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  • Without Warning and Only Sometimes

  • Scenes from an Unpredictable Childhood
  • By: Kit de Waal
  • Narrated by: Kit de Waal
  • Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (113 ratings)
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Without Warning and Only Sometimes cover art

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

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What listeners say about Without Warning and Only Sometimes

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Superb

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.

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A family unhappy in its own way



The story behind the childhood nickname “Kit” illustrates the kind of thing that made Kit de Waal’s childhood such a haphazard, struggling experience. As a child in a game she fell off a table with such violence that she almost severed her tongue and when in recovery she asked one of her siblings for a kiss with her blubbery mess of lips, she could only say ‘Kit’.

Her growing up in Moseley Birmingham in the 1960s was as much her parents’ story as hers. Father Arthur had left St Kitts to follow a dream and in his new country he had married Sheila, a seemingly fun Irish lass from a devoutly Roman Catholic family who had left Ireland for England likewise following her dream. Arthur and Sheila turned out to be entirely ill-suited and Kit could remember plenty of clashes but only one occasion in her entire childhood when her parents sat down together. The family was kept financially afloat by Arthur working as a bus driver and Sheila working every hour at poorly paid jobs, the children helping her with the paid laundry work or the constant stream of babies she minded. At the home of her friend Cressida, Kit marvelled at her Barbie dolls, the availability of food and the fact that her friend’s parents talked amicably together. When Cressida makes a new white friend, we feel Kit's heartbreak.

Sheila was no home maker feeding her children and yet another child who turned out to be a St Kitts half brother on stale bread and not much else. They were often hungry, but when Arthur returned to his beloved St Kitts after 40 years for a long trip, he stuffed suitcases full of treats for various relations. It is a strength of this memoir that Kit is entirely unjudgemental. When Arthur returned after only a short time, his fond image of his homeland destroyed . you have to feel sorry for him and for others with shattered dreams.

Sheila’s life was taken over by a Jehovah’s Witness caller at the door. She was converted absolutely and from then on with their mother’s heart and eyes firmly on the promised Paradise for the Saved, the children’s lives were dominated by Meetings and strict rules which they could escape only by growing up. Arthur just let his wife whom he called ‘that crazy woman’ get on with it and spent what spare time he had sitting smoking in his chair watching old films which the children had to suffer in absolute silence. Sometimes there were treats as when he cooked West Indian food thick with sugar which the children devoured ravenously .

It was her boss with her first real job who changed Kit’s life. She had always suffered from chronic insomnia and he told her 10 of the most of important books to read to cure her. She immediately read them all from the library, then another ten and another. Having been through a very rough time when she had even thought about suicide, books saved her and she opted for life.

It’s not at all a misery memoir, but poignant, funny, vibrant, warm and balanced, and her own narration adds to the startling reality of it all. I loved it.

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4 people found this helpful

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An important book full of heart

I binged this book in one sitting. Wonderfully narrated by the author. Kit is a very talented writer and her eye for detail creates an immersive experience with unforgettable characters - her family and friends. It is a masterclass in memoir writing. A tour de force!

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3 people found this helpful

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The most enjoyable audio book I've listened to

I absolutely loved this book. As someone else has said, Kit's voice is unusual until you realise that's she's the daughter of an Irish mother, West Indian father, and brought up in Solihull, and by then you've become completely captivated by this gorgeously narrated close up of growing up poor and different in the 80s and 90s for immigrants in the West Midlands.

Themes of poverty, racism and doctrine are deftly woven into a microcosm of family and domesticity. It is heart rending and funny, and lovely, and the mix of Irish, Brummy and Patois gives colour and texture. The cabbage and egg had me hooting with laughter, and I especially liked how Kit punctuated the beginning and end with a common theme.

I can't wait to read more of her work, and hope her fiction is as brilliant as her autobiographical work. I didn't want it to end.

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2 people found this helpful

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One of the best memoirs ever

What a stunning memoir. Clever, funny, raw and compelling. Wonderfully narrated by the author herself. Didn’t want it to end!!

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A miracle of memoir

De Waal does it again. This memoir has the scope of a novel and the singular, unputdownable quality of a short story. In this memoir, De Waal does not mythologise but instead revels in the quotidian moments, the moments that make us, after all.

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Wow just amazing

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

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Loved this

Amazing story in the way the author could bring her parents and poor family to life so well. The failures of their character and how as a reader you cared for them as well. The description of Birmingham in the 80s and how people spoke and behaved sounded so familiar. Though very sorrowful the humour came through making me laugh out load! The whole telling of this story by the author herself was magic to me.

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  • 25-04-23

Insanely good. It should be on the school curriculum.

AT times funny and painful, occasionally shocking yet also warm and empathetic, this writer takes you straight back to school days and the horror (to a child) of never seeming to fit in. It’s a tale of love, and family, of kindness and bad choices, of a mum who takes on challenges from rats to racism and a girl who navigates it all and finds her way. A triumph. I loved it.

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Loved it

Loved it
Lived her life through a beautifully observed group of stories. Thank you So much

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