Olejar Books

In this sparkling memoir, Xandra Bingley vividly captures an idyllic and terrifying country childhood that begins in the Second World War in an Elizabethan farmhouse in the Cotswold hills. Xandra's mother, the elegant and remarkable hardy May, a sparkling debutante and horsewoman, turns into a working farmer, separated by war from Bertie, Xandra's passionate, eccentric, soldier father. Xandra, isolated by landscape, farmyards and a thousand acres, is an only child among animals, farm workers, landgirls and prisoners of war.