I have always been an avid reader.
Above, I am at around age 13 when we stayed at a small B&B in Eastry, a village in Kent, England. I was a pupil at the nearby Betteshanger School with the lofty title of "Head Girl." Eastry was the closest place near our school where we could find a few places to visit. By our last year, "seniors" were allowed to go out to the village. Our favorite was the village shop were we could buy "gobstoppers," huge hard candy balls which we would buy in threes or fours, with the kind store lady dipping into her large jar to fish them out . I'm not sure why we liked them except that they lasted a long time. Some of the younger staff at the school would also take senior prefects and head girls and boys to the local pubs. I'm not sure if we were allowed to drink beer (I never did), but I'm sure I could have a shandy (lemonade and beer, with a higher lemonade concentration for us "children").
I'm not sure what I was reading in that idyllic garden covered with daisies, but I always had a book with me. I was a loyal fan of those historical romances, but of the more sophisticated kind (I've never read a complete Harlequin romance). The book could be an Anya Seton romance (Katherine was my favourite). Seton wrote about individual women who seemed to make a presence in their surroundings.
I remember a school friend and I having a discussion about these books. "You should just enjoy them," she said. "There is time to read other books." I'm not sure I fully agreed with her. In any case, this blimp didn't last very long. I was an eclectic reader, from Dickens to Laura Ingalls.
I just looked up Anya Seton. For such a proponent of "romance" Seton married twice and divorced twice.
This is the book cover that I remember. It is a first edition and revised cover from 1954.
I cannot find the B&B online and it is probably closed by now, but this home resembles it and it is close enough to the school that it might be the one. In any case, it is a close resemblance.
