With Love: The 1950s Observed Through the Letters of Two Sisters Paperback – 14 Nov. 2013

This is a bit of an odd review as I must state straight off that I have met both the sisters and witnessed their close sibling relation!ship in action on one occasion quite some years ago during a drive from London to Chichester Festival theatre. I worked years ago with Piers Ford and we have maintained a friendship, trying to meet most years. Piers told me about this book in December when we met up and I had to do a bit of searching to find it in the Kindle Store.What a find - I was heading off to the sun for Christmas and had an assortment of planned beach reading ranging from classics to crime novels to some of the books I had bought as Kindle deals of the day.The book was compulsive and I so enjoyed the obvious fondness recorded in the letters written between the sisters, their tensions, closeness, humour, and their worries of the day, combined with adventure and travel planning on a budget, and especially enjoyed being able to read Gloria's letters about being stuck in the middle of very significant 1950s Middle Eastern global political situation. And the mention of some trivial bygones kept me amused too.It really was the highlight of my holiday reading and I just didn't want it to end. But it did, leaving me wanting more. Always a good sign, but not necessarily when you actually wanted some more!Highly recommended.I am extracting below the email which I sent Piers Ford, never written with the intention of forming part of my observations about the book itself, but here goes (and I hope it shows that I really did read the book quite objectively, despite my slight connection) -"Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the book - it was a really good read and Iloved it, not wanting it to finish. It made me realise how much I enjoy diaryliterature from Diary of a Nobody, the Tales Of the City, 44 Scotland Streetetc, even the email equivalent in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Perhaps that saysa bit about my attention span!Anyway, do tell Laura I enjoyed it and it was strange reading it because I neverthought of any connection to the protagonists, although I was thinking at theend how unusual it was to have read such a piece and for there actually to havebeen a connection. I think it must be good that I didn't read it as literally asthat and shows how it stands up. I hope sales are underway and that you aredoing some promotions to push it forward. And the mention of terylene took meback!

“With Love”It’s impossible not to give five stars to this collection of letters between these two British sisters, Gloria and Laura Geeve. When Gloria died in 2008 the letters were discovered neatly filed in a suitcase in the attic. The sisters’ writing is lively and the interest is compelling as they reveal their daily enthusiasms and concerns. We are reminded or we learn how different life was in the years following WWII. The letters are primary sources of historical events and of social history not found in history books. Laura’s son, Piers Ford, provides informative background and links when letters cease while the sisters are together at home.This is post war austerity Britain when very few people had the disposable income young people now take for granted. The sisters’ father, although a Lieutenant-Commander in the war with an OBE, in peacetime couldn’t find secure employment. Their mother worked and supported the girls through university. The parents endure a testy, difficult marriage with the daughters taking neither side but loving both parents. In spite of little money, theatre in London, films and books are important to their cultural life. With careful saving, some dressmaking and canny shopping they manage to dress in style.The sisters are intelligent, adventurous and love travel. Gloria takes a teaching position in Egypt and from her salary regularly sends money home to pay the family’s household bills. She enjoys the privileged British expats’ life of horse riding, tennis, sailing, swimming, dances and visits to the ‘Club’. In 1956 she becomes trapped in Egypt by the Suez crisis. While frightened by bombing and shooting in the streets, under house arrest and not knowing what will happen to her, she still is more concerned for the Hungarians in their uprising against communism which is going on at the same time. “The news on the BBC is very distressing — how those Hungarians must be suffering”, she writes. So perhaps it is natural that when eventually she is allowed to return home, Gloria takes a job teaching English to Hungarian refugees.Laura finishes school, studies classics at university, spends six months in the States amazed by the affluence there and finds jobs in the publishing world working with the likes of Robert Graves and Lord John Russell. Once working, Laura buys furniture and carpets for their home. She takes responsibility for housework, for redecorating and gardening and often apologises to Gloria for not having written because she’s been busy! Gloria continues to bolster the family’s finances. The reader is struck by the sisters’ commitment to family — attitudes far removed from the “me generation”.The book ends with Laura’s excited marriage preparations and the beginning of married life in a small flat off Sloane Square.Some readers will be reminded of simpler times when a jar of cold cream was an appreciated present and of taking sides for or against Anthony Eden’s Egyptian policy. For younger readers the book is a lesson of selfless times with hard work, thrift and fulfilment. This is addictive reading — just one more letter and then one more. So we are left wishing for a sequel — where else did they travel? What was it like for Gloria teaching in the East End of London? And how did Laura come to settle in an old house in a small Suffolk village?