Showing results by narrator "Rachel Bavidge" in All Categories

In the final months of 1945, victory ceases to be a distant dream and for Rhoda Harding and many others, a feeling of hope is in the air. Rhoda is hoping for a change. Married to Alec for more than twenty-five years, she now finds herself reluctant to settle into premature middle-age. Both her daughters lead busy, fulfilling lives, whilst Rhoda feels her days are filled with dull routine. Alec is a happy man, content with his family life and successful business.

Richard is bored with the quiet life of his village. He would like to have a motor-car and drive it very fast. But Richard lives in a future world where there are no cars, only bicycles and small villages and green forests. And now he is 12 years old, and like the other children, he must do his "Year of Sharing". He must live alone in the forest with the wild animals. He must learn to share his world; he must learn how animals live and eat and fight... and die.

Cathy Wilson is driving to Norfolk, to begin her new job with the Harvey family. She is going to look after the two young children, Tim and Susan. Cathy meets the children’s father, and their grandmother, and their aunt. She meets Nick, the farmer who lives across the fields. But she doesn’t meet Miranda, the children’s mother, because Miranda is dead. She died two years ago, and Cathy cannot learn anything about her. Everybody remembers Miranda, but nobody wants to talk about her.

Her boorish husband, in his 40s and obsessed by his mistress, is only interested in its cash value. And in some woods not far from the house, a mysterious man is living in a caravan. Local rumour has it that he is a villain on the run. Gossip, greed and passion make a volatile mixture in high summer - and then the pleasure steamer churns up more than mud from the lake floor and something terrible is revealed, changing all the lives of those connected with the Boathouse.