Hilda Ann Salusbury's mother deserted her husband and four children during the first World War. The author was forced to leave school to adopt the role of "skivvy" and "little mother" to her brothers and sisters. But she was too restless to remain at home: immature, uneducated and emotionally illequipped to cope with life in classconscious Britain, she set out to "better" herself, to try to build a career of some kind. But there was little life could offer an ambitious girl in the 1920s—especially one with no social connections. Domestic service was the only answer, and this the author was determined to avoid. She embarked on a series of adventures: in a "gentleman's" home, in a household of invalids in a remote Norfolk village, and finally in London's East End, to seek romance amidst the poverty and squalor.