The Way We Lived Then

Book excerpt: The author returns to her northern home to take up a lectureship in music and drama in a college. The repressive atmosphere generated by her father’s intensely religious beliefs and her mother’s controlling instincts soon make her wish to escape the severe parental restrictions. But how to flee, and where? She calculates that there are two possible alternatives: a sugar daddy or marriage. She finds both but then is faced with the choice of where to cast her lot. The selection is difficult, and for a few months, she juggles between the two men. Both men are musicians, and mutual links are easily forged; however doubt coupled with her lack of self-esteem haunt the scenario. Her parents are ready to disapprove of anyone on any grounds—class, religion, education, looks, height, or weight. Finding a suitable bloke in their eyes would be impossible. This novel tells of the trials and tribulations of her choice where wry black humor depicts her plight. What is a musical sexually liberated sixties girl supposed to do when she is suddenly deposited in a tightly knit, censorious community within the confines of the Northeast? Sadly she doesn’t behave well. Read on and please don’t judge too harshly.