Make Do And Mend: Family Riddles and Fragile Idylls

by Stella Sampson, Mark Sampson (Editor)

Stella Sampson could have been a contender, Finchley's answer to Stevie Smith perhaps, had the conventions of the time not earmarked her for motherhood and domestic dissonance. Nevertheless, she painted and wrote like a woman possessed. Among the work she left behind her was this touching, candid memoir of her suburban childhood during the interwar years in North London. Framed by her imminent departure with her young family for Belfast in late 1961, the book is driven by the author's struggle to break free from the only world she has known and the parents she adores. Her memories of childhood and those of her mother reveal a central tale of three indomitable women, her mother and both grandmothers, whose resourcefulness keeps their families going through roughly three exacting decades of war, flu and economic depression. Phrases, memories and seemingly throwaway events trigger 'significant moments' and portraits of characters often trying to stay afloat and keep from drowning. It adds up to a vivid, nostalgic and highly entertaining picture of a bygone lifestyle on one level, and a study on another of family dynamics and the way that patterns repeat themselves down through the generations..

240 pages, Paperback

Published January 26, 2023