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Without Warning and Only Sometimes

Scenes from an Unpredictable Childhood

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Without Warning and Only Sometimes

By: Kit de Waal
Narrated by: Kit de Waal
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Summary

From the award-winning author of My Name Is Leon, The Trick to Time and Supporting Cast comes a childhood memoir set to become a classic: stinging, warm-hearted and true.

Kit de Waal grew up in a household of opposites and extremes. Her haphazard mother rarely cooked, forbade Christmas and birthdays, worked as a cleaner, nurse and childminder sometimes all at once and believed the world would end in 1975. Meanwhile, her father stuffed barrels full of goodies for his relatives in the Caribbean, cooked elaborate meals on a whim and splurged money they didn't have on cars, suits and shoes fit for a prince. Both of her parents were waiting for paradise. It never came.

Caught between three worlds—Irish, Caribbean and British in 1960s Birmingham—Kit and her brothers and sisters knew all the words to the best songs, caught sticklebacks in jam jars and braved hunger and hellfire until they could all escape.

Without Warning and Only Sometimes is a story of an extraordinary childhood and how a girl who grew up in house where the Bible was the only book on offer went on to discover a love of reading that inspires her to this day.

©2022 Kit de Waal (P)2022 Headline Publishing Group Ltd Art & Literature Authors Caribbean Creators Parenting & Families Relationships Teenagers Women Heartfelt Royalty Caribbean
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I loved this memoir a well told story there were times I could relate to her experiences and times I just wanted to hug her ,brilliantly narrated. A great read/listen

Fantastic Kit Dr Waal

Wow just amazing

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What a good book. Enjoyed this so much I hope she writes a follow up.

Recommended

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I loved this memoir so much! Beautiful, tender writing, it did not disappoint. Highly recommend.

Couldn’t stop listening

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I loved the simplicity of the story, it wasn’t rushed.
Heartbreaking in parts.
The author is very talented at bringing a working class family story alive

Excellent story telling

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I very much enjoyed this book, well written and narrated. I knew so many people like this in my childhood but now seeing it through their eyes, half Irish, half Caribbean and a Jehovah’s Witness. As a child I didn’t, I couldn’t have understood the struggle such people had, they were just friends who I didn’t realise were treated any differently to me a white English girl in the 1970s. Obviously I did as I got older and have always been very upset by that. This isn’t a book about any kind of complaints but an uplifting, raw and gritty telling of a childhood on into womanhood. Excellent.

Superb

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