Gabrielle: My Life As I Remember It

by Gail Godwin

This is Gail Godwin’s story of her life as she remembers it. Her early childhood was spent in India, where her father was a senior Indian Police officer based in Calcutta. After the rioting and bloodshed of Partition in August 1947, she joined the scramble to leave India, bound for East Africa. Some might say this was ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’ because she grew up in Kenya where the British boarding schools were based and the Mau Mau rebellion was in full swing; and later in Uganda, where her family was living. Gail rarely saw her family so eventually she opted for a straight-laced English boarding school in the 1950s, which she left as soon as it was possible, and subsequently enjoyed the liberated world of London in the ‘Swinging Sixties’. At that time salaries and opportunities for young women in England seemed non-existent, so Gail emigrated to Canada, living in Vancouver and Montreal. Relationships became complicated and her son, Geoffrey, was born in 1973. Two years later she returned to the UK as a single parent hoping to give her son some semblance of family life and belonging. In time, Gail unexpectedly found herself bringing up two more children when she agreed to join forces with Pip, a widower, adding Justin and Charlotte to the family mix. Gail’s life journey has been one of mixed blessings – shunted from pillar to post in endless, mostly cheerless, boarding schools, inevitable family tensions (particularly with her invariably angry father), the opportunity to travel widely, and forging many lifelong friendships with a wide variety of people. When she was in her sixties, Gail was lucky enough to have met and married an exceptional man – Mick Godwin; she has beaten breast cancer and she’s seen her son happily married, with his own successful business and two little grandsons; Charlotte is also married with three daughters and living in Canada; and Justin is in Brighton. Now aged 80 and living in Somerset, England, Gail finally feels

399 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 5, 2021