Eric Highton was born on 20^th April 1925 at No 2, Elm Street, Borrowash. It is still his home, although the interior has undergone some necessary 20th century refinements to heating and water systems.

Christine Wallwork contacted Unexamined Lives in response to our request (published in The Derby Telegraph) for information about working conditions at the former Barron’s Nurseries.

Barron’s was special to Christine for reasons beyond the usual parameters of job and income because it marked the beginning and in a different way, the conclusion, of her father’s working life.

As the 20^th century advanced; working outside the home assumed increasing importance in a woman’s quest for an acceptable standard of living as well as a key factor in basic economic survival.

Phyllis Wymer worked as a welder in the years following the outbreak of the Second World War to sustain her single-parent family after the desertion of her husband and the premature death of a partner.

Tom Matchett retired as Food Division Deputy Controller of the Plymouth Co-operative Society in June 1989

It was a key role; reporting to the Controller on the operation of over 60 Grocery; Butchery and Greengrocery retail outlets; a Food Distribution Centre; Butchery Warehouse; Small Goods Factory and Dairy Department:

Women born in the first part of the 20^th century envisaged futures for themselves that would have struck a chord with both their 19^th century  grandmothers and 21^st century granddaughters.

Ann Smith was born in 1938 at Derby’s Nightingale Road Maternity Hospital and is unequivocal about her goals and aspirations:

Living in a village is a moveable feast. For some, raising a family away from the sound and fury of the city is only sustainable if the front door is kept firmly closed to all but invited guests.

Others find much to admire in the camaraderie to be encountered in the vibrant communities of fictional villages such as Raveloe, Lark Rise and Cranford.

If Mary Beilby, (who died on 20th September, 2012 at the Queen’s Medical Centre) had been born in the 16th century, she would have slotted perfectly into a Renaissance world where politics and literature rubbed shoulders with exploration; art and science.

Remembrance Day 2011 was a milestone for a custom that seems as embedded in the blood and bone of the nation as 1066. In fact, Remembrance observance is relatively recent; inaugurated in 1919 to commemorate those who gave their lives in the First World War.

Sadly, the 1914-18 war was not the war to end all wars, and during the course of the 20^thcentury, ceremonies at the Cenotaph and memorial services in villages, towns and cities throughout the United Kingdom widened to encompass the Second World War; the Falklands War and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Schooldays are the best days of your life’ is a familiar phrase and  one with about as much credibility as ‘eating fish gives you brains’ or ‘ carrots will make you see in the dark’.

But the response to my article about Westernmere School (Derby Telegraph Bygones; January 17^th 2011) makes me think that whoever dreamed it up was on to something!

Bine and Nancy Payne’s wedding photograph in the Ockbrook of 1938, symbolises many aspects of a century caught between modernism and the dead hand of Victorian Britain.

The couple married when the country teetered on the brink of World Ward Two and their children, Roger and Angela were war babies.