<p>When I asked a group of girls who had been at Hatherop Castle in the 1960s whether the school had had a lab in those days they gave me a blank look. 'A laboratory?' I expanded, hoping to jog their memories. 'Oh that kind of lab!' one of them said. 'I thought you meant a Labrador.' 'The cruel teachers. The pashes on other girls. The gossip. The giggles. The awful food. The homesickness. The friendships made for life. The shivering cold. Games of lacrosse, and cricket. 'The girls' boarding school! What a ripe theme for the most observant verbal artist in our midst today - the absurdly undersung Ysenda Maxtone Graham, who has the beadiness and nosiness of the best investigative reporter, the wit of Jane Austen and a take on life which is like no one else's. This book has been my constant companion ever since it appeared' A. N. Wilson, Evening Standard 'A wonderful book' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday</p>

Terms & Conditions

Arts & Photography

Ysenda Maxtone-Graham

History & Criticism

ABACUS +

The film Mrs Miniver, starring Greer Garson, was a wartime classic. It took America by storm and won five Oscars. It was a war film, though with a difference in that it was not the handsome RAF pilot but his bride who was killed. Even now it is a classic weepie; in 1942, even isolationist Americans were stunned. Winston Churchill said Mrs Miniver would do more for the Allied cause that a flotilla of battleships.;The book Mrs Miniver had likewise been a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic and its author, Jan Struther found it hard to persuade people that she herself was not its heroine. I felt like a ventriloquist, she later said, whose dummy had struck up an independent conversation with the audience. In the book the Minivers were happily married, but in real life Jan had drifted out of love with her conventional husband Tony and had fallen for an erudite Jewish refugee in the flight to the United States. For the whole war this had to be concealed, while Tony was a prisoner-of-war and guilt drove Jan around America as an unofficial ambassador. Only in 1948 could she marry her refugee, and five years later she died prematurely.; The way in which Jan Struther's life unfolded is a microcosm of what the war could do to people.

The Real Mrs Miniver

Biographies & Memoirs

St.Martin's Press

The film Mrs Miniver was a wartime classic. It took America by storm and won five Oscars. Written by her granddaughter, this is the story of the life of Jan Struther, the author of the bestselling book that inspired the film.

Arts & Literature

The History Press

Isis Publishing Ltd

<p>It's 11pm. All you've wanted to do all day is sleep. You're overworked, underappreciated, and the only thing that got you out of bed this morning was the thought of getting back in it again. Now, finally, here you are. In bed. On the cusp of sleep, drifting off. Such a relief. For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful. But then your mind wanders. Into territory where it should not go. From death to broken lightbulbs. From redundancy to unwritten thank-you letters. The minutes tick by. Oh, God, it's going to be one of those nights. Those nights which seem to go on for ever, when all the cares of the world weigh down on your shoulders...This is a book for anyone who has ever spent a night tossing and turning, worrying about life's worst scenarios. The Insomniac's Guide takes you on a journey that will have you laughing in your sleep (or lack of it).</p>

Insomniac's Guide to the Small Hours

Short Books Ltd

Mr Tibbit's Catholic School

Slightly Foxed Editions

Mr Tibbits's Catholic School

Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader's Quarterly

The Real Mrs Miniver: 21

Terms & Conditions: Life in Girls' Boarding-Schools, 1939-1979 (Plain Foxed Editions)

Slightly Foxed Ltd

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Books by Ysenda Maxtone-Graham