Drawing on private letters and papers, and with the co-operation of Daphne du Maurier's family, the author explores the secret drama of her life - the stifling relationship with her father, actor-manager Gerald du Maurier; her troubled marriage to war hero and royal aide, 'Boy' Browning; her wartime[...]
A follow-up to Margaret Forster's "Hidden Lives" (a family memoir of three generations of women), this account takes up the story of her gritty northern father. She looks back at his life and character, evoking incidents from her Cumbrian childhood, his working life and his stubborn old age.[...]
Why do many women still get married? Why do others not? Why do couples still marry in church in an age of unbelief? Taking up where "Hidden Lives" left off, these are some of the questions the author addresses, through the stories of three women who have long fascinated her.[...]
It is London in the year 1844, and a shy young woman has arrived to take up a new position in the grandeur of No 50, Wimpole Street. Subtly, this book gives voice to Elizabeth Wilson's untold story, her complex relationship with her mistress, Elizabeth Barrett, and her dramatic role in the most famo[...]
Don and Louise's eighteen-year-old daughter Miranda has died in a sailing accident. While Louise takes steps to move on with her life, Don cannot come to terms with the chain of events that led to her death. Instead, he is determined to bring someone to account.[...]
Isamay's unusual name comes from her two very different grandmothers, Isa and May, who were both present at her birth and who have both formed and influenced her whole life in very particular ways.[...]
Born in Carlisle in 1887, brought up in a children's home and by reluctant relatives, Evie, with her wild hair and unassuming ways, seems a quiet, undemanding child. Shona, born almost seventy years later, is headstrong and striking. She grows up in comfort and security in Scotland, the only child o[...]
When Julia was eight, she was asked to be a bridesmaid at her beautiful cousin Iris' wedding. Her mother saw this as a chore - expensive, inconvenient - but Julia was thrilled. When the time came, even the fact that her bridesmaid's dress didn't fit, and was plain cream rather than the pink she'd ho[...]
As heard on BBC Radio 4, 'I was born on May 25, 1938, in the front bedroom of a house in Orton Road, on the outer edges of Raffles, a council estate. I was a lucky girl.' So begins Margaret Forster's journey through the houses she's lived in, from that sparkling new council house, built as part of a[...]