GREAT BRITAIN: Almost Too Good to Be True

For some 16 years rotund, toothless George Herbert Naylor has worked for a wholesale grocer firm in Wisbech (rhymes with fizz peach), Cambridgeshire. For almost every one of those years his plump wife Lillian has borne him a child. George's wages are £4 10s.. a week. His eldest daughters Marian (18) and Hazel (17) bring home some £3 between them from jobs at local shops.

But even with the added shillings earned by sons John (14), Frank (12) and Leonard (11) as errand boys, motherly Mrs. Naylor has sometimes found it hard to pay the rent on their poky brick cottage...