Flowering Spring

The Haverard Family #4

by Elfrida Vipont, Shirley Hughes (Illustrator)

Professor Haverard has five children; Pippa and Chenda, the twins, are lively and pretty, Mary is clever, Laura wants to be an actress and Christopher is interested in nothing but farming. It seems that Laura will never achieve her ambition; she fails an audition for the Royal Institute of Drama and is unsuccessful in her attempts to impress her cousin, the famous actress Milly Kitson. She wants to leave school when she is sixteen but her parents insist that she goes to Heryot Friends School to do sixth form work, in the hope that she will take up teaching. At the same time Christopher is sent to Marston, the Quaker school for boys, because his father intends him to follow an academic career. Laura and Christopher are determined to choose their own careers, despite the disapproval of their parents, but Christopher has to take drastic action to convince Professor Haverard that he seriously wants to farm. Laura enjoys Heryot, contrary to her expectations, and learns more both about acting and about herself, but there are still obstacles to be overcome...

199 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Born in Manchester in 1902, Elfrida Vipont Brown was the daughter of devout Quakers, and was educated at Manchester High School, before studying history at Manchester University, and singing in Paris, London and Leipzig. She worked for a time as a professional singer (experience she would use in her books), married research technologist R.P. Foulds in 1929, and had four daughters. Vipont published her first book, Quakerism (1930), under her married name, E.V. Foulds, although she went on to use 'Elfrida Vipont' for her subsequent work. She was heavily involved in the field of Quaker education, serving as a Governor of Ackworth School - a Quaker institution founded in 1779, and to which many of her family were sent - as well as Headmistress of the Quaker Evacuation School at Yealand Manor, set up during World War II. Vipont wrote more than thirty books, including Weaver of Dreams, The Lark in the Morn, and The Elephant and the Bad Baby, finding success in all genres. She died in 1992.

Reviews

[CLM · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Laura Haverard and her family move from Oxford to a small village it is an adjustment for everyone. Overlooked as the fourth of five children, Laura makes friends and slowly begins to recognize her strengths and weaknesses, as she develops her own identity and decides she wants to be an actress . . .

http://perfectretort.blogspot.com/202...