Funny How Things Turn Out

Love, Death and Unsuitable Husbands - a Mother and Daughter story

Judith Bruce

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN:
  9780857208224

Muriel Newmarch was born in North London in 1903. She died in 2009, aged 106, in a care home in Sussex. Judith Bruce is her daughter, and Funny How Things Turn Out- part biography, part memoir - tells the story of both her mother and herself, which in turn traces the unprecedented changes to women's lives during the 20th Century.

The first half of the book chronicles Muriel's world through the Zeppelin raids of WW1, a painfully stilted class system, and marriage and motherhood in the 1930s - then her daughter, Judith, picks up the first-person narrative as a mischievous child in the 1940s and we stay with her until the end of the book.

Woven artfully through the episodic chapters are the loves, aspirations and disappointments of two 'ordinary' women. Written with an understated elegance, Judith Bruce brings to life a barely remembered England of satin dresses at Swan & Edgar's, liberty bodices at grammar school, and English summer days where silent fathers mowed the lawn in polished shoes and unsuitable boyfriends smoked Player's Navy Cut.

As we move through the post-war years from austerity and to prosperity, and Judith's working life at the BBC, the voice could almost be that of Alan Bennett. Even more so when charting the poignancy of Muriel's fading days, failing body and disappearing memory. It is a remarkable and accomplished portrait of life, love and death.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue (2005): Never Have Me to Live With You
• MURIEL’S STORY
• The Walk With Father (1907)
• Don’t All Die (1908)
• The Butcher’s Dog (1911)
• Topsy (1912)
• April (1913)
• The Bank in Shoreditch (1915)
• Mollie and Lucy Get Home Late (1916)
• Lucy (1917)
• Father’s Not Coming Back (1920)
• The Boyfriend (1921)
• The Interview (1922)
• The Grass-Mower (1922)
• Lunch With Lidell (1923)
• Tea in the Garden (1924)
• Mother’s Been Taken to Hospital (1925)
• Under a Tree (1926)
• Wedding Plans (1927)
• Mrs Arthur Laurence Miles (1927)
• The Operation (1931)
• The Unwanted Pregnancy (1935)
• The Toad (1936)
• The New Baby (1936)
• JUDITH’S STORY
• The Walk With Father (1939)
• The Drum (1941)
• The Night Before Christmas (1942)
• The Illness (1943)
• The Egg-Cosy (1944)
• Clothing Coupons (1945)
• The War Is Over (1945)
• Let’s Run Away (1946)
• The Scholarship (1947)
• The Family Tree (1947)
• The First Day at the Grammar School (1947)
• April Knows Everything (1948)
• The Bust Bodice (1949)
• The Charleston (1950)
• The Best of the Day Will Have Gone (1951)
• Fifteen (1951)
• Nice in a Lot of Ways (1952)
• Going Shopping (1953)
• Seventeen (1953)
• The Row Over Tony (1954)
• ‘I’ve Found Out What Love Is’ (1955)
• Being a Secretary Is a Very Good Job (1956)
• He’s Not Suitable (1960)
• Funny How Things Turn Out (1964)
• Find Someone With a Proper Job (1965)
• The Wedding Day (1966)
• THE END STORY
• I Know Who’s Responsible (2005)
• I Haven’t Had Any Dinner (2005)
• Who Was That Chap I Married? (2006)
• Kitty’s Getting Married (2007)
• I Didn’t Know What I Was Doing (2008)
• The Queen Is Visiting (2007)
• They Are All Against My Family (2007)
• A Dreadful Day (2008)
• They Don’t Come When You Ring (2008)
• The Birthday Party (2009)
• It’s Not Good (2009)
• Getting Worse (2009)
• I Don’t Think I’m Going On With This (2009)
• Mummy! Mummy! Let Me Go! (2009)
• Quiet (2009)
• End Stage (2009)
• List of Plates