Wild Strawberries

Derek Smith

Jul 2011 · Pneuma Springs Publishing

About this ebook

This is the true story of a nine year old boy who, at the height of the Birmingham blitz, is transported from his ‘all mod cons’ big city home to the safety of a house in a remote south Staffordshire hamlet, a mile and a half from nowhere, where he finds himself living in domestic and sanitary conditions that have remained unaltered for over a thousand years – the culture shock to end all culture shocks. It describes his acceptance of and assimilation into the country ways of life; his struggle for an education in a village school built to house ninety local children, but then grossly overcrowded by more than a hundred evacuees from not one but two Birmingham schools; his first faltering love, and the adventures that he was able to undertake by virtue of the fearless freedom afforded to children in that far off time exactly seventy years ago. A contagious affliction sees him whisked away from the now familiar village of Yoxall and he finds himself living in a grand country house where a whole new series of adventures begin, resulting in an episode that tests the resolution of a tough little ‘Brummie’ almost to the limit. Book reviews online: PublishedBestsellers website.

About the author

Derek Smith was born in Birmingham in 1931 and was educated at Moseley Grammar School. He worked for the International Nickel Company of Canada, the British Steel Company and the Aluminium Company of America before acquiring a teaching qualification in 1983 and becoming a physics teacher at the Blake School in Somerset. His National service was spent in Western Germany serving with number 256 RAF night fighter squadron. After retiring he lived in Mallorca and the Spanish mainland. He has now returned to the UK and lives on the Carmarthenshire coast in South Wales.