About the Book

Ethel Baddeley a lively feisty young girl was born in Oldham in 1915 in poor but happy circumstances.Grandma's Letters tells the story of her growing up during the First World War and of her struggle as a young mum in the Second World War when her husband of just a few months left to fight the Japanese in Burma and India. Unbeknown to them at the time of his departure she was pregnant and it would be four long years before Ken would see his daughter.The last chapter tells of Ken's War deriven mainly from a diary which he kept of the long journey to reach Northern India and his stories of fighting a vicious enemy.However the major part of the book consists of Grandma Howard's letters all written when she was over eighty to her children and her six grandchildren.

They say that letter writing is a dying art and that it is a great joy to read other's letters. Her letters are a joy. Repeated exactly as they were written, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and as she mentions complete with breaks for the toilet, a snooze or food. She writes about the birds and flowers in her garden, religion, politics, modern society, family values, the past, husband Ken, death and dying.

She is funny, outrageous, frank,sensitive, warm and over the years has exasperated, enlightened, shocked and confounded her friends and family. Her letters are an insight into a lost world of good manners, respect and caring and reveal the daily struggle of the elderley to cope in a society so alien to that in which they grew up. At 91, her eyesight failing she no longer writes or paints but still rails against the fading of the light.A lovely unusual book.

About the Author

Robert Burrows, Bob was born in Wrexham in 1941 and moved to Macclesfield, Cheshire in 1947 where he was educated at Parkroyal Secondary and Kings School Grammar. He joined TSB Bank in 1959 and quickly rose through the ranks and managed several Cheshire branches before his first appointment as District Manager, Manchester and then District Manager, Derby. In 1991 after serving as Area Director for the North West based in Liverpool he took early retirement to travel the world with his wife Pat and visit their Florida home.Macclesfield has remained their home where they have brought up their two children Nik and Penny. Career highlights include, working with Sir Bobby Charlton, hosting a dinner for Sir Matt Busby, lunching with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and meeting Princess Anne twice. He is an Associate of Institute of Banking, past Chairman Macclesfield Forest Round Table and former treasurer of Wilmslow and Handforth CAB.

In 1999 Bob took up writing purely as a hobby as he has always been interested in sport and before going into banking he would have prefered to have been a sports journalist. The hobby grew and to date he has written almost 100 articles for Cheshire Life, FHM, Trailfinders, My Weekly, People's Friend, The Lady,etc and many newspapers. In addition he has three published books to his name. 'Cheshire's Famous' published in 2004 by Breedon and 'Fighter Writer', the true story of a Black Watch Sergeant artist/poet for which he was nominated for the Saltire award in two categories, also published by Breedon.

Fighter Writer, at their request, was launched at the Imperial War Museum in London and later Bob embarked on a book tour of Dundee and Edinburgh.

In  October 2006, 'Infamous Cheshire' was published by Sutton Publishing and Bob currently has two further works in progress.