A Biographical Sketch of the Struggles of Pestalozzi, to Establish His System of Education: ... Book

Another one from the 1989 Booker shortlist, this lightly fictionalised autobiographical novel was my first experience of reading Bedford and a very enjoyable read.

The book describes her unconventional childhood between the wars. The story starts in Germany - when her parents divorced she lived with her father in a Schloss near the French and Swiss borders - her father was a connoisseur and collector - slightly impoverished but reluctant to sell his prized possessions.

When her father died she joined her mother, initially in Italy, where she was starting a relationship with the much younger Alessandro that led to an unlikely marriage. The young Sybille was a ward of a German court and as part of an agreement with her trustees it was decided that she would be educated in England, where the friends entrusted with finding a school decided to educate her themselves.

Her mother and her young husband fled Mussolini's Italy and settled in the village of Sanary-sur-Mer on the South coast of France, and the rest of Sybille's childhood was spent alternating between Sanary and London.

The story is evocative and full of intriguing details and joie de vivre - she mixed with some interesting people including Aldous Huxley who also settled in Sanary. Others appear pseudonymously to protect their reputations. The dominant character remains her mother whose descent into drug addiction is described in the final part of the story.