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Description

With candour and dry wit, Rose Dudley recounts her early years as an only child of divorced parents, being raised, on a farm in rural Wales during WWII, by a mentally unbalanced grandmother and struggling with the British class system. At age eleven, she was separated from her friends by the ill-conceived wisdom of the British education system which landed her in a prestigious school. There, she fitted in like a sore thumb and was presented with further challenges that she claims affected all her future relationships but did, at least, provide her with a title for her memoir. The characters, so typical of those seen in British dramas, are brought to life on the page and will provide laugh-aloud moments. Teachers of young children will identify with the author's experiences in the classroom and the feeling of panic on being faced with the responsibility of that first group of 30 to 40 small children. Her descriptions of the countryside, references to historical events and the ideas and social mores of the forties, fifties and sixties will fill you with nostalgia and a yearning to return to the simpler life, that in these times of crass commercialism and super-abundance, we are all beginning to crave.