Turn Again Home

Turn Again Home

by Carol Birch (Author)

Synopsis

Gorton, Manchester. 1930. Greyhound racing at Belle Vue, the buses going up and down Hyde Road, the siren of Peacock's foundry going off every night at six. This is Bessie and Sam Holloway's place, home for Nell and little brother Bobby and older step-child Violet. Precious visits from Dad's sister Benny, a Queen of the music hall trailing clouds of glory and whisky, provide infrequent brushes with glamour. 'Alright for some,' grunts Bessie. Nell grows up to work in a factory and there, from the tailgate of a truck in the yard, she first hears fellow factory worker Harry Caplin play trombone break on the old jazz classic, Clarinet Marmalade. Harry's talent will take him far and introduce him to such jazz legends as Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden; but not as far as poor feckless Bobby, who finds himself fighting in the jungles of Malaya. Spanning the twentieth century, this is story of three generations of a Manchester family.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 416
Publisher: Virago
Published: 05 Jun 2003

ISBN 10: 1860499724
ISBN 13: 9781860499722

Media Reviews
'Her candid northern voice cuts sadness free of sentimentality and finds intensity in the inconsequential and drama in the everyday.' THE TIMES
Author Bio
Carol Birch was born in 1951 in Manchester and went to Keele University. She has lived in London, southwest Ireland and now Lancaster. For her first novel, LIFE IN THE PALACE, she won the 1988 David Higham Award for the Best First Novel of the Year. In 1991 she won the prestigious Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize with THE FOG LINE.