‘The story has all the elements of what is known today as a “misery memoir”, a genre that hovers uncomfortably but profitably between therapy for the author and emotional pornography for the reader. In both its tone and approach, however, The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley is a world away from this kind of thing. It is an extraordinarily dispassionate book, written with exceptional skill and grace and without the faintest flicker of self-pity. Like Diana herself, it is forthright, fearless and often very funny.’
The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley is an utterly unselfpitying and often very funny account of what must be one of the oddest childhoods on record. Diana and her older twin sisters grew up in Barnes, South London, in the care of an elderly housekeeper, their mother having abandoned them shortly after Diana’s birth in 1912. She didn’t reappear again until 1922, with disastrous results for all concerned. She called herself Mrs Muriel Perry, but her true name and identity were mysterious. Her birth was never registered and she had carefully removed the relevant information from her passport.
For the girls, one of the highlights of their isolated lives were visits from a kindly man they knew as ‘Uncle Bodger’. In fact, as Diana’s mother finally revealed in characteristically brutal fashion, he was their father, Roger Ackerley, a director of the fruit-importing company Elders & Fyffes and popularly known as ‘the Banana King’. Down the road in Richmond, unbeknownst to the girls, he lived with a retired actress who called herself ‘Mrs Ackerley’ and his three further children. One of them, Joe, born in 1896, has also given his account of this strange upbringing in his famous memoir My Father and Myself, published in 1968.
Diana tells the story from another perspective. Such a situation might be thought strange today, but at the time illegitimacy was a serious social stigma, and something to be hidden at all costs. One of the things that makes The Secret Orchard so gripping is that it is constructed like a detective story, in which Diana asks questions, follows clues and pores over documents in an attempt to unravel the truth.
We only have 30 copies of The Secret Orchard left in stock before it sells out so if you are thinking about buying a copy, you may wish to do so before it’s gone for good.
Please scroll on to read Peter Parker’s preface to the Slightly Foxed Edition of this title, along with a selection of recommendations for other tempting reading.
With best wishes, as ever, from the SF staff
Isabel, Rebecca, Edie, Ruth & Jennie
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