Babcia Janina
My grandmother, Janina Wysoka, nee Kirschinger, in 1917 just before she got married. She was born in 1896 and died in 1978 just before I got married. Born in Bratislava; brought up in Vienna. Spen… Source: Babcia Janina
Babcia Janina
My grandmother, Janina Wysoka, nee Kirschinger, in 1917 just before she got married. She was born in 1896 and died in 1978 just before I got married. Born in Bratislava; brought up in Vienna. Spent twenty years in Lwow, then Siberia and the long journey to freedom through Iran, Palestine and finally England in 1947. […]Read Post ›
Liberation-Russian Style
This book was published very soon after the war. My father Jan Wysoki gave it to me to read when I was an adult because he said it gave the truest account in English of his own experiences. I am going to buy another copy now because I tore bits out of this one when […]Read Post ›
Sausage Tree
Yesterday I was in total crisis. I am on holiday from school and although I have a lot to do I thought I could spend a happy hour looking at our photos from our incredible trip to Uganda and Tanzania 3 years ago. (More about that some other time). For the last three years I […]Read Post ›
Mothering Sunday 2016
Mothering Sunday. Ten years ago I still had my mother and my godmother, who was also my aunt. Five years ago I still had my godmother. Now I am mother to three of my own very grown-up children and Mothering Sunday is still an extremely significant day for me. This picture of the queen is […]Read Post ›
Nuns 1
MM Clare. Very old. Would look after the boarders at night before matron was installed. She would hang all her necessities on a cord round her waist underneath the top layer of her habit. These included nail clippers, scissors, and an exercise book full of sweet jokes that she had written down to entertain us […]Read Post ›
Vienna holiday
Not a holiday really. Just a record. Vinyl. Very old. We put it on just now and the memories flooded back. Sitting at home in the purple and yellow living room in Egerton Court putting on record after record and dancing and singing wildly whenever I was on my own. With the limited choice of […]Read Post ›
Stars and Bars
By William Boyd Not his best book. Very funny in places and especially good when describing the scenery and weather. But the story is too far fetched and the set pieces don’t always quite work. Very unsatisfactory ending. But then I looked at when he wrote it and it was over thirty years ago. So […]Read Post ›
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
by Rachel Joyce I read the Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy first. Apparently it is the second in the series, but this is the one I got for Christmas so I read it in a couple of days in the holidays. I couldn’t put it down. It was sad and funny and moving […]Read Post ›
Copenhagen
Copenhagen The story of Hans Christian Andersen as told by class 4a in Marlborough School, 1964. “Oh wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen,” they sang – we sang – in a very animated approximation of Danny Kaye in the film of the time. Our last year of school – we seemed to be in constant rehearsal, and everyone […]Read Post ›
Life Through Basia's Eyes 