CLASSIC TEXT REVISITED ... In Darkest London Mrs Cecil Chesterton(Ada Jones), 1926

We may question the ethics of such an enterprise, let alone whether she really succeeded in disguising the trappings of her privileged background (she had married Cecil Chesterton, brother of author GK, during the First World War). But the result is a sympathetic and passionate condemnation of the lack of appropriate provision for the "outcast" women she encountered: the pregnant girls, young unmarried mothers and prostitutes.

She found much to admire in these young women. She praised the residents of a Salvation Army hostel, most of whom were pregnant, for their resilience and realism. She notes their concern with their looks, but unlike many of her contemporaries interprets this as a sign of self-respect, rather than dismissing it as frivolity. Her attitude to women who become pregnant outside marriage more than once - the thorny issue of the "second fall" - is equally unconventional, as demonstrated by her assertion that one young woman would remain the "same brave, kindly and hardworking woman should she have 20 illegitimate children rather than two".