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My Book Set In Sheffield Late 40S To Late 60S


Guest stradlad

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Guest stradlad

I thought that members of this group may be interested to learn that I am about to publish my memoir - launch date Nov 15. I live in Canada, but I grew up in Sheffield, so the backdrop for the book is Sheffield in the late 1940s to 60s. I spent 2 summers in the Local Studies Library in Sheffield researching events that occurred during my childhood, so there is a fair bit of local "history" interwoven into the narrative.

Some examples of the latter would include conditions in sheffield post ww2, food rationing, the omnipresent coal miners' strikes, polio outbreaks, the 1962 Sheffield gale, 1961 murder at St George's Church and even the construction of a new roundabout at "Cole's corner." Remember the election when Harold Wilson came to power with a little bit of help fromthe hapless Douglas Home, who commented that he (DH) understood economics best by using a box of matchsticks? Or, when the public lavs outside the Town Hall received a plaque for the best in Yorkshire - or was it England?

O a more serious note, the book itself describes my personal journey growing up within a family that was initially close-knit, then began to fragment. The social attitudes of the day toward divorce, marital infidelity, and most important, mental illness are major themes. With respect to the latter, I have committed to donate 50% of the book royalties to mental health charities in Britain and Canada.

The more serious elements of the book are tempered by my use of ironic humour and by what now seems to be the quaintness of the times I lived in. That said, it conveys serious messages about the need to give more attention to mental illness, the futility of family feuding and the healing power of reconciliation and forgiveness.

I invite you to follow the progress of my book on its web and fb pages. Please do feel free to "like," comment, blog and most important, "share."

www.startingtoframe.com
https://www.facebook.com/startingtoframe

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Was the fragmenting of your family due to the decline of those 'social attitudes of the day' being undermined by the 1960's, onward to today, 'age of free love and promiscuity' I wonder, many mental illnesses being the result of such family breakdown, drugs etc.? Some things e.g. divorce law required change, but that 'social revolution' destroyed the good as well as the bad.

 Being born in the 1940's I share your journey and would love to have the time to do a book of my own. It would record the socially detrimental effects of that 60's onward period, the ridiculing of Mrs. Mary Whitehouse being pertinent ; even she could not have imagined the degenerate depths to which Britain has sunk. 

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