A Birmingham Girl Grows Up

Following the popularity of ‘From Goats to a Garden’ and ‘Our Small Stone Cottage in France’, Susie has written about her earliest years. Born during the Second World War, she writes in her usual chatty fashion about growing up in Birmingham with her adoptive parents, their friends and relations. Wilful tendencies in her early years morph into clashes with her parents as she becomes a teenager. While they only want what is best for her she finds this claustrophobic. She is glad to get away to the freedom of holidays on the Welsh Borders with family friends and eventually to Teacher Training College. She meets the love of her life and embarks on over fifty years of marriage and raising a family, among other adventures. Finally, she is reunited with the half-sister into whose life she had paid a brief visit over sixty years previously.

This 5 Star review is on amazon.ca :-
"I am amazed at the amount of detail Susie Williams remembers of her early life. She tells interesting and amusing anecdotes of school, clothes, family, and friends. Although she says she didn't have a great relationship with her mother, she was able to remember some positive things and good times. As well, she gives us details about her Aunties and Uncles (most not related to her) such as what they looked like, and where and how they lived, giving a good picture of Britain in the 1940s to 1960s. Because Susie was adopted, there was a question in her mind about whether her "real" family was her birth family or her adoptive family. It was interesting to read to the end and find out the conclusion she finally reached. The book is well-written and includes lots of photos that make it like browsing through an old family album."