ABSTRACT
The senior research worker spent three months as a part-time domestic worker at St Olave’s, Bermondsey’s main hospital, and three women members of the team worked for a fortnight at Peek Frean’s, on all five of the shifts. The senior research worker went to live in Bermondsey; this proved to be of the greatest value when the material from the interviews and other sources came to be interpreted. Compared with schedules used in the Peek Frean Shifts and Newcomers Samples, the interviews with the Bermondsey households tried to elicit more facts and fewer opinions. The very homogeneity of Bermondsey meant that certain lines of enquiry—for example, into the local norms of child-care—could be pursued with greater confidence than usual. Bermondsey proved to be an exceptionally favourable setting for a specific study of this kind, not-withstanding that, as an area, it had certain special features which might act as limitations on the general application of its findings.
