“ Ayres gives a wonderful account of what it was like to grow up poor but respectable in post-war rural England. Some of her writing in the early chapters, describing life as the youngest of six children in a council cottage in the Vale of White Horse, Berkshire, has the original freshness of classics such as Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford ”
Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday
“ I find her work sweet and sour, gentle and sad, and often very moving in its wistful way ... The descriptions of post-war Berkshire life in The Necessary Aptitude are wonderful ... The world Ayres evokes is Hardy's Wessex ... I do admire (and envy) this marvellous woman ”
Roger Lewis, Daily Mail
“ An evocation of long-gone village life as captivating as Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford. At the book’s height, she reaches up and touches Laurie Lee ”
Buckinghamshire Life
“ Ayres gives a wonderful account of what it was like to grow up poor but respectable in post-war rural England. Some of her writing in the early chapters, describing life as the youngest of six children in a council cottage in the Vale of White Horse, Berkshire, has the original freshness of classics such as Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford ”
Kathryn Hughes, Mail on Sunday
Paperback
9780091940492
October 18, 2012
Ebury Press
416 pages
Trade Paperback
9780091945039
October 1, 2011
Ebury Press
416 pages
Audio CD
9781846573101
November 1, 2011
Audiobooks
