Where did the years go? by Emma Wood (2004)
10/10
This is a book that you won't be able to buy because it was written and privately published by my cousin Emma as a memoir of her life. Cousin Emma is not to be confused with Auntie Emma, who features in my secret teenage diaries. Emma was also the name of my maternal grandma, just to confuse things.
My cousin Emma is 30 years older than me. Her mother, Sarah, was my mother's sister. Sarah was second oldest in a family of 9, and my mum, Hannah, was second youngest. All of that generation are dead now, and we cousins aren't so good at keeping in touch with other. I was delighted when Emma sent me this book. It is a very readable and entertaining chronicle of cousin Emma's ancestry and her life. Some of the reasons it is good:
1)
We share common history - Emma knows well the house that I was raised in (which was also the house my mother and her siblings were raised in) and she went to the same primary school. I know some things now that I didn't know before; I know what my grandma and granddad died of, and I know that one of my mother's siblings died shortly after birth, when a drunken midwife, trying to cut the skin under the tongue (to rectify the baby being tongue-tied) cut the tongue instead.
2) I learned a lot about what it was for Emma to be a farmer's wife, first in the bleak conditions on a hill-farm near Oldham, and later farming cattle in Lincolnshire. Emma tells an impressive tale of being pregnant, having three young boys with measles, and falling down the cellar steps, resulting in having to have her leg in plaster for most of her pregnancy. Amidst all this they kept the farm going, and kept up 2 milk delivery rounds.
3) Emma and her husband, Donald, tried their hands at various things, including running a highly successful mushroom farm for 20 years, in Lincolnshire. They also travelled a lot, seeing significant chunks of the world together. She describes her encounters with new places and people with such Lancashire stoicism and open-mindedness that I am glad that she is my kin.
4) Her stoicism continues after Donald died. She continues to travel and, more impressively, to learn new skills - the book was typed n her computer, and she is now learning to play the piano. Yay! a model for me!
And - I love the title - yes, indeed, where do all the years go?
Thanks Cousin Emma
10/10
This is a book that you won't be able to buy because it was written and privately published by my cousin Emma as a memoir of her life. Cousin Emma is not to be confused with Auntie Emma, who features in my secret teenage diaries. Emma was also the name of my maternal grandma, just to confuse things.
My cousin Emma is 30 years older than me. Her mother, Sarah, was my mother's sister. Sarah was second oldest in a family of 9, and my mum, Hannah, was second youngest. All of that generation are dead now, and we cousins aren't so good at keeping in touch with other. I was delighted when Emma sent me this book. It is a very readable and entertaining chronicle of cousin Emma's ancestry and her life. Some of the reasons it is good:
1)
We share common history - Emma knows well the house that I was raised in (which was also the house my mother and her siblings were raised in) and she went to the same primary school. I know some things now that I didn't know before; I know what my grandma and granddad died of, and I know that one of my mother's siblings died shortly after birth, when a drunken midwife, trying to cut the skin under the tongue (to rectify the baby being tongue-tied) cut the tongue instead.
2) I learned a lot about what it was for Emma to be a farmer's wife, first in the bleak conditions on a hill-farm near Oldham, and later farming cattle in Lincolnshire. Emma tells an impressive tale of being pregnant, having three young boys with measles, and falling down the cellar steps, resulting in having to have her leg in plaster for most of her pregnancy. Amidst all this they kept the farm going, and kept up 2 milk delivery rounds.
3) Emma and her husband, Donald, tried their hands at various things, including running a highly successful mushroom farm for 20 years, in Lincolnshire. They also travelled a lot, seeing significant chunks of the world together. She describes her encounters with new places and people with such Lancashire stoicism and open-mindedness that I am glad that she is my kin.
4) Her stoicism continues after Donald died. She continues to travel and, more impressively, to learn new skills - the book was typed n her computer, and she is now learning to play the piano. Yay! a model for me!
And - I love the title - yes, indeed, where do all the years go?
Thanks Cousin Emma
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