Letters from Constance - Couverture souple

Hocking, Mary

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1509819800 ISBN 13 : 9781509819805

Editeur : Bello, 2016

Synopsis

In 1939, as they leave school, Constance and Sheila vow to keep in touch. Posted to Ireland in the WRNS, Constance marries Fergus, a gregarious Irishman. Before long, stifled by domesticity and motherhood, she envies Sheila, writing poetry and married to the fiercely creative Miles. Gradually, however, a different reality emerges, for Constance has unacknowledged talents of her own, while Sheila's public success is bought at great personal cost. From the war to the 1980s, Constance writes to Sheila of her everyday hopes and sorrows, and through her we learn much of Sheila's gallantry and courage. We learn, too, of the social and political developments that challenge and shape her values, until finally outside events come too close and the fragile balance of Constance's own world is threatened. This is an unforgettable portrait of a friendship, and much more. While Letters from Constance explores personal experiences with humour, tenderness and acuity, it is an equally fascinating microcosm of the years it surveys.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Born in in London in 1921, Mary was educated at Haberdashers' Aske's Girls School, Acton. During the Second World War she served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (Wrens) attached to the Fleet Air Arm Meteorology branch and then briefly with the Signal Section in Plymouth.

Writing was in her blood. Juggling her work as a local government officer in Middlesex Education Department with writing, at first short stories for magazines and pieces for The Times Educational Supplement, she then had her first book, The Winter City, published in 1961.

The book was a success and enabled Mary to relinquish her full time occupation to devote her time to writing. Even so, when she came to her beloved Lewes in 1961, she still took a part-time appointment, as a secretary, with the East Sussex Educational Psychology department.

Long before family sagas had become cult viewing, she had embarked upon the 'Fairley Family' trilogy - Good Daughters, Indifferent Heroes, and Welcome Strangers - books which give her readers a faithful, realistic and uncompromising portrayal of ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times, between the years of 1933 and 1946.

For many years she was an active member of the 'Monday Lit', a Lewes-based group which brought in current writers and poets to speak about their work. Equally, she was an enthusiastic supporter of Lewes Little Theatre, where she found her role as 'prompter' the most satisfying, and worshipped at the town's St Pancras RC Church.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Bello
• Date d'édition: 2016
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1509819800
• ISBN 13: 9781509819805
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 222
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: Koch-Chemie GmbH; https://www.koch-chemie.com ; ; Einsteinstr. 42; Unna; 59423; Allemagne