The Ugly One: Childhood Memoirs, 1913-39 Book

The decline of much of the landed English gentry Into genteel feckless poverty is a story that has been often told In fiction and rather less often by the eyewitnesses. Hermione Ranfurly's childhood during the First World War, and her adolescence and young adulthood thereafter, are burdened by a mother whose highly strung nerves gradually give way and a father who can never resist buying anything. The economic decline of a class is told in terms of the giving away of favourite pets and the abandonment of favourite toys. At the same time, there is an uneasy awareness that much is gained alongside the loss--the young Hermione develops a vague hint of a social conscience that would be entirely beyond her parents, and learns to earn a living as something more than a bored parasite. Charm is a word overused in attempts to explain the upper classes and how they survive, yet for once it is entirely accurate as a description of the tone of this memoir; charm and a certain moral toughness. In retrospect, Hermione has little pity for her younger self, and a strong sense that this was what it took to make her grow up, and was ultimately for the best. --Roz KaveneyRead More