Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee

Cider with Rosie is a memoir of a childhood. We are taken on a journey from the time he and his family move to Slad, an isolated Cotswold village. We are introduced to his chaotic but loving family life, learn of the shock of school, his adventures with the opposite sex and his part in mischievous acts. He tells of growing up without a father, his relationships with his mother, sisters and friends, as he moves toward manhood. We hear of his sexual awakening with Rosie, this loss of innocence and naivety and what it was like when he finally lost the characteristics that made him the sweet boy he introduces at the start.

  In the first chapter Lee describes a three year old's  perception and misconceptions: small in relation to objects around him, for example when he got lost in the grass, on the family's arrival at their new home, "I had never been so close to grass before. It towered above me and all around me, each blade tattooed with tiger-skins of sunlight". His sense of adventure is communicated through the use of metaphors and similes. He describes things in a very simple, natural way that makes you feel you are there in his world. He uses wonderful descriptive detail and our discussion drew similarities with Dylan Thomas and Thomas Hardy.

  Whilst surrounded by a loving family, he tells of the harshness of ceasing to be the youngest child. "I grew a little tougher, a little colder, and turned my attention more to the outside world, which was now emerging visibly through the mist". Lee says he grew a little tougher, as a result of not been allowed to sleep in his mother's bed and he thought this was the end of the world. But he was growing up and soon realised that there are other things in life for him to discover: school, friends, girls and the wonderful local characters and all their history. We particularly loved the Grannies and their relationship despite never talking to each other, how different they were and how they were able to teach the boys so much about the older generation.

  We speculated if Lee's encounter with Rosie was a key theme in his childhood as he used this memory as the title. Laurie Lee has written about the coming of age of the nation as well as the boy.  The book gives a detailed account of a childhood that seemed filled full with fun, adventure and typical childhood mischief. Yet it is also about loss: loss of traditions, of innocence, of his father and the loss those who never returned from the war.

  This charming, autobiographical novel, peopled with characters we all liked drew pictures of a rural  world and upbringing, whilst long gone had elements that we recognised from our own childhoods.