A History of the Ministry of Information, 1939-46
1. A list of addresses has been drawn at random from the Willesden rating lists. Calls should be made at each of the addresses appearing on the interviewer's quota. Where the interviewer meets with a refusal, a Questionnaire should nevertheless be returned to the office, bearing the appropriate Serial Number (See below, 9) and any other information which can be obtained (especially the number of households in the structurally separate dwelling). In addition the interviewer should add the reasons given by the informant for his refusal.
2. All members (of 18 years or over) of all households in each structurally separate dwelling visited are to be interviewed.
3. A Structurally Separate Dwelling (S.S.D.) may be (a) a house which has not been modified within to form separate, self-contained flats with individual access; (b) a self-contained flat (with the possible exception of a shared W.C. and bathroom), separated, by structural modification, from the rest of the house of which it once formed a part. (c) a self-contained flat in a building block originally constructed to provide such dwellings.
4. There are two Questionnaires. A HOUSEWIFE questionnaire must be completed for the chief housewife in each household. In the case of other married women who are not chief housewives, the ORDINARY questionnaire must be used.
5. Where there is not chief housewife, but some other individual undertakes her functions, the HOUSEWIFE questionnaire must be used.
6. An individual who has a furnished room, or rooms in an S.S.D., and does his or her own housekeeping, is a lodger. He must be treated as a household of one, and must appear on a HOUSEWIFE questionnaire.
7. A boarder (one who is not related to other members of the household, but lives with them, and takes his meals with them) must be treated as a member of the household. Classification details relating to him must appear in Section II of the Housewife questionnaire; but he must be interviewed on an ORDINARY questionnaire.
8. For all other interviews, the ORDINARY questionnaire must be used.
9. On all questionnaires completed for a single structurally separate dwelling, the same Serial Number must be used. This will be found for each address in the interviewer's quota, and must be written on every questionnaire used at that address. To this Serial Number the interviewer must add 1 for the first household which is interviewed, 2 for the next, and so on, thus: 5/8/1234/1, 5/81234/2 etc. In many cases there may be no more than one household in the S.S.D., but the number 1 must still be added.
10. Sections III, IV, V and VI should be discussed as if they had relevance only to the replanning and improvement of Willesden. The question of movement to a new town should not be raised until the last part of the interview, Section VII.