In The Worst Children’s Jobs in History Sir Tony Robinson takes you back to the days when being a kid was no excuse for getting out of hard labour. This book tells the stories of all the children whose work fed the nation, kept trains running, and put clothes on everyone’s backs, over the last few hundred years of Britain’s history.

No longer will you have to listen to your parents, grandparents, uncles, neighbours, and random old people in the Co-op telling you how much harder they had it in their day. Next time you find yourself in that situation, ask them if they were a jigger-turner or a turnip-picker in their young day. No? An orderly boy, perhaps? A stepper? Maybe they spent their weekends making matchboxes? Still no? Then they have no idea about the real meaning of hard work.

With profiles and testimonies of real kids in rotten jobs, this book will tell you things you probably didn’t want to know about the back-breaking, puke-inducing reality of being a child in the past.