Packed Off... *

by Patrick Corbett

Nuala the heroine of the story is a gem, a shining star in an age of austerity and restraint, and the reader cannot help but be charmed by her, as indeed is every one else in the story. Her cheeky, yet nave, tone and her innocent air mixed with a spark of mischief really brings her to life and the reader genuinely cares what becomes of her. (extract from professional critique. Patrick, a Dubliner, has lived in Cambridge for over fifty years. In 1990 he took early retirement, and celebrated this event by walking the pilgrim route to Santiago De Compostela. With the encouragement of his friend, the late William Greenwell, he wrote an account of this experience entitled Tramping the Pilgrim Way. This led to further writing, viz, The Jigsaw Man, and then an autobiography, A Dublin Odyssey. Nuala figures briefly in Jigsaw Man, but she and her boyfriend go their separate ways. Nuala is sent into internal exile in Ireland. Her story is recounted in Packed Off... and relates how she copes with this. Her innate curiosity leads to the unearthing of family secrets which eventually takes her further afield.

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