Publisher's Synopsis
A Path made by Walking is about a working class girl, born in London just before World War II. Rejected by her mother, who blamed her for her father's death, she sets about recreating herself as someone whom her mother could love. The story vividly evokes the experiences of war, of being bombed out and buried alive, and of life as a refugee. Full of concrete detail and anecdote, it offers valuable insights into working class life. The reader is made to feel the texture of life in wartime and post-war Britain, with rationing of food and clothes and rigid attitudes to class and sex. At the same time, this memoir is shot through with hope and achievement, notably through the help of thoughtful school teachers. It tells at first hand how her feelings and understandings change and develop, through experiences and friendships leading to new understandings of social class, and of relationships, sex, morality and justice. Above all, the story is of a young girl's struggle to create a new self, one able to emerge from a troubled background into independence and self-sufficiency.
