FIFTEEN FIRST TIMES by D G Kaye @pokercubster

4.5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon (universal link)
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: Twitter

In a Nutshell: Memoir; the author looks back at early life experiences, in the form of short essays.

I so enjoyed reading these snapshots of D. G. Kaye's life, growing up in the 1960s, 70s and 80s - partly because I discovered that she is just two months older than me, so it's a world I know about ... mostly!*

I love the conversational aspect of the essays; the way Kaye writes is so readable, so down-to earth that it's like she's talking just to you, from the first kiss to the first love, to the first car and apartment, and, more seriously, the first bereavement of someone her own age.  This one was so heartrending that I found myself missing Alba too, a woman I know only from this one short story.

I think the piece that made me smile and nod the most was the 'first diet' - years of yo-yo dieting and obsession with what is put in one's mouth, the bane of many a young (and not so young) woman's life.  The daft things you try to lose weight.  

It's definitely a generational thing; I remember my mother (born in the 1920s) telling me that when she was a young woman, you were just the shape you were, and you didn't give it a great deal of thought.  In the late 1940s and 1950s most people were slim anyway, before advertising got serious and the world was filled with junk food - and when self-control was considered virtuous.  I grew up with the idea that to eat too much is greedy, as Debby must also have done.  Unlike these days, when young women are encouraged to indulge in 'guilty pleasures', with celebrity role models flaunting excess weight.

Back to the book!  It's great, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone, from those who can relate to Debby's experiences and younger women who want to know what life was like in mum and/grandma's day!  It's not that long; you could probably read it in a couple of afternoons.  Ideal for a nice bit of holiday reading, too :)

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*Although I found it all so relatable, there are many cultural differences that I thought about while I was reading.  Who'd have thought that growing up in a middle class home in the English East Midlands could be so different from a middle class home in Toronto?  

For instance ... the beginning of the dreaded 'monthlies'.  I knew all about it because my mother sat me down with a book called 'Where do babies come from?' when I was nine, and I think we were taught about it at school.  My first kiss was later, my first adult relationship earlier.

My generation in England tended to move out of home as soon as we were able to support ourselves, renting tatty furnished flats that we found in newspaper adverts, that inevitably had no heating or a dodgy old electric fire.  I left in 1978 and shared a house with a friend.  It cost £11 per week; I earned £31.  It was rare that anyone my age had a car - learning to drive at 17 (16 in Toronto) was only for the school goody-goodies!

Ah, the 1970s, when everyone smoked ... I didn't grow up in a smoking household, but started tentatively when I was 14 and properly when I was 16.  It was just something you did, if you were one of the non-straights ('straight' meaning something entirely different back then!).  It went with drinking and rock music and going to see bands - almost everyone I hung around with smoked.  And we all drank underage too, and pubs never asked for any sort of ID.