New Book “Journey into Solitude,” a Woman’s Personal Experience of the 20th Century, by a Cambridge Artist

“Journey into Solitude” is a narrative story, part fact, part fiction, looking back almost 80 years in the life of Ann Petre. Childhood, the war, family history, triumphs and tragedies; this is a personal perspective, interspersed with photos and illustrations, on what it was like to live through each decade of the 20th century in Norfolk and Cambridge.

London (PRWEB) September 19, 2006 -- “Journey into Solitude” is the story of one woman’s journey through the 20th century. Told in a moving, and at times intensely personal fashion, the narrative interweaves the physical, spiritual and emotional strands of her journey.

Ann Petre was born in 1926 at Langley Hall Farm, Norfolk and lived through some of the most tumultuous decades of the 20th Century, finally settling in Cambridge. You can experience what it was like, to grow up in the care of nannies, be educated by nuns, live through the war, and be a female student at Oxford in the forties. What happens when you make decisions based on passion later in life and have to start all over again – on your own?

Her narrative is part fact, part fiction. Interspersed by dreams, stories, photographs and paintings, it is a window into another traveller’s soul, in this often capricious and inexplicable journey through life on which each of us is embarked. Ann relates how she wove her path through those times, losing and finding herself in her unique journey into solitude.

In addition to Ann’s story, there are two other threads. The first is historical with insights into a family history that includes links to nobility and a family of Britain’s early aviation pioneers. The second is the visual story told by photographs from the beginning of the 1900s and concludes with the author’s paintings.

“This is emphatically not a family history,” the author says, “nor, strictly speaking, a memoir. It is more a story, or a myth. It is a narrative woven round my life. It attempts to explain why people, including myself, behaved as they did.”

“This is my story, looking back from my 80th birthday, March 27th, 2006.”

Professor Robert Markus said of the book: “… I found it moving, well-written, mysterious, frustrating, beautiful in places, wonderfully generous.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ann Petre (pronounced Peter) is a local Cambridge artist; and has exhibited at the Tavistock Foundation and with the Cambridge Open Studios for the past twelve years.

The author gained an Oxford degree in Modern Greats in 1947 and following her marriage she raised her three sons in the Cambridge area. Her interest in early child development led to her involvement with the movement to liberalise the care of children in hospital and she became a Governor of the United Cambridge Hospitals in 1970.

In 1977, after gaining a P.G.C.E. (Postgraduate Certificate in Education), she worked in primary and special schools specialising in the teaching of sign language. For this she was awarded a Research Associateship at the then Institute of Education.

In 1984, she trained as a psychodynamic counsellor with the Cambridgeshire Consultancy in Counselling and gained BACP (British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy) accreditation and taught counselling for a number of years for the university.

Recently she has travelled to many Bronze Age sites to make paintings of ancient sacred places. She has exhibited at the Tavistock Foundation and with the Cambridge Open Studios for the past twelve years.

For additional information, interviews or review copies, contact Chris Thomas at Milton Contact.

ISBN-10 1905597045 (ISBN-13 9781905597048) 262 pages, Perfect bound, includes 31 photos and illustrations. Available now through www.moyhill.com/html/journey_into_solitude.html www.Amazon.co.uk and selected bookshops.
Published by Milton Contact Ltd., Cambridge, in cooperation with Moyhill Publishing.

###