Alive in World War Two weaves together extracts from wartime newsletters exchanged between the members of a scattered family with the author’s own memories of a wartime childhood in Devon, within the context of events in the world today.The cousins were typical of the generation who responded to Churchill’s eloquence when Britain defied Hitler. They were ordinary people, unknown, unhonoured and remarkable only for their resilience. Today, we are in the midst of a different kind o war, with no end in sight. The present commentary and memoir is a salute to the cousins of the Chronicle for the way they did their best in their time and place, and an invocation of their spirit. On the scale of human evolution, wherever and whenever we live, we are all cousins working out how best to live our lives in the conditions of our own times.
Susan Barrett
Susan spent her childhood in Devon and at school in Bath. She worked as a copywriter in London before leaving to live in Greece where she began writing fiction. In her early career as a writer, she had seven novels published in hardback and paperback in UK and USA. Other work included travel writing, television drama, and wildlife and children's books illustrated by her husband Peter. In the 1990s she trained in humanistic psychology and counselling, and still continues her work as a counsellor in private practice. Her recent work is available in paperback on Amazon, and as ebooks for Kindle: 'Alive in World War Two', a collection of family newsletters with a commentary and memoir; 'White Lies', a novel about adoption; and "A Home from Home", a satire set in a care home for the elderly.
Susan was very pleased to receive this review by Michael Frayn:-
“I enjoyed A Home from Home, and admired Susan Barrett’s imaginative verve and technical skill. The idiosyncratic setting of the care home is very convincing, and (the) sheer multiplicity of the well-characterised staff and inmates is impressive. So are their complex interrelationships and their often surprising and far-reaching backgrounds. She brings off one of the best things that a novelist can do – the creation of a world – and writes about it both vividly and elegantly.” Michael Frayn, October 2016
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