Adelaide was from a large middle class family with Jewish roots, living in the more affluent West End of London. Tim was an Irish immigrant, escaping the poverty of his homeland and living along the docks in the East End with the labouring poor. A slum area, the East End was running alive with all manner of vermin and streets fouled with horse dung and urine. Tim did battle each day for what little work there might be available on the docks.

How Tim and Adelaide ever met was a mystery that always puzzled the family. Threatened with expulsion from the family by her mother and father, Adelaide married Tim despite their objections. Tim's violent ways and the poverty of living in the East End were compounded by the birth of eight children that ultimately took a huge toll on Adelaide's body and her mental well-being.

Young Tilly watched her mother struggle to keep house, home, and marriage together and food on the table for her eight children. Monkery Bottom follows a period of Tilly's life from the time her father first marched off to fight in WW I, until she immigrated to Canada with her two children in 1961. It parallels the struggles of her own mother's life as Tilly endeavours to raise two children as a single parent.