A Late Beginner
by Priscilla Napier | Biographies & Memoirs | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: Global Overview for this book
ISBN: Global Overview for this book
3 journalers for this copy...
Priscilla Napier grew up in Egypt during the last golden years of the Edwardian Age – a time when, for her parents’ generation, it seemed the sun would never set upon ‘the regimental band playing selections from HMS Pinafore under the banyan tree.
In A Late Beginner she recalls that childhood and those last fleeting years of the British Protectorate. Her father, Sir William Hayter, a clever, hardworking man with enlightened views, was legal and financial advisor to the Egyptian Government. Her brother William would later become British Ambassador in Moscow, her sister Alethea a distinguished writer, and Priscilla herself would marry and lose her husband in the Second World War. But here she is a high-spirited little girl, William a knickerbockered schoolboy and Alethea a muslin-clad toddler. Priscilla brings vividly to life that far-off world – the house and its devoted Egyptian servants, the desert picnics with Nanny, the visits to Cairo Zoo, the afternoons spent rampaging with other children in the grounds of the Gezira Sporting Club. And the long summers in England when Lady Hayter took the children to join her sisters and their families in Sidmouth – a different scene altogether, especially as the First World War began to take its tragic toll of uncles and cousins. Priscilla Napier was a born writer, and A Late Beginner is not only a wonderful evocation of a place, a time and a climate of mind, but of the child’s eye view.
261 pages
In A Late Beginner she recalls that childhood and those last fleeting years of the British Protectorate. Her father, Sir William Hayter, a clever, hardworking man with enlightened views, was legal and financial advisor to the Egyptian Government. Her brother William would later become British Ambassador in Moscow, her sister Alethea a distinguished writer, and Priscilla herself would marry and lose her husband in the Second World War. But here she is a high-spirited little girl, William a knickerbockered schoolboy and Alethea a muslin-clad toddler. Priscilla brings vividly to life that far-off world – the house and its devoted Egyptian servants, the desert picnics with Nanny, the visits to Cairo Zoo, the afternoons spent rampaging with other children in the grounds of the Gezira Sporting Club. And the long summers in England when Lady Hayter took the children to join her sisters and their families in Sidmouth – a different scene altogether, especially as the First World War began to take its tragic toll of uncles and cousins. Priscilla Napier was a born writer, and A Late Beginner is not only a wonderful evocation of a place, a time and a climate of mind, but of the child’s eye view.
261 pages
This is an interesting story about a childhood spent in Cairo and in England.
These children had quite wild games in spite of the fact that they were taken care of by two nannies. But the nannies had their handwork all the time repairing and making clothes for the children.
This is my # 79 (120) in
"REDUCE MOUNT TBR 2012" Challenge arranged by Dove-i-Libri.
These children had quite wild games in spite of the fact that they were taken care of by two nannies. But the nannies had their handwork all the time repairing and making clothes for the children.
This is my # 79 (120) in
"REDUCE MOUNT TBR 2012" Challenge arranged by Dove-i-Libri.
I took the book to the meet-up and gave it to the next reader.
Happy reading!
Happy reading!
Received with warm thanks :)
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Received this week. Looks very interesting. Thanks!
