A Tug on the Thread

by Diana Quick

Be sure you marry a pure-blooded Englishman.' The memory of this inexplicable command to nine-year-old Diana Quick by her terminally ill grandfather was to remain buried for years. It wasn't until she played Julia Flyte in the celebrated Granada TV dramatisation of Brideshead Revisited that it resurfaced, setting her on a quest to uncover the hidden enigma of her father's family in India.

Gradually Diana unpeeled the layers of family secrets that revealed changed names, the stigma of being 'country born', her grandfather's obsessive ambition for his son. This knowledge helped her both to understand her own heritage and to interpret the roles she played on stage and screen. It also gave her pride in her family's the bravery of her great-grandmother who, as a child, narrowly escaped being murdered during the 1857 Indian Mutiny; her father's struggles as a penniless student in a foreign country.

Genres: Memoir

316 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[K, Nz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like to read memoirs or biographies when I've had enough of fiction, and I spotted this on the shelf at the local library. I remember seeing some of 'Brideshead Revisited' when I was a kid and being profoundly affected by it.

Fascinating story of themes and undercurrents within her family, teased out and understood more clearly when researching family history. An insight into culture and the waves of change, and the flow on effects of being neither one, nor the other. I've mostly read the first part and delved into others... very insightful, clearly and succinctly written. Would like to go back to, as it is due at the library !

I found historical events difficult - not the detail or the story, just how it must have been so violent. Spike Milligan gets a mention, and there's a lovely tribute to Sir Olivier.

A very, very good read.

[Ronald · Rating 4 out of 5]

I initially chose this book because of the intriguing title, which references a comment in a Father Brown mystery. I had just seen the author in an Inspector Morse TV episode and was intrigued with her. While it is a biography of her ancestors, it is also a memoir of her early life as a student at Oxford and then as an actor. How she was able to relate so much of her early family and their troubled lives to the parts she played in roles on stage, the movies was fascinating.

The history she tells of India and the surroundings, concentrating on the 1857 mutiny is magnificent.

[Sarah Gilbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this as Diana Quick is my husband’s 2nd cousin and I wanted to know about her families life in India. It filled in loads of details. Really detailed in its research.