Reviews : Woman of the Valleys: the Story of Mother Shepherd From Charles Preece 43 Ulleswater Road, Southgate, London N14 7BL, £8.95
| Published date | 01 June 1989 |
| Date | 01 June 1989 |
| DOI | 10.1177/026455058903600210 |
| Author | Robert Harris |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
73
an
approachable
style
(occasionally
a
little
glib)
and
is
obviously
based
upon
considerable
research
and
experience.
It
complements
Brown,
Bute
and
Ford’s
Social
workers
at
Risk
without
duplicating
much
of
its
material,
and
it
includes material
which
is
ready-made
for
training
courses
on
stress
and
on
dealing
with
aggressive
clients.
In
her
wish
to
avoid
too
dry
a
style,
the
author
omits
references,
which
is
a
shame
as
she
sometimes
oversimplifies
case
material
which
has
been
taken
from
the
professional
journals
(mainly
social
work
weeklies),
and
fails
to
give
credit
in
the
bibliography
to
several
authors
upon
whose
work
she
has
clear-
ly
drawn.
She
also
makes
one
or
two
odd
suggestions
in
an
offhand
way
(like
having
specialists
in
dealing
with
vio-
lent
clients,
or
using
her
dangerous
Checklist
before
every
home
visit)
but
none
of
these
really
detract
from
the
book’s
usefulness.
Some
issues
are,
however,
treated
superficially,
like
the
decision
on
whether
to
involve
the
police,
and
the
helpfulness
of
Victim
Support
Schemes,
which
are
each
dis-
missed
in
a
single
sentence.
Perhaps
the
best
feature
of
the
book
is
the
highly
accessible
section
on
the
psychological
consequences
of
assaults
at
work,
and
the
ways
in
which
victims
can
be
supported.
it
is
hearten-
ing
to
see
a
coherent
explanation
of
why
so
many
assaulted
staff
feel
guilty.
A
book
of
its
length
could
hardly
be
bettered,
and
used
with
Brown,
Bute
and
Ford’s
book
(which
is
stronger
on
training
issues)
it is
likely
to
become
the
standard
work
on
the
subject.
Brian
Williams
Teesside
Polytechnic
Woman
of the
Valleys:
the
Story
of
Mother
Shepherd
From
Charles
Preece
43
Ulleswater
Road,
Southgate,
London
N14
7BL,
£8.95.
This
remarkable
book
is
the
product
of
ten
years’
work
by
a
retired
probation
o~cer
When
Charles
Preece
discov-
ered
that
his
great-grandmother,
a
Welsh
Salvationist,
had
been
for four-
teen
years
a
Police
Court
Missionary
and
then
the
first
probation
officer
in
the
town
of
Trecynon,
he
set
out
to
obtain
a
mass
of
archive
material
from
the
Salvation
Army
and
elsewhere,
to
produce
this
biography.
The
book
focuses
primarily
on
Pamela
Shepherd’s
pre-probation
days,
firstly
in
Merthyr
at
the
time
of
the
ter-
rible
1831
riots,
and
then
in
the
squalor
of
the
East
End
of
London,
where,
after
having
been
saved
from
a
despair-
ing
suicide,
she
was
converted
to
Christianity
and
went
to
work
to
found
the
’Penny
Gaff’
in
Limehouse.
Here
she
encountered
Thomas
Barnardo
and
William
Booth.
An
account
of
her
evan-
gelising
in
Wales
follows,
with
vivid
descriptions
of
the
poverty
she
encountered
and
the
abuse
she
experi-
enced
as
she
and
her
equally
formidable
daughter,
Kate,
took
the
word
of
God
to
a
brutalised
poor.
Of
her
work
in
probation
we
hear
less,
though
this
may
become
a
focus
of
fur-
ther
publications.
We
learn
that
she
helped
found
a
home
for
girls
(shocked
above
all
by
the
evil
of
child
prostitu-
tion
which,
as
a
salvationist,
she
had
been
involved
in
challenging)
and
worked
as
a
field
probation
officer
for
many
years.
’I
don’t think
that
many
of
those
entrusted
to
me
as
the
probation
officer
appeared
before
the
Magistrates
a
second
time’,
she
observed
much
later.
The
book’s
style
is
narrative
and
its
approach
blends
the
two
distinct
tradi-
tions
of
the
Victorian
moral
tract
and
’blue
book’
social
history,
drawing
as
it
does
on
numerous
contemporary
accounts
of
the
lives
of
the
poor,
and
featuring
no
fewer
that
40
illustrations
in
its
215
pages.
This
certainly
is
the
story
of
an
astonishing
woman.
Robert
Harris
University
of Hull
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