It was after our second family holiday in the West Highlands of Scotland, when I was thirteen, that someone recommended that we should all read 'The Flight of the Heron' by D.K. Broster, as it dealt with that part of the country at the time of the '45 rebellion. My mother bought it, and the most exciting period of my reading life began. I was possessed by a rapture, an ecstacy, for which nothing in all my experience, and certainly not religion, had prepared me. I remember the actual surroundings in which I sat reading the book, on a bench in Phear Park, for example, on a sunny Saturday morning.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
My mother read it [The Flight of the Heron] with pleasure, but not with the passion I felt but which it seems I successfully hid from her. She soon got on to the sequels, 'The Gleam in the North' and 'The Dark Mile', and mentioned casually one day that she had glanced at the last page of 'The Dark Mile' and seen that 'he was mashing someone called Olivia' -I recoiled. Mashing. My faithful Ewen, who had married Alison in the first book. But it was all right. It was his cousin Ian. Mother could not tell the difference.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Beer Print: Book
My mother read it [The Flight of the Heron] with pleasure, but not with the passion I felt but which it seems I successfully hid from her. She soon got on to the sequels, 'The Gleam in the North' and 'The Dark Mile', and mentioned casually one day that she had glanced at the last page of 'The Dark Mile' and seen that 'he was mashing someone called Olivia' -I recoiled. Mashing. My faithful Ewen, who had married Alison in the first book. But it was all right. It was his cousin Ian. Mother could not tell the difference.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Beer Print: Book
My mother read it [The Flight of the Heron] with pleasure, but not with the passion I felt but which it seems I successfully hid from her. She soon got on to the sequels, 'The Gleam in the North' and 'The Dark Mile', and mentioned casually one day that she had glanced at the last page of 'The Dark Mile' and seen that 'he was mashing someone called Olivia' -I recoiled. Mashing. My faithful Ewen, who had married Alison in the first book. But it was all right. It was his cousin Ian. Mother could not tell the difference.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Beer Print: Book
My mother read it [The Flight of the Heron] with pleasure, but not with the passion I felt but which it seems I successfully hid from her. She soon got on to the sequels, 'The Gleam in the North' and 'The Dark Mile', and mentioned casually one day that she had glanced at the last page of 'The Dark Mile' and seen that 'he was mashing someone called Olivia' -I recoiled. Mashing. My faithful Ewen, who had married Alison in the first book. But it was all right. It was his cousin Ian. Mother could not tell the difference.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
My mother read it [The Flight of the Heron] with pleasure, but not with the passion I felt but which it seems I successfully hid from her. She soon got on to the sequels, 'The Gleam in the North' and 'The Dark Mile', and mentioned casually one day that she had glanced at the last page of 'The Dark Mile' and seen that 'he was mashing someone called Olivia' -I recoiled. Mashing. My faithful Ewen, who had married Alison in the first book. But it was all right. It was his cousin Ian. Mother could not tell the difference.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
Sheila read 'The Flight of the Heron' too, but was less impressed. I think she realised how I felt; she once teased me about it.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Sheila Beer Print: Book
Transcript of interview: 'We [Hilary and schoolfellows] used to recommend things to each other a lot, and we had crazes – Georgette Heyer, D.K. Broster, Cronin, Axel Munter, Hugh Walpole. And then there were F Brett Young and my own particular favourite Helen Waddell, Peter Abelard – I read that when I was about 15 and I read it almost every year for about 6 years afterwards. I loved it.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Hilary Spalding Print: Book
