Vivienne Woolf

Seven inter-connected lives and seven stories weave themselves together over two days in London. When tragedy strikes, new connections are forged, long-standing dynamics upended and shapes and colours shift.

Seven inter-connected lives and seven stories weave themselves together over two days in London. When tragedy strikes, new connections are forged, long-standing dynamics upended and shapes and colours shift.

After Frank is a story about a mother’s love for her daughter, about change and adapting to change and about knowing that not all problems can or need to be solved.

Rose loves roses. She also believes there is an angel in every cloud. She dyes her hair the blonde of her childhood and bakes cakes with marrows from her garden, where she works wearing wellington boots over her shoes ‘to save them’, and remains till the moon rises into the sky. Rose lives with her husband Frank, her other love, in a blue house in a seaside town where their lives are shaped by the rhythm of the tides and the rise and fall of the sun. Frank is a carpenter with one eye brown like winter and one green like spring. He is built solid as the wood he works with and is grounded where Rose is quirky. Whenever he finds time, he paces the seashore with his hands in his pockets, breathing in sea air, counting his steps and planning for his and Rose’s future. When Rose and Frank are in their forties, they become parents to a daughter, whom they name Olive. Her birth is breech and she is born after a storm which blows all the petals from Rose’s roses and the leaves of the olive tree on to the windows of their house. After her birth, everything changes. After Frank is a story about a mother’s love for her daughter, about change and adapting to change and about knowing that not all problems can or need to be solved.

In today's fast-paced world, older people find little opportunity to tell stories and pass on the wisdom of their experience and years. They remember the past clearly, but the art of storytelling has been lost. Reminiscence classes revive this art. People's lives are recalled and valued through listening, talking and discussing; and, at the same time, a wealth of social history is preserved for posterity. This book shows how this has been achieved in a local Jewish community and how easily the reader could do the same. "Capturing Memories" has 12 chapters, each depicting a different facet of East End Jewish life between the Wars. There are a further two chapters on the process of reminiscing and the value of remembering the past: appendices provide additional suggestions and guidelines concerning this process. The illustrations are unique and each one informs or entertains the reader.