Rosie cover art

Rosie

Scenes from a Vanished Life

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Rosie

By: Rose Tremain
Narrated by: Rose Tremain
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About this listen

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Rosie: Scenes from a Vanished Life, written and read by Rose Tremain.

Rose Tremain grew up in post-war London, a city of grey austerity, still partly in ruins, where both food and affection were fiercely rationed. The girl known then as ‘Rosie’ and her sister Jo spent their days longing for their grandparents' farm, buried deep in the Hampshire countryside, a green paradise of feasts and freedom, where they could at last roam and dream.

But when Rosie is ten years old, everything changes. She and Jo lose their father, their London house, their school, their friends, and -- most agonisingly of all -- their beloved Nanny, Vera, the only adult to have shown them real love and affection.

Briskly dispatched to a freezing boarding-school in Hertfordshire, they once again feel like imprisoned castaways. But slowly the teenage Rosie escapes from the cold world of the Fifties, into a place of inspiration and mischief, of loving friendships and dedicated teachers, where a young writer is suddenly ready to be born.

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Critic reviews

Rose Tremain famously eschews autobiographical material in her fiction, so this account of her childhood feels so fresh it stings… [she] brings her formidable talent for characterisation to bear on the vanished, culpable cast of her childhood (Claire Lowdon)
Rose Tremain manages to fit more wisdom, more unforgettable scenes, more illuminating recollections, into this 194-page memoir than other writers do in memoirs three times the length. A book as nourishing, but concise as this makes you wonder why other writers have to be so long-winded ... For anyone who loves Tremain's novels this memoir is a vital companion (Ysenda Maxton Graham)
Intriguing and moving ... So much more alert and open and alive than so many slightly disappointing memoirs by otherwise great writers ... Rosie is a work of self-discovery in the best possible sense of the word - it pulls you in, unsettles, comforts and exhilarates and, finally, makes you see your life anew (Julie Myerson)
Rose Tremain turns to non-fiction for the first time with this lyrical account of her life up to the age of 18 ... The evocation of 1950s schoolgirldom, with all its emotions, elations and smells, is wonderfully vivid - distinctive, like being donated a set of dreams ... A quiet drama, but as you'd expect it's the writing that makes this book such a delight (Claire Harman)
A beautifully written ode to the tenacity of our younger selves (Francesca Brown)
This poignant memoir ... A telling portrait of what went into the making of one of our most acclaimed novelists (Fanny Blake)
The author uses her considerable narrative skills of set-up and delayed revelation to keep the reader enthralled ... Fans of her novels will know that Tremain has a brilliant eye for visual information, vividly deployed here (John Walsh)
An evocative, unflinching memoir ... electric (Hephzibah Anderson)
I was startled, but also very moved, by the almost abrasive directness of Rose Tremain's memoir Rosie. It did exactly what memoirs ought to do: made me want to rush straight back to her fiction (Julie Myerson)
Compelling, moving and nostalgic in its evocation of a bygone era (Charlotte Heathcote)
All stars
Most relevant
An interesting but somewhat sad book. However the lesson of ‘tits to the valley’ and perseverance is uplifting.

Perseverance

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Most authors who attempt to read their own work fail miserably, but this is a marvel! Rose Tremain’s delicate and gentle voice, filled with a sort of resigned acceptance of her story, only emphasises the extraordinary triumph
of her spirit over the adversity inflicted upon her by her early life. I wanted to listen again as soon as it was finished.

Beautiful book

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Perhaps those producing the recording should have realised that Rose Tremain (wonderful writer that she is) extremely softly spoken and adjusted a few buttons on the sound mixing desk to compensate for this. Even with the volume on my IPad turned up to the limit I found myself straining to hear her. It didn't quite spoil it but it was irritating at times through no fault of the narrator who can't help her voice.

Good - but softly spoken

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I loved this finely judged slim memoir. Avoiding the memoirist’s pitfall of self-indulgent prolixity, Rose Tremain’s language (as in her 13 novels and many short stories) is spare and delicately chosen. The life extends from early childhood to the end of her formal education.

Tremain’s heart was set on Oxford, a longing described by her mother (referred to throughout significantly merely as ‘Jane’) as ‘an inappropriate dream’. She did not want ‘a bluestocking for a daughter’, nor did she want her around. Rosie (as she was known) was sent to a finishing school in Switzerland where she learned ski-ing and secretarial skills.

Rosie’s background was privileged – servants (her nanny was Rosie’s sole source of love), idle leisure and property. Post-war boarding school was bitterly cold, food was scarce and Rosie started marking off the days on her ‘term worm’ (her grid of the days as a worm) from the first day of each term. But after some time her beloved teacher Robbie (who taught in a fur coat against the cold) opened up poetry for her and assuaged her homesickness.

But what makes the memoir so moving as well as a fascinating vignette of a vanished era (Tremain was born in 1943) are the tragic dynamics of the family’s three generations. Larkin’s ‘Man hands on misery to man, it deepens like a coastal shelf’ could have been written for Rosie’s family. Inside their beautiful Linkenholt Manor (a rural sanctuary for Rosie and her sister Jo) Rosie’s grandparents lived crucified by the grief of losing both their sons, a loss so grievous that Rosie’s mother, unloved Jane, knew she was no compensation. She was sent off to boarding school at six (two years younger than all the other children). She grew up to become an abandoned wife and an unloving cruelly neglectful mother to Rosie and Jo.

But Tremain’s touch is light: analysis and insight without judgement beautifully read – a feat in itself as few writers read their own work well.

'It deepens like a coastal shelf'

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I love Rose Tremain as an author. This memoir of her childhood has fascinating aspects but her delivery and manner of (to a degree, understandably) limiting the detail of particularly significant incidents diminishes the experience. There was a coldness to the narrative that I found to overcome - I suspect I’d have enjoyed reading it more than listening to it. There was so much more I’d like to have known about.

A painful childhood

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