Review
'Wry tales
of teenage love, loss, languor and Lambrettas that bring a lump to the throat
long after you've closed the cover.' Val Wilmer
Book Description
Chelmsford
Essex in the Sixties – boom town, Marconi, Milk Bars, Mods and Rockers.
As Alan
Price moans ‘I’ll Put a Spell on You’ and Tommy Tucker puts on his ‘Hi-Heel
Sneakers’, Marie meets Bill, Deirdre yearns for Mick, and Sandra and Linda
leave for a wild walking holiday on the Isle of Wight. The Orpheus coffee bar
becomes the setting for a special gift, while a dance at the Corn Exchange
leads to the baking of a birthday cake, and a Ban-the-Bomb march ends with a
Fray Bentos pie for dinner.
This
interlinked collection of short stories describes life from a perspective never
seen before – mod girls living on a working class estate – and shows how the
Sixties made them into the people they became.
About the Author
Elizabeth
Woodcraft was born and grew up in Chelmsford. She became a mod at 13, worked in
the Milk Bar at 15, and danced to the music of Zoot Money, Georgie Fame and
Wilson Pickett on Saturdays. She took her suede coat and small collection of
Tamla Motown records to Birmingham University where she studied philosophy. She
then taught English in Leicester and Tours in France. After that, she moved to
London where she worked for Women's Aid, the organisation which supports women
who suffer domestic violence. Women's Aid helped to bring about a change in the
law - the Domestic Violence Act of 1976 - and Elizabeth's experiences during
that time led her to retrain as a barrister. During her time at the Bar she has
represented Greenham Common Peace Protesters, Anti-Apartheid demonstrators,
striking miners and Clause 28 activists, as well as battered women, children
who have suffered sex abuse in and out of their homes and gay parents seeking
parental rights. She has published two crime novels, featuring barrister
Frankie Richmond - Good Bad Woman and Babyface. Frankie Richmond's collection
of Stax and Motown records is to die for. Good Bad Woman was shortlisted for
the John Creasey Award for Best First Crime Novel, and in the US won the Lambda
Literary Award. The reviewer in the London Times said about Babyface, 'Move
over Rumpole.' A third Frankie Richmond novel - Crazy Arms - is on the way.
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