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Still Life: Sketches from a Tunbridge Wells Childhood (the sub-title is important) was first published in 1984. It won the J.R. Ackerley Prize for Literary Biography in that year. It is a classic among middle-class memoirs. In twenty-one short chapters the town is vividly anatomized. And so are its residents: meet Dr Ranking and, best of all, meet the Limbury-Buses living a life of contented ossification. 'Cobb remembers, and that, as well as his redeeming freedom from all conventional standards of dignity and relevance, is what makes this offbeat, capricious book a rare treasure'. John Carey, Sunday Times 'A remarkable feat of making purest autobiography part of a general, social history... Cobb has broken one of the strangest silences in English social commentary; on the missing history of the English bourgeoisie'. Michael Neve, Times Literary Supplement… (altro)
Gossipy fun mixed with a detailed mainly middle class social history of Tunbridge Wells in the 1920’s and 1930’s, when Richard Cobb was a child. He appears to have a wonderful memory, but this must have been assisted by his mother continuing to live there until the 1960’s and Richard’s visits to her. I know my mother talks about the old people who lived in houses when I take her out for drives, but I cannot recount the extraordinary and fascinating level of detail provided here. I suspect that some may find it lacking purpose, but I found this a delightful series of verbal portraits, recreated by Cobbs’ easy and descriptive prose. Although my childhood was much later, in the 1970’s, I found some of the characters and scenes described brought back similar, though previously forgotten memories for myself.
A month later and I have increased my rating of this, as I keep recalling descriptions from this excellent memoir. ( )
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The town is never over-run with trippers. nor are its streets ever defiled by the vulgar or the inane. Its inhabitants are composed, for the most part, of well-to-do people who naturally create social atmosphere tinged by culture and refinement...On its outskirts are many houses of the kind that attract those members of the aristocracy desirous of change of scene after the ceaseless social duties of the London season. Thus it may be taken for granted that when London is 'empty' in the society sense, Tunbridge Wells is at its liveliest and best.
From Royal Tundbridge Wells: The Official Guide, c. 1923
Dedica
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To the memory of my mother
Incipit
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The approach to Tunbridge Wells by train, especially from the direction of London, is unexpectedly dramatic, and was even more so in the days of steam.
Citazioni
Ultime parole
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I can still hear her distinct, rather emphatic, very self-assured speech: 'Richard, you look a shack'(perhaps a reference to the way of life of the local hermits) and see her erect figure, in a grey cardigan, her face in profile silhouetting her sharp nose, as she sits, over tea, by the French windows opening on to the balcony, with the sound of the bowls coming through from the Grove Bowilng Club.
Still Life: Sketches from a Tunbridge Wells Childhood (the sub-title is important) was first published in 1984. It won the J.R. Ackerley Prize for Literary Biography in that year. It is a classic among middle-class memoirs. In twenty-one short chapters the town is vividly anatomized. And so are its residents: meet Dr Ranking and, best of all, meet the Limbury-Buses living a life of contented ossification. 'Cobb remembers, and that, as well as his redeeming freedom from all conventional standards of dignity and relevance, is what makes this offbeat, capricious book a rare treasure'. John Carey, Sunday Times 'A remarkable feat of making purest autobiography part of a general, social history... Cobb has broken one of the strangest silences in English social commentary; on the missing history of the English bourgeoisie'. Michael Neve, Times Literary Supplement
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(4.3)
1
I suspect that some may find it lacking purpose, but I found this a delightful series of verbal portraits, recreated by Cobbs’ easy and descriptive prose. Although my childhood was much later, in the 1970’s, I found some of the characters and scenes described brought back similar, though previously forgotten memories for myself.
A month later and I have increased my rating of this, as I keep recalling descriptions from this excellent memoir. (