Sheila TofieldReviews

This is not a bad memoir—simply told, without affectation or self-pity, the story of a woman’s life in Rotherham, England from the 1930s to the 1970s.

Yes, Sheila Tofield was an unmarried mother who decided to keep her baby in the 1950s when this was hardly ever done, but there’s a lot more to the story than that: Sheila’s unloved childhood with no father and a cold, abusive mother, the birth of her baby girl, her marriage to what turned out to be a cold, abusive man, and her later, happy but all-too-short marriage to the love of her life.

She has a lot of self-awareness and never makes excuses for herself, but if you’re just looking for a story about single parenting in mid-20th century England, this isn’t it.