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Divided into 3 sections, Part 1 is a return to Slad, the setting of Cider With Rosie. The pieces in this section are generally 4 and 5 star worthy, particularly A Drink with a Witch and First Love.
Part 2 has four pieces about abstracts: Love; Appetite; Charm and Paradise. Then, The Firstborn is Lee's hymn to his wife and their first child together (though not Lee's first child, as he already had a daughter with a previous partner). 👇🏻👇🏻
Bookwomble The best piece by far is The Village that Lost its Children, an account of Lee's visit to the Welsh village, Aberfan, a year after the disaster that killed 144 people, 116 of them children. This is the stand-out piece in the whole book. Lee captures the quiet despair of those struggling to come to terms with a wholly-preventable loss of life; the tensions between the bereaved and those who escaped the disaster, but not its consequences... 👇🏻👇🏻 7y
Bookwomble ... and the problems caused by the huge sum of money donated to the village by well-wishers from all over the world. Part 3 is a series of travel sketches, from Beirut to Ireland to Mexico, and points in between, including an early flight on Concorde as part of a press contingent, an experience he found distinctly underwhelming!. This is the most uneven section of the book, but there are some good pieces amongst the unexpectedly dull ones. 7y