The author, Alison Stewart-Reed, grew up in the UK in the county of Berkshire within a close-knit family as one of six children. She keeps in regular contact with all her siblings but now lives with her husband in Devon, where she enjoys spending time with their grown son, who lives nearby. Alison has always enjoyed creative writing, something she shared with her mother, who was a prolific writer in her own right. It was Mary’s passing that moved Alison to produce her memoir, based on the secret diaries that her mother faithfully kept as a young girl. Written by her own hand, Mary wrote a factual and honest account of her daily life as an adolescent growing up in the 1950s. Alison hopes to evoke a strong sense of empathy in the reader as she opens a very private window into her mother’s young adult life, wanting to portray the wonderful person Mary was and, in doing so, preserving her memory in a rare and unique way for all the family.
A strong and moving memoir which offers a captivating and extremely rare insight into the life of an ordinary girl growing up in a British working class family in the 1950s.Mary’s secret diaries discovered by her children, chronicle her early personal life experiences, successes, challenges and ha...