Before I Go

I was given this book as a teenager but the intervening twenty [something] years have given me a better appreciation of the attitudes of a 75-year old, even while they have taken me further from Mary Stott's times. The latter is what I enjoyed the most about the book, which is organised thematically rather than chronologically. This means that on various topics we can hear the perspective of someone who went to work for the first time wearing a cloche hat in the 1920s, lived through war and depression as a professionally and politically active individual (and wife and mother), was hugely active in the women's movement of the 1970s and can bring her comments into the Thatcher era that the book was written. Inevitably, she occasionally show more comes across as grumpy and opinionated, but I found it valuable to have my default social attitudes questioned by somebody who expresses views no longer in fashion. Well worth a read. show less

I think old people would like this better than young people. She writes a lot about aging and death. However she's very cheerful.