some parts were excellent, some hard to focus. ( )

A lightweight and pleasant memoir of growing up in the country in 1920s England. Enjoyable because it's so beautifully written; the details from the past interest me; and she has some fine insights into human behavior. As someone who can't remember much about my childhood, certainly not details like breakfast routines, I'm astonished by the detail and quality of her memories, but she wrote it when she was 85. Maybe when I'm 85 this stuff will come back to me too. Another reviewer notes the excellence of the introduction where she muses on what she's lost by growing old. ( )

Still reading! Short Book thank goodness so easy to add so long as I read.
Great Writer, solid honest Biography from a woman true to her Class who broke the sexaul mould to survive. I will read more Diana Athill. ( )

Diana Athill was in her eighties when she wrote this memoir. It is full of fascinating social history from her privileged upbringing in Norfolk. Childhood exploits, ghosts in the nursery and a great deal of happiness, Diana Athill knows just how blessed she was. A story of a miraculous walk through nettles while looking for the household dogs is just one memorable tale. Diana Athill paints a wonderfully vivid picture of a life lived by a nice family of a certain class. She also poignantly describes her relationship with her mother - who lived until she was ninety six. With great honesty Diana explores her parents relationship, and why it was that she and her siblings hadn't such a close relationship with him. This is a short, well written memoir which I found completely charming and very readable. ( )

A memoir of a well-off Norfolk childhood. Athill's writing, like her thinking, is precise and honest, but I couldn't help feeling that the subject matter didn't quite live up to it - for example, one of the standout passages was about the joys of the dressing-up box. Not that it's without its profound moments - but none of them live up to the short passage in the prologue where she talks about what she's lost in her eighties (the ability to drink alcohol, "walk fast or far, enjoy music, and make love ... if someone had listed them twenty years ago I would have been too appalled to go on reading"). Nor, indeed, am I saying that a happy childhood is not worth writing about. But this is happy and uneventful (in the most perfect possible way). I would, though, like to read Athill's book about growing older (Somewhere towards the end) - I think that would be a topic worthy of her precision and honesty. ( )