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Janet Sandison comes home to the small fishing village of Achcraggan in Scotland. Behind her are ten years of happiness with her husband Twice, whose death has brought to an end their life on the island of St Jago in the West Indies. Before her lies a new career as a novelist and a return to the countryside of her childhood-and above all to George and Tom who were her closest friends, mentors and allies, in those early days. But now, Reachfar, the family croft on the hill overlooking show more Poyntdale Bay, has been sold and George and Tom in their old age are living cheerfully if haphazardly in Jemima Cottage in the village. Janet, George and Tom quickly take up their lives together after nearly forty years apart; Janet buys and converts an old barn on the shore and the three of them set up house. Janet, who has not found it easy to face the loss of her beloved Twice nor to adjust to the strange new world of the professional writer, rediscovers with delight that the old Reachfar values still hold a firm grip on her family and neighbours, but the one thing she cannot face is the ruin of the Reachfar croft itself. Not even the urging of her young nephews and niece- the Hungry Generation-will persuade her to climb the hill. This psychological problem is only a small part of the dramas and happenings, some sad, some joyous, which fill the pages of this enchanting and wonderfully enjoyable book.Readers of any or all of Jane Duncan's 'Friends' novels will rejoice particularly in My Friends George and Tom, for the wise and funny characters of the title have played important supporting parts in many of the earlier books and finally have a book which is triumphantly their own. show lessTags
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Author Information
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Series
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1976
- People/Characters
- Janet Sandison; George Sandison; Tom Forbes
- Dedication
- For all the members of the Reachfar family
- First words
- "I have to go home,' I had said to my friend Sashie de Marnay in his house on a West Indian Beach in November of 1958. 'I am coming home,' I had written to my family in Scotland that same day and, "I am going home,' I told Mr... (show all). Arden in London in early June of 1959.
- Quotations
- 'When you are as old as I am, I think you will come to believe as I do that love between people of a family is the strongest love of all, where it exists, that is, for all members of a family do not love one another.'
They were incapable of being bored, I only now came fully to understand, because they gave their total attention to everything they did, so the nothing was reduced to the level of a chore that was a bore.
'It was undertaken out of love,' he said, 'and not to make a show or to impress the neighbors or any other vulgar reason. It was bound to prosper.'
"Oh no!" George said hastily, 'You mustn't do that. If we had a television set, Murdo and Grantie and Malcolm wouldn't ask us anymore. They would feel they were being an imposition. And we like to go to see them.'
I tell in detail of George's and Tom's taking to the telephone because it is a concrete instance of how they could demonstrate their sense of wonder, their gratitude for the miraculous, how sharply pleasant was their experien... (show all)ce of the strange and new. In a century where there has been so much of the strange and new, I feel that too many of us have allowed our capability for experience to become blunted so that we accept passively much that should be looked upon and thought about with wonder and gratitude. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)When George had gone upstairs, Shashie said: 'In a physical sense there are only two of you, now but, nevertheless, every time I think of this place, I shall see you here as I have always seen you. In the company of your friends George and Tom.'
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- (4.41)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 2
