Love From

About the Book

This book is about surviving all the changes that took place in my life and in the World during the 1960s to 1990s . I had always written letters because when I was young that was the only way to communicate. Telephones were rare and calls were expensive. Invitations, condolences, thank you notes and love letters were all written. After I learned to type I worked in an office and every letter of course had to have a carbon copy. Somehow this stuck and when I married and started moving around I always made carbon copies of my letters. In the beginning I wrote to my parents then my sister and friends and then to my children when they went to boarding school. These communications were all copied and I still have files of letters from far away places all looking rather faded now. They have been a useful tool when my memory failed as it often does but it does mean that if my descendants ever want to check up on me they can discover what life was like for an ordinary woman in 1968 and how hard it was send their children off to boarding school even though by then they saw them every holiday and not once every four years as had been the case a few years earlier.

About the Author

I was born in 1934 so by the time WW2 started I was five years old and became accustomed to bombs and horror stories. We were evacuated but after a week my mother decided she would rather be bombed than be a refugee so we caught a train home. All this was good training for the life I led after I was married which meant changing countries every few years. Unlike my ancestors who who had lived in Northumberland since 1611 and rarely changed villages. I lived in Beirut, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Saigon, India and the Gulf where I worked for various charities since in the 1960s Bank wives were not allowed to work. When I came back to the UK I researched my family and this made me wish I knew more about them. I did discover that all the way back to 1611 the oldest son in the family was christened Fenwick Carr which was the name of my father. If the oldest son died, which in the 17th century was not uncommon, there was usually another Fenwick born a few years later. I wished I had more of their stories so on that basis I decided to write my memoirs. I now work as a volunteer at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and also at the Royal Academy - and I run a bridge group. I have two grown up children and five grandchildren so my life is pretty full and it is my grandchildren who might find the stories the most interesting.