A Sense of Occasion: the Chelmsford Stories - Softcover

Woodcraft, Elizabeth; Wilkinson, Christine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0992920817 ISBN 13: 9780992920814

Publisher: Ladder Press, 2014

Synopsis

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
As Alan Price croons ‘I’ll Put a Spell on You’ and Tommy Tucker puts on his ‘Hi-Heel Sneakers’ the Vespas pull up outside the Orpheus coffee bar. Marie meets Bill, Deirdre yearns for Mick, and Sandra and Linda leave for a wild walking holiday on the Isle of Wight. This is Chelmsford in the Sixties - boom town, home of Marconi, the Milk Bar, Mods and Rockers. Elizabeth Woodcraft's collection of interlinked stories describe life growing up on a working class estate in Essex, and show how the Sixties made the Mods into the people they became.

About this title

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ladder Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0992920817
• ISBN 13: 9780992920814
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 130