It is said that, however long you live, and however far you travel, the streets and fields where you played as a child will always be home to you. So Cambridge is for Alec Forshaw. This is a story of a childhood in Cambridge in the 1950s and '60s, followed by three undergraduate years and three decades of frequent and regular visits until the ties of the parental home were broken. These are memories set down before they too disappear and they recall a Cambridge which for many will have faded. Those who have read Gwen Raverat's Period Piece: A Cambridge Childhood will have seen in her description of the town and its society a different world. The reminiscences herein may rekindle more recent recollections, or simply entertain and amuse.
This fascinating story of life in Cambridge is written from the idiosyncratic perspective of an author who not only grew up in the city during the 1950s and 1960s, but who also attended its prestigious university. Alec Forshaw has remained connected to Cambridge ever since. Brought up on the north side of town, his reminiscences detail not only domestic life with his parents and his brother, but also the development of Cambridge in post-war Britain. Compelling memories of the city an university, his voyage through the Cambridgeshire education system, the 'Big Freeze' of 1963, family holidays and excursions into nearby Fenland are just a few examples of how the author vividly depicts the world in which he grew up. Enhanced by a selection of rare photographs, Alec Forshaw's recollections of childhood, student days and family life during this period of great change provide a charming tale that will delight anyone with an interest in the local area or this period of history.
