in the book, including Charlotte, who carries a dark secret.
The concept of Letters from Alice came about after the author was researching something from her own family history. She learned about the work of the almoners and was inspired to write a story based on the facts she discovered and histories of real people.
The book is based on the goings on of the Royal Free Hospital at a time shortly after the First World War. You follow Alice in her work as an almoner, which was basically a social worker of the day.
There are some key characters which build into the story and the book is full of history and mystery. I loved the little quotes from the newspapers and medical journals of the time at the beginning of the chapters and several chapters start with a brief scene - setting narative.
As Alice becomes more involved with one of the girls in her care, Charlotte, the story unfolds to shed light on Charlotte's predicament and some sinister events become apparent. Many things are not as they seem - to Alice or the reader!
I loved this book, loved the history and loved the concept of the stories based on real people and real facts.
A story of mystery, sadness and deceit set in the 1920's in the area surrounding the London Hospital. Alice, a Lady Almoner, tries to help the poor and sick, particularly Charlotte an expectant teenager whose parents are not supportive of her plight.
This is a story about the profession of Lady Almoner in the early years of the twentieth century. Based on thorough historical research and archives this novel's main character, Alice, is almoner at the London Hosptal. She attempts to bring relief and assistance to the poor, sick, vulnerable and underprivileged living nearby. It highlights the difficulties of life in the period after World War 1. Not only were many fathers and husbands killed, but many who returned were not always able to support themselves or their families. In an era before the NHS and the welfare state life was hard, illnesses were rife and often untreated, houses were dirty and overcrowded and people were often fired to live a miserable life. Alice tries to alleviate sone if this suffering, not always successfully. When she attends Charlotte, an expectant teenager, she is drawn into a sad tale of mystery and deceit. An illuminating and well written story of hardship and heartache yet hope for better times. Although presented as a novel the level of factual input gives a depth tho the story. Highly recommended.
Permitting the author some considerable artistic licence, this makes for a great educational and interesting read and one that I do recommend.
As a qualified and registered social worker whose career commenced as a medical social worker in a large London teaching hospital. And who then went on to manage social services in the very deprived East End of London - amongst other roles - I was enthused to read this book which is set in the Royal Free Hospital in the 1920s. The book centers on the work of Alice, a fictionalised newly qualified almoner (the forerunners of medical social workers who did so much to establish our current system of social care and social work).
The plot is full of secrets, twists and turns which keep the reader enthralled and the author does an excellent job of conveying the extreme poverty and ills many endured after the end of the First World War. However, her imagination got the better of her when it came to the relationships between the various professions, including that of the emerging almoners and the medical and nursing professions. Even in the early 1980s, when I first started practicing, there is no way that a medical social worker would have behaved in many of the ways that Alice is depicted as behaving, let alone in the Twenties.
However, permitting the author some considerable artistic license, this makes for a great educational and interesting read and one that I do recommend. If only there were more novels of this ilk!