Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man

A 2000 Torgi Award winner, Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man is a charming and engaging memoir about growing up poor in an English working-class family during the Depression. Wright was born into a family of ten children. His father was a carter who drove horses and his mother worked as a tailoress. With no hot water, baths once a week and often short of food, life was hard but the family got by with resourcefulness and tenacity. Wright was able to win a scholarship and this enabled him to get an education which eventually helped him rise above his circumstances. After working in 1950s England, he decided to emigrate to Canada. The story culminates with his experiences as a young man working in the Canadian North. A superbly written memoir, Always Give a Penny to a Blind Man paints invaluable portraits of British working-class life and the quintessential Canadian immigrant experience, circa the 1950s. Originally published in hardcover in 1999.