The Ugly One: The Childhood Memoirs of Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly, 1913- 39: Childhood Memoirs, 1913-39 - Softcover

Ranfurly Countess Of Ranfurly, Hermione

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140274081 ISBN 13: 9780140274080

Publisher: Penguin, 1999

Synopsis

Lady Hermione Ranfurly recounts, with charm and humour, her early life between the wars: a life of great privilege but also of great private tragedy. As her family moves from one magnificent estate to another, Hermione learns how to deal with change and also how to cope with loss: her parents face financial problems and divorce, and her beloved elder brother Owen is tragically killed in a mid-air collision. This is the story of an extremely courageous woman, told with bare honesty and wicked wit. It is a truly wonderful read.

About this title

Review:

The decline of much of the landed English gentry Into genteel feckless poverty is a story that has been often told In fiction and rather less often by the eyewitnesses. Hermione Ranfurly's childhood during the First World War, and her adolescence and young adulthood thereafter, are burdened by a mother whose highly strung nerves gradually give way and a father who can never resist buying anything.

The economic decline of a class is told in terms of the giving away of favourite pets and the abandonment of favourite toys. At the same time, there is an uneasy awareness that much is gained alongside the loss--the young Hermione develops a vague hint of a social conscience that would be entirely beyond her parents, and learns to earn a living as something more than a bored parasite.

Charm is a word overused in attempts to explain the upper classes and how they survive, yet for once it is entirely accurate as a description of the tone of this memoir; charm and a certain moral toughness. In retrospect, Hermione has little pity for her younger self, and a strong sense that this was what it took to make her grow up, and was ultimately for the best. --Roz Kaveney

Synopsis:

In this memoir, Lady Hermione Ranfurly recounts her early life: a life of great privilege but also of great private tragedy. Hermione learns how to deal with change and how also to cope with loss, as her parents face financial problems and divorce, and her beloved brother is killed at war.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0140274081
• ISBN 13: 9780140274080
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208