Maybe someone can help.....

[pint6x]

Hello everyone - newbie here - avid reader of newspapers, car magazines, contemporary fiction, news websites - usually a stack of books waiting to be read next to my bedside........

Some years back I read a book which I think I bought from the mail order company QPD - Quality Paperbacks Direct (as an aside, does anyone know what's become of them?)

Anyway, this book concerned a lady who was 99, lying in a hospital, non-communicative, relatives surrounding her hoping she would live to her 100th birthday.

The book is about this lady remembering her past - growing up in Wales (Swansea I think) about how she had a late-night tryst with a lover somewhere, about her family life. She had a brother who always said "I beg your pardon" at the end of anything remotely contentious - said brother died of cancer at some stage in the book. The book makes frequent reference to Bara Brith - a welsh cake - which they seem to eat a lot of.

I can also remember this lady going to some party somewhere - they are sitting down to dinner and she has the most insufferable bore sat next to her who wants to talk about golf or "Gofe" as he prounounces it.

Sounds a bundle of laughs doesn't it? but it's a fantastic book and I really enjoyed it - God only knows what I have done with it but I cannot find it or remember what it is called.

Can anyone help?

Thanks in advance

Cheers - Philip - 6X

[Renniemist]

Could it be Going Gently by David Nobbs.

It is a long time since I read it but it sounds familiar.

[pint6x]

Could it be Going Gently by David Nobbs.

It is a long time since I read it but it sounds familiar.

That's the one - that's the one !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much - as soon as I saw the book title in your reply I knew you were right - that has been bugging me for a few years.

Right - straight on to Amazon tomorrow

Oh isn't it good when a plan comes together :mrgreen:

Philip - 6X

[Janet]

I'm glad you found your book!

Love the username!

[LucyD]

Oh, I really enjoyed that book too! Great.
It is so annoying when you can only remember fragments of a story and can't think which book they come from. Glad you have been put out of your misery!

[Enthusiast]

Glad you found your book. :)

[grammyva]

Looks as if someone already posted the answer to this query! I was thinking of Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively as it has much of the same theme. It was a Booker Award winner.

"Historian and journalist Claudia Hampton, a woman who lies in a hospital bed dying of old age, recalls her past."

Grammyva