Review: Yesterday Morning

Book: Yesterday Morning by Diana Athill
Pages: 168
Finished: January 2010
Challenges:
**A-Z** New Authors**Read & Review**Reading From My Shelves**Rainbow Connection**To-Be-Read**

From the inside cover:
Diana Athill was born in 1917. She was, for almost fifty years a director of the publishing house Andre Deutsch. Her other publications include three memoirs: After a Funeral, Instead of a Letter and Stet:an editor's life. She lives in London.

I enjoyed this very straightforward and honest memoir of the author's early life growing up in the English countryside at the turn of the century. To be sure, her upbringing was very different from the child, at that time, being raised in a big city like London. With her words, she paints a very vivid picture of her childhood and family. While at times seeming idyllic, she does not spare us the sadness and pain experienced even amongst the privileges they enjoyed.

"If you took a group of octogenarians --let's say a hundred old reservoirs of experience-- my guess is that about a quarter of them would look as though their contents were mostly disagreeable: as though, if they were turned inside out, you would see disappointment, disapproval, pain. None of my family has looked like that, and neither do I. And my reluctant conclusion is that this is because of the privileges we all enjoyed as a result of being born into the upper reaches of the middle class, in the country. To take the simplest things first: we were fed on ample amounts of healthy food, all of it fresh, and we had access to up-to-date medical care and sanitation and were taught the basic rules of hygiene such as enough sleep, plenty of fresh air and exercise, and don't drink too much. On top of that we were given good educations so that we could keep our minds occupied and find interest in the a wide range of subjects, and enough leisure to indulge in enjoyable hobbies. And the standards of behaviour set by our forebears were reasonable, because they had not been over-privileged to the point of becoming arrogant or self-indulgent (that balance, I believe, has been important). In my generation, anyway, our childhood was directed with common sense as well as with love, and our surroundings were so secure and pleasant that we could be free of constant surveillance. And above all we lived in a place which we felt was ours and which we loved: we were rooted." Page 165