Coin Street Chronicles: London's Vanished Old South Bank Area Review

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Coin Street Chronicles: London's Vanished Old South Bank Area ReviewI first heard Gwen Southgate present her book at our local Senior Center. Born in 1939, I had heard so much discussion about the evacuation of children from London during WWII and always wondered what it must have been like for families and children who were separated in this way during war time. Gwen Southgate more than answered my questions, in the most touching story. I wanted everyone to hear her story of how very ordinary people did the extraordinary thing of sharing the little they had with children evacuated from London. The story of Gwen's parents was equally powerful. I think EVERY FAMILY should read this story and share it with their children, that every high school library should have this book and that it should be REQUIRED reading. Read and be inspired!
Norma Smith, Princeton, New Jersey
I shared Gwen Southgate's book with Professor Alvin Kernan, former dean of the graduate school at Princeton University, and Avelon Professor of Humanities at Princeton University, a Shakespearean scholar and author himself, and this is what he wrote back:
"Thanks for loaning me Coin Street Chronicles. I got started and read my way right on through with the greatest of pleasure. I suppose the story is a familiar one, but I thought this was different because it described the poverty and difficulties of a hard time without any sentimentality. Ms. Southgate's plain style is largely responsible for this emotional downrightness. No matter what happens, good or bad, the family and the author treat it as reality, the way we live, and take whatever pleasures can be gotten from a stray cat or a doll. Stained wallpaper is just wallpaper, and the murderous fogs are just the way things are in London, and if the dad is chesty and out of work, mum is reliant and ferocious in defense.
I think that my delight in the story was surely in part from its contrast to the Hollywood-type families of our times: bored housewives. sex and the city. struggling with autism and finding the genius medico who has just found a cure; learning that god can carry the weight of our sorrow, even being turned down for admission to Harvard. Remember the Louds of an earlier time? Gwen Southgate is surely their nemesis. We are romantics to the core, she is a realist. Thanks again.
Al KernanCoin Street Chronicles: London's Vanished Old South Bank Area OverviewIn January, 1929, Eileen Gwynneth Yvonne was born in a meager one-room apartment on Coin Street in a grimy, industrial corner of London on the south bank of the Thames. In this memoir, Gwen Southgate weaves the story of a vanished time, place, and way of life in an area that is now a cultural showcase known as the South Bank. Though Coin Street Chronicles is a personal story of one youngster's experiences in the 1930s and 40s, it is part of a broader tapestry, one which portrays the sweep of life in Britain at that time as seen through the eyes of a girl for whom it was the backdrop of childhood. Among its many colorful characters are the big-hearted, garrulous, chain-smoking Aunt-mum; yarn-spinning, practical joker Grampa Benson; and Gwen's feisty, much-married mother. During World War II when evacuation from London opens wider horizons, Gwen and her two brothers learn to live with the idiosyncrasies of many families in many locations. They encounter bewildering incidents like the "Rice Pudding Affair" and the "Sinfulness of Enjoying a Sunday Walk."With a flair for detail, Southgate brings the characters to life and paints vivid scenes that touch all of the senses.

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