About this title.
My Marian Year is a delightful reminiscence of a year in the life of a ten year old Catholic boy, growing up in Auckland in 1954. All who lived through these times will love this book, with its rich observation of every crevice of a child’s upbringing then. The joys, hardships and complexities of home, school, church, shops, workplaces, transport and entertainment are rendered in vivid detail. Everything is described with care from the washing, cooking, cleaning, dining, recycling, gardening, preserving, playing and relaxing, to school, family, community and religious observances that characterized the passing year. Who can forget knuckle bones, marbles and other games and toys, school milk, Guy Fawkes, close of school and Christmas preparations. Remember the way disability was dealt with, dentistry and doctoring, alcohol and entertainment? Simple aspects of life such as the provision of meat and poultry are described in such detail that you can feel the saw-dusted floor of the butchery, see the changing shape of the block, smell the hanging meat. From the misery of calculating in pounds, shillings and pence to the joy of finding ‘spare bread’ at the dairy, or seeing the Rawleigh’s man at the door; everything is scrutinized with childlike intensity and with an easy flow that keeps the reader fully engaged throughout.
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About this Author.
Robert Philip Bolton is one of PublishMe's biggest selling authors. He has been writing professionally most of his adult life specialising in short stories about New Zealand and New Zealanders. He has published five books all of which are published and available here; he is now working on a new novel. He was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1945 and has travelled extensively throughout New Zealand, Australia, Britain (where he lived and worked), Europe, Asia and Japan, as well as the United States where he worked in Atlanta, Georgia. The father of two adult children, he lives with his wife, Kath, (also a writer) in Greenlane, Auckland.
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