Vestry England. In England, until the 19th century, the parish vestry committee was in effect what would today usually be called a parochial church council, but was also responsible for secular parish business, which is now the responsibility of a parish council, and other activities, such as administering locally the poor law. The original unit of settlement among the Anglo-Saxons in England was the "tun" or town. The inhabitants met to carry out this business in the town moot or meeting, at which they appointed the various officials and the common law would be promulgated. Later with the rise of the
A Sort of Life frankly with the personal demons he faced in his teens, including an account of several suicide attempts, the resulting psychoanalysis his father arranged for him and his brief fascination with Russian roulette. A Sort of Life A Sort of Life is the first volume of autobiography by British novelist Graham Greene, first published in 1971. This volume covers Greene's early life, from mundane childhood in Surrey, through to school and university and on to his early working life as a sub editor at The Times and his years as a struggling novelist. His memoirs have been criticized for being oddly