A London Family Between the Wars

In internal chronological order, this is the fourth volume of Molly Hughes' autobiographical reminiscences, though I believe it was actually the second to be written. The first volume, "A London Child of the 1870's" was published in 1934, and was very successful. This volume was published in 1940, and covers the years from 1919, when Molly Hughes' husband died, up to the outbreak of the Second World War. The other two volumes, "A London Girl of the 1880's" and "A London Home of the 1890's" were published in 1946. It's a charming and friendly book, easy to read and casually informative about life in a small village in the twenties and thirties. The Hughes family lived in Cuffley, near Potters Bar; back then it was an isolated village on the fringes of London, though now it is unpleasantly close to the M25. There are stories of neighbours, visitors, relatives, pets, children, gardening, and so forth. The arrival of the telephone and the wireless, and the first car that the family owned, are all major events. The book has nothing like a plot; it is just a more or less chronological set of memories. This is not as absorbing a read as "London Child" and "London Girl". It hops around too much to have any real cohesion, though Hughes has to some degree kept thematically related material together. However, it's pleasant enough, and if you have read and enjoyed the earlier books I can certainly recommend this. Fans of the earlier volumes will feel like friends of the Hughes family, and this book will at least give you the pleasure of finding out more about the lives of the characters you've grown to like.