This site requires cookies for account access and purchasing. By using this site you give implied consent. For more infomation please review our use of cookies in our Cookie Policy and then Accept and Close this bar.
The Last Landlady: An English Memoir
£9.99
Available to Order
from our supplier
from our supplier
ISBN
9781783528455
Award-winning biographer Laura Thompson pays homage to the English pub through the remarkable story of her grandmother, the first woman in England to be given a publican's licence in her own name
Laura Thompson's grandmother Violet was one of the great landladies. Born in a London pub, she became the first woman to be given a publican's licence in her own name and, just as pubs defined her life, she seemed in many ways to embody their essence.
Laura spent part of her childhood in Violet's Home Counties establishment, mesmerised by her gift for cultivating the mix of cosiness and glamour that defined the pub's atmosphere, making it a unique reflection of the national character. Her memories of this time are just as intoxicating: beer and ash on the carpets in the morning, the deepening rhythms of mirth at night, the magical brightness of glass behind the bar...
Through them Laura traces the story of the English pub, asking why it has occupied such a treasured position in our culture. But even Violet, as she grew older, recognised that places like hers were a dying breed, and Laura also considers the precarious future they face.
Part memoir, part social history, part elegy, The Last Landlady pays tribute to an extraordinary woman and the world she epitomised.
Laura spent part of her childhood in Violet's Home Counties establishment, mesmerised by her gift for cultivating the mix of cosiness and glamour that defined the pub's atmosphere, making it a unique reflection of the national character. Her memories of this time are just as intoxicating: beer and ash on the carpets in the morning, the deepening rhythms of mirth at night, the magical brightness of glass behind the bar...
Through them Laura traces the story of the English pub, asking why it has occupied such a treasured position in our culture. But even Violet, as she grew older, recognised that places like hers were a dying breed, and Laura also considers the precarious future they face.
Part memoir, part social history, part elegy, The Last Landlady pays tribute to an extraordinary woman and the world she epitomised.
Weight | 0.000000 |
---|---|
Author | Thompson, Laura |
Availability | IP |
Department | Travel Writing |
Edition | 2nd ed |
Format | Paperback |
ISBN | 9781783528455 |
Pages | 272 |
Published | 05/09/2019 |
Publisher | Unbound |
Section | Travel Writing: General |
Write Your Own Review