Author: Lisa Wright
ISBN 9781906377151           

Like army wives, clergy wives are constantly ready to be on the move. The houses they live in do not belong to them and they have no choice in their size or location.  

Since the Second World War, vicarages and rectories have undergone a sea change. The vast, often very beautiful, dilapidated mansions have been sold off for profit by the Dioceses, and purpose built houses have been provided for the clergy. A clergy house now must have at least four bedrooms to allow for priests with large families and for visitors, a large sitting room that can be used for small parish meetings and social gatherings, a kitchen suitable for the same, and a study situated close to the front door. They have central heating and fridges and washing machines, and most have a decent sized garden with a large patch of grass suitable for summer fetes and parish gatherings. The clergy wife is expected to give hospitality to all and sundry and to be ready for whoever may call. It has not always been that way…

In Spilling the Beans! Lisa Wright has assembled a collection of letters spanning the years 1953 – 1956, written by her mother, Margot, a rectors wife. These letters are a perfect snapshot of life in an English vicarage and a wonderful, amusing and heart-warming perspective of life in those post war years.

What they say…

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of letters. They were full of the typical intimate chat between a mother and daughter about day-to-day activities, and about people known well to both, and some were quite hilarious. What a character Margot (the mother) must have been – a real life-giver. It also reveals a lot about what life was like in the East end of London in the early 1950s – details which those of my generation vaguely remember from childhood, but which will leave younger people open-mouthed with amazement.

What a lot of coal carrying, fire-lighting, dress-making and knitting went on each day. As a retired clergy wife I also enjoyed the very honest insights into the life of a busy vicar’s wife, but breathe a sigh of gratitude that vicarages are now so much smaller, have central heating, and that the clergy stipend is more than £25 per week (or even its present-day equivalent). I’ve already bought 3 copies, and I’m just ordering another 3 to give as presents to other clergy wives. Some things have changed . . . but other things are not that different!

– Sue Foreshaw

Marvellous! This is a great read for anyone but if you are of an age (like me) it will take you right back to a time when we ‘made do’, when people had less in the way of material things but in a lot of ways were better off for that. This book is full of humour, the story would make great television.

– Joan Mant