"Sidney Day's untutored brain is a living encyclopedia…it is
also an inventory of vanished things… The physicality of existence,
even in London, makes for the most striking difference between daily life
then and now. From the beginning Sidney's days were governed by the poles
of pleasure and necessity, so that his experiences seem both harsher and
more beautiful, more rooted in human reality and above all in nature…"
"Illiterate he may be but Sidney Day's memoir is a most fascinating book. Such testimonials are rare: this one should become part of our common knowledge of how we were, a small bulwark against our modern habit of forgetfulness."
