This Time Next Week

Part memoir, part social history, This Time Next Week tells the story of a mother and daughter s struggle to rebuild their lives following the tragically early death in 1928 of Jimmy Kelland, engineer, husband, father and member of the Masonic Lodge, the Star in the East. Funny, candid and at times sad, Barbara describes growing up without a father in the early part of the last century. Then with the help of the weekly letters she wrote home as a little girl, she tells us about the strict routine and emphasis on discipline and how preparations were made for war. Barbara recalls her memories of midnight feasts, snowball fights, and other silly school girl pranks, she helped organise with her friends. But there were serious moments too. Like regular music practice and performing the school Drill. Barbara appreciates how fortunate she was to have survived the war and will always be grateful to her mother for the sacrifices made in a difficult time before the extension of the Welfare State. Barbara is also eternally indebted to the anonymous generosity of the Masons, who funded the junior and senior schools. She wrote this book as a way of saying thank you to both her mother and to the members of an organisation, whose good works frequently go unnoticed.