A first-hand account of the life of travel writer Dervla Murphy in which she tells of her early life in Lismore, Co. Waterford, in her rather unusual household. Her father was the county librarian and her mother a chronic invalid. An only child, Dervla was allowed from the age of seven to freely roam on her own. At ten, she cycled ten miles to a local mountain, climbed it, then lost herself on the way down, and was forced to stay out all night - much to the distress of her parents. Living in a house that was crumbling around their ears, she reveals how her family hid a Republican who was later hanged, how she tested herself (with hot water) to increase her pain threshold, how she avoided an insane and shrieking maid, who was convinced that Dervla's parents were fried eggs, and how she helped another maid give birth under the kitchen table. An early love of books and writing, led her to enter a writing competition arranged by a local newspaper, and she won first prize for five weeks in a row.
Encouraged to leave school at the age of 14 to nurse her mother, she portrays the strain that her mother's increasing illness had on the family, and the resulting breakdown in family relationships.
- ISBN10 1850891214
- ISBN13 9781850891215
- Publish Date August 1986 (first published 20 September 1979)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 20 October 2009
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher ISIS Publishing
- Imprint ISIS Large Print Books
- Edition Large type / large print edition
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 305
- Language English