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Without Warning and Only Sometimes

Scenes from an Unpredictable Childhood

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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 Art & Literature Authors Caribbean Creators Parenting & Families Relationships Teenagers Women Heartfelt Royalty Caribbean
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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.

Superb

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Those of us brought up in the Jehovah's Witness cult will recognise so much in this book. It's not an attack on the JW, though there can be no hiding how much that upbringing shaped this woman's life. But it is about how different layers and experiences, from so many different backgrounds, became the 'nurture' to her 'nature'.

It's a fascinating tale and I'd love to think there will be a follow-up as there is so much of the story yet to be told.

An unusual childhood!

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Loved listening to Kit talking about her childhood through to early adulthood. It was narrated beautifully by the author.

Great memoir!

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I’m mixed race from her era it brought back vivid memories. Laughed out loud once or twice the recognition of a Caribbean dad and an Irish mum was so strong. Can’t forget the images of Fay.

Loved it

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I loved this book. It's personal and interesting and full of humanity. A really great story.

Fantastic story

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