So I Wrote a Memoir. But What’s the Point?

By Jennifer Severn

August 2017. Julie, my mother’s younger sister, was the first to read my memoir in draft form. It was not yet published, but I felt it was nearing completion. ‘I can’t wait!’ she’d been telling me for years. ‘Soon,’ I always said. ‘You have to be patient.’

Then one day I realised, with a jolt, she was seventy-nine! What was I thinking! I printed it out, stuffed it in an envelope and posted it to Sydney. A couple of days later she rang me. “It’s arrived!” she said. “Go...