Back to my Beginnings: A Memoir

by Paddy Marlene Staplehurst

"Back To My Beginnings" is a true account of the 12 years the author spent in a home run by nuns. It is not a misery memoir but charts the up and downs, joys and despair, laughter and tears of life in this community. The book touches on the dreadful poverty that existed in the 1940s and early 1950s. It is also a book of its time when corporal punishment was the norm; children were slippered, beaten, and caned at home and at school so the whippings described in the book as being struck with a wooden hairbrush were not extreme. The book gives a glimpse of the social structure which was prevalent at that time, the patronage given freely by the "great and the good", men and women who had great social standing, for instance the Lord Lieutenant of the County. They gave both time and finance, taking a real interest in St. Etheldreda's Home.

226 pages, Paperback

First published March 17, 2013