I’m still catching up with writing about some 2015 books, this one was the last book I read last year.

Sisters by a River by Barbara Comyns was first published in 1947 but I read a Virago reprint. If you’ve read about the Mitford sisters and their upbringing then this one will seem very familiar to you. But that is no bad thing, it’s just very autobiographical apparently and Comyns and the Mitfords had a lot of things in common, such as lots of sisters, a large property but lack of cash and parents who were nutty or I suppose I should say eccentric given the class structure. It’s definitely another case of – if that family had been poor and working class then they would have been taken into care. Having said that, I really enjoyed this book.

The tale is told by one of five sisters, her spelling is less than perfect which is a wee bit annoying at the beginning, but I got used to it. One child is not mentioned beyond the fact that they would hate to appear in the book, so they don’t, presumably that one was a boy. The setting is the banks of the River Avon and a large house called Bell Court which eventually contains five sisters.

After she had six babies at eighteen monthly intervals Mammy suddenly went deaf, perhaps her subconscious mind just couldn’t bear the noise of babies any more. …

Mammy had always looked and been rather vague, she had a kind of gypsoflia mind, all little bits and pieces held together by whisps, now she grew vaguer still and talked with a high floating voice, leaving her sentances half finished or with a wave of her hand she would add an ‘and so forth’. She was taken to several specialists but they could do nothing, one good thing being deaf stopped her having more babies, she was only twenty seven and might have had masses more, somehow being deaf put a stop to them.

Every cloud has a silver lining I suppose!

This is a witty and amusing read, although towards the end it takes a more tragic turn.