If you have read any of Winspear’s mystery series featuring Maisie Dobbs, you may have wondered where she got her deep knowledge of many of the things featured in her novels – the affects of war, hop-picking in Kent England, travellers (gypsies, Roma), living in poverty in the country, difficult family relationships. Well, she lived most of them, and heard lots and lots of family stories, a few of dubious veracity. She was born in the mid-1950s. Her parents were free spirits and her large extended family included older members maimed by one or both of the World Wars. She was over 16 before the house she grew up in had indoor plumbing or a proper kitchen. Her relationship with her mother was both loving and fraught with conflict. Trained as a teacher, she ended up traveling around the world for a couple of years after college and never actually taught. She worked as a journalist for some years and was in her mid-thirties before she began writing the books which have won her much acclaim and wide-readership. A well-written memoir that I thoroughly enjoyed. 304 pp.
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