Biography
The author died in Warcop, Westmoreland in 1949.
Her BOOK OF REMEMBERENCES is a memoir of an era.
From the very first pages of her typescript, Lily draws readers vividly and eloquently into her life, from this first tragedy of early childhood to her old age. Her story shows how rich and full a life can be, even without fame or fortune. Her family was marked by Empire: her brother Chamley fought alongside Kitchener in the Egyptian army and drowned in the Nile, her sister Nelly died in Bombay, while another brother Ted, a friend of Cecil Rhodes, died of malaria in South Africa. But while in any long life there must be the experience of death, her deep faith and love of nature shine through every experience. But she can be as infuriating at times as she can charm at others. Stubborn and headstrong, she left her children in her family's care so she could follow her soldier husband to the South African War at the turn of the century. She writes movingly too of going to France after World War I, to find her only son's grave. There is romance as well, of course, from her childhood crush on the vicar, friends' father's unwonted attentions, exhilarating first love at a time when young men and women could not even write to each other, and life as a soldier's wife, never in one place for long.
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