Publisher's Synopsis
In the closing chapters of The Sound of Silence, I described how our home and land in the Essex village of Tipmarsh were taken away from us by compulsory purchase in the spring of 1963. The four villages of Tipmarsh, Kingsmead, Thyme Hill and Long Hill, which dated back to before the Domesday Book, had been designated as a New Town after World War Two and gradually, inexorably the long-established rural communities were destroyed. The area was covered in sprawling council estates of row upon row upon row of identical terraced houses with pocket handkerchief gardens, built to rehome families bombed out of the East End of London or moved out under slum clearance schemes. Catch a Falling Star is the second of a trilogy in which award-winning historian Carrie Howse continues the story of her family life in a post-war Essex New Town. With insight, candour and humour she describes the social consequences of urban sprawl and the cultural impact of the 1960s.
