As a child, one of my favourite books was Noel Streatfeild’s The Growing Summer.

British Summer Time Begins: The School Summer Holidays 1930-1980
YSENDA MAXTONE GRAHAM
(LITTLE, BROWN, 352 PP, £18.99)
Tablet bookshop price £17.09 • Tel 020 7799 4064

As a child, one of my favourite books was Noel Streatfeild’s The Growing Summer. In it, a family of four pampered urban children (their parents inevitably dispatched at the beginning by death or disaster) are sent to rural Ireland to stay with a splendidly rude aunt they’ve never met. She ignores them completely and makes them forage for their own food. They emerge at the end of the summer holidays with their entitled corners rubbed off, having learned how to skin rabbits, identify toadstools and other important life skills.

The Growing Summer was published in 1966, at the high point of the period covered by Ysenda Maxtone Graham’s witty and perceptive new book about British summer holidays. Like her previous book, Terms & Conditions, about girls’ boarding schools, this is based on interviews, the earliest memories going back to the 1930s. The time frame of Terms & Conditions ended in 1979, with the introduction of the duvet, and British Summer Time Begins closes a year later, shortly before the introduction by IBM of the first personal computer. This marked the beginning of screen dominance in childhood, the moment when children drew the curtains and turned for entertainment inside the home rather than outside – when watching sharks on YouTube forever dulled the excitement of fishing for minnows in real life.

Get Instant Access

Continue Reading

Register for free to read this article in full

REGISTER

Subscribe for unlimited access

SUBSCRIBE NOW

From just £37.50 quarterly

  Print copy of The Tablet delivered directly to your door.
  Complete access to all Tablet website content including all premium content.
  Access to the weekly digital copy of The Tablet.
  Full access to The Tablet’s archive – over 180 years of back issues.

Already a subscriber? Login