I’m proud to announce that my mother’s long awaited memoir of her experiences and journeys during World War II is available at Smashwords, Amazon and Kobo. Soon on Barnes & Noble.
My mother entrusted the stories in Following the Troops to me in 1991 while I was working on Parachutes and Petticoats. Although I was one of the editors, including my mother’s autobiographical writing wasn’t going to happen. Parachutes and Petticoats was about Welsh women’s experiences.
When I began editing Iancs, Conshis a Spam, the same argument stood with my publishers, Honno, the Welsh Women’s Press.
My mother wrote these stories to be published and, although twenty years have passed since I promised I would, I did give her, and my siblings, the privately published volume in 2003, for her 90th birthday.
Virginia Verge Verrill died in August, 2005.
This book is her story.
3 Comments
wow. I know this is a wonderful tribute to your mom.
I’m eager to have a look.
My dad saved the letters to and from my mom during those same war years. He typed them up and printed copies for the family.
Sadly, I’ve never yet read them. Got too busy with my own life to look back all those years at their courtship & marriage.
I know how life gets in the way! It wasn’t until we packed to move back to San Francisco I realized how much and how often my mother wrote to me and to her three grandsons in Wales. I have kept all of her cards and letters. One day…
These stories are short and to the point. She was dyslexic and the effort to write was monumental – she did well, but we did have a giggle once in a while!
Thank you to all who have liked this post and others in the past. Very much appreciated.