The Family History

Johnnie hadn’t minded playing toy theatre with them but wasn’t going to play with girls outside, so he went and sat beside Grandad who said it was about time they had a man-to-man talk. That’s when he said the thing about him and Tommy being his most important grandchildren because they would be the ones to carry the Kentson name on to the next generation of lightermen. Something told Johnnie that it was not the right time to say that he wanted to be a soldier in the cavalry when he grew up… Early death. Bereavement. Single parenthood. Children. Life. The parallels between her twenty-first century bereaved Canadian family and its mid-Victorian London counterpart become empathetically evident when Holly traces her family history through census records, and finds her imagination captured by glimpses into her ancestors’ lives in the crowded Thames-side streets and alleys.