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Dear Boot
July 1978. Midnight in Basel railway station. Would he be there to meet me? For months, I had been waiting for this moment. All my dreams and hopes were pinned on him.
Carefully hoarded letters, kept in a box for many years, reopened and read again tell a coming of age story where mother and daughter confide as never before. One grows and learns in the challenge of a new land and culture, the other about the pain of an empty nest.
Of its time, the letters tell a tale of laughter, heartbreak and joy as life unfolds in unexpected ways that change the two women’s lives forever.
Carefully hoarded letters, kept in a box for many years, reopened and read again tell a coming of age story where mother and daughter confide as never before. One grows and learns in the challenge of a new land and culture, the other about the pain of an empty nest.
Of its time, the letters tell a tale of laughter, heartbreak and joy as life unfolds in unexpected ways that change the two women’s lives forever.
210 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 6, 2022
2 people are currently reading
About the author
Anna Rashbrook
33 books12 followersShort version; Christian, Writer, dog owner, English teacher, walker, horse lover, Brit who was Austria but is now in Wales!
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 20, 2025
I am pleased to have begun reading Anna Rashbrook with the penultimate of her 5-book series, “The God, Horses and Love Memoirs”. She has left a privileged but dysfunctional home behind, overcome her apparently “terrible teenage behaviour” described in Book 1, and is gaining work experience on a Swiss farm as a prerequisite to starting agricultural college back in England.
Book 4 is enjoyable on many counts. It has been created from a collection of letters she exchanged with her mother at home in England with some linking explanatory text. As such, it’s refreshingly direct and honest and lacks the self-conscious preening that mars many memoirs. It gives an insight into a sector of English society that knows intimately, domestic animals from horses to dogs, cats and rarer animals and secretly – sometimes brazenly -- prefers them to fellow human beings. The reason often is that unlike human beings, who tend to be difficult and demanding, dogs offer unconditional love despite being occasionally neglected and never take revenge.
Another reason is that this young Anna comes across as adaptable and willing as a farmworker. She’s working on a small, labour-intensive mixed farm – something that in my experience demands tenacity and stamina on a continuous basis. She’s no push-over and stands up for herself against farmers who might otherwise have succeeded in exploiting her good nature.
From beginning to end, I found myself rooting for this plucky young woman, as well as reading between the lines, that her earlier home years in England must have been anything but idyllic.
This 4th of a captivating series shows how character and perseverance overcome challenging odds. Teenagers would do well to read this.
Book 4 is enjoyable on many counts. It has been created from a collection of letters she exchanged with her mother at home in England with some linking explanatory text. As such, it’s refreshingly direct and honest and lacks the self-conscious preening that mars many memoirs. It gives an insight into a sector of English society that knows intimately, domestic animals from horses to dogs, cats and rarer animals and secretly – sometimes brazenly -- prefers them to fellow human beings. The reason often is that unlike human beings, who tend to be difficult and demanding, dogs offer unconditional love despite being occasionally neglected and never take revenge.
Another reason is that this young Anna comes across as adaptable and willing as a farmworker. She’s working on a small, labour-intensive mixed farm – something that in my experience demands tenacity and stamina on a continuous basis. She’s no push-over and stands up for herself against farmers who might otherwise have succeeded in exploiting her good nature.
From beginning to end, I found myself rooting for this plucky young woman, as well as reading between the lines, that her earlier home years in England must have been anything but idyllic.
This 4th of a captivating series shows how character and perseverance overcome challenging odds. Teenagers would do well to read this.
July 11, 2022
A very young Anna travels to Switzerland to begin a year-long farm work internship for a school program she will be attending. She writes letters to her mother, Boot, who, of course, writes back. The letters are filled with love, caring, and hilarity.
While it might seem that this book could be a travelogue about her adventures on the farm, it is actually a book about relationships: Anna with Boot, Anna with her love Ruedi, Anna with the family that owns the farm, and Boot with an old flame who has turned up again, her mother, and the people that surround her in her English village.
The book is filled with humor and irreverent conversation about neighbors and family such as we all have when we think no one is listening—such fun. I felt like I had a window on the life of an English mother and daughter but also a peek into the life of those living and working on a Swiss farm in the late 70s.
While it might seem that this book could be a travelogue about her adventures on the farm, it is actually a book about relationships: Anna with Boot, Anna with her love Ruedi, Anna with the family that owns the farm, and Boot with an old flame who has turned up again, her mother, and the people that surround her in her English village.
The book is filled with humor and irreverent conversation about neighbors and family such as we all have when we think no one is listening—such fun. I felt like I had a window on the life of an English mother and daughter but also a peek into the life of those living and working on a Swiss farm in the late 70s.
October 6, 2025
In Dear Boot by Anna Rashbrook, Boot happens to be Anna’s mother. This travelogue-type memoir seems to be a collection of diary journaling and letters between mother and daughter when eighteen-year-old Anna spent a year in Switzerland working on a farm before she attended college.
The light banter between mother and daughter can be quite entertaining. Anna struggles with communicating with the locals in Switzerland and at the farm. She struggles with understanding and speaking German. She’s better with the written word. So am I. I know I would have trouble communicating if I went to a non-English speaking country. I had enough trouble in French class during my college days.
Anna’s descriptions of the homemade foods on the farm made me hungry. Homemade butter and jams and Zöpfe bread. (Kindle Location 447) The “Mrs” is helping her learn how to make bread, boil the fresh milk, and cook for others.
Anna talks about her first love, Ruedi. But it wasn’t meant to last. Lots going on in both Anna’s life and her mother’s. An interesting read.
The light banter between mother and daughter can be quite entertaining. Anna struggles with communicating with the locals in Switzerland and at the farm. She struggles with understanding and speaking German. She’s better with the written word. So am I. I know I would have trouble communicating if I went to a non-English speaking country. I had enough trouble in French class during my college days.
Anna’s descriptions of the homemade foods on the farm made me hungry. Homemade butter and jams and Zöpfe bread. (Kindle Location 447) The “Mrs” is helping her learn how to make bread, boil the fresh milk, and cook for others.
Anna talks about her first love, Ruedi. But it wasn’t meant to last. Lots going on in both Anna’s life and her mother’s. An interesting read.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews