Memory in A House

by Lucy M. Boston

Lucy Boston, whose outstanding Green Knowe stories for young readers are rated among today's classics, has set down in this book and impressive record of the restoration of her Norman manor at Hemingford Grey - which is Green Knowe - and has conveyed a sense of the magic the house holds for her.The lyrical memoir begins in 1939, with Mrs. Boston's purchase of the house (by a kind of inspired accident). Her fascinating account of the architectural reclamation of what seemed at the time "a ramshackle madness from top to bottom, dark, dispiriting, crazy," is laced with her growing passion for the house - a passion which became the inspiration for a new career of writing and a vital element in her life.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography

16 pages, Hardcover

First published March 8, 1973

About the author

Lucy M. Boston (1892–1990), born Lucy Maria Wood, was an English novelist who wrote for children and adults, publishing her work entirely after the age of 60. She is best known for her "Green Knowe" series: six low fantasy children's novels published by Faber between 1954 and 1976. The setting is Green Knowe, an old country manor house based on Boston's Cambridgeshire home at Hemingford Grey. For the fourth book in the series, A Stranger at Green Knowe (1961), she won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.[1]

During her long life, she distinguished herself as a writer, mainly of children’s books, and as the creator of a magical garden. She was also an accomplished artist who had studied drawing and painting in Vienna, and a needlewoman who produced a series of patchworks.

Reviews

[Melody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another interesting second chapter-type memoir, this from the author of the Green Knowe series. I strongly suspect that Lucy Boston was a truly dotty woman, and quite possibly as bristly and unapproachable as a porcupine. She certainly was a decisive character. I was a little worried since she made some comment in her first memoir about her unsuccessful marriage that there would be bitterness here about it. But she merely alluded to it as something in the past, and told more about her fascinating house. I missed hearing more about her lively family, and how their lives turned out.

It was an odd book, rather unsettling for all its craft.

[Pollymoore3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just as Lucy Boston describes here, as we passed her garden gate many years ago, hoping only for a distant peep at "Green Knowe", she invited us in to look at the magical garden of yews and willows. She must have been well approaching one hundred, but was still sprightly and very much with it.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do not know why this is listed as only 16 pages on Goodreads; the new collection of two books combined into Memories, the second of which is Memory in A House, is about 170 pages of a wonderful love affair of a Norman house and gardens brought back to life through the tireless, dogged determination of the author. I was inspired to read the book after visiting Hemingford-Grey Manor and introduced to the house by the DIL of the former owner. A delightful mish-mash or a home brought to life within the pages that made me laugh out loud at some of the tales and be pleased to recall some of what I saw and heard. Even without a visit the story is well worth the read. I am looking forward to Perverse and Foolish, the first of the two in Memories. We were strongly advised to read Memory in A House first.

[Sian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was pleased to find this in the library (though it's actually a combination of her first volume of autobiography "Perverse and Foolish" and "Memory in a House") as I've wanted to read this for a long time because I love the Green Knowe books so much.

Sadly it was a bit disappointing and quite hard work to get through :( there's very little structure here other than chronology, it's almost just a book of anecdotes and recollections. It really feels like the author is keeping the reader at arms length with almost no personal details or revealing of feelings, especially around her relationships with her family, husband or son. Instead pages are devoted to character sketches of people we'll never meet again, while the death of her brother in WW2 gets only a sentence.

The first two chapters were particularly hard, but reading about Lucy's experiences in WW1 as a nurse were interesting, then it's not long until she buys the house that was the inspiration for Green Knowe. Even here it seems to have been a struggle for her to put her obvious feeling for the place into words and there are only brief mentions of her inspirations for the various books. But you do get a sense of the house from her writing, particularly when she mentions ghostly goings on. I really liked the mention of the ghostly attendee at her concerts that she assumed to be an airman lost in battle, longing to return. There's also a strong sense of her identification with the natural world and landscape and her mourning at (what seemed to her) it's passing, I particularly liked "only the full moon at midnight gave back to the river it's old dignity, it's worshipfulness."

You really do get a sense of her as a fiercely independent and strong willed character - and she really didn't like librarians very much!

[CLM]

Mrs. Boston's memoir of the house that inspired Green Knowe, the Manor, Hemingford Grey, which she bought just before WWII. The book describes its restoration and how it inspired her writing career.