My Spring

An unusual memoir contrasting the lives of Royals, with an ordinary working class Sheffield family. An aristocratic lady and a girl from Sheffield are born into large families at the height of the British Empire, where grand houses had elephant foot stools, cutlery with ivory handles, tiger skin rugs and Imperial Leather soap. In the north, horse and carts with 'rag and bone' men shout, "Any old irons." The northern girl wears 'hand me down' clothes and lives in a 'two up, two down', back to back house. The lady wears fine clothes and lives in grand homes. Both women experience turmoil and sadness in the First World War, and they both marry in 1923. This book is about the parallel life stories of an extraordinary Royal lady and an ordinary woman as they go through life changing upheavals and the fear of a second World War. They both have daughters in the same year - one was destined to be Queen and the other was to become the author's mother. Jean A Stockdale began by writing poetry before moving onto write the stories that lay behind each poem. My Spring is her look at the past through the unusual lens of her own northern family background and contrasting it with the Royal Family.