Yesterday Morning

by Diana Athill

Diana Athill has written three memoirs which have been acclaimed as classics for their insight, candor and Instead of a Letter, After a Funeral, and An Editor's Life. Here she goes back to the beginning, in a sharp evocation of a childhood unfashionably filled with happiness—a Norfolk country house, servants, the pleasures of horses, the unfolding secrets of adults and sex. This is England in the 1920s, seen from the vantage point of England in 2001. It was a privileged and loving but did it make her happy?

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, British Literature

170 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Diana Athill was a British literary editor, novelist and memoirist who worked with some of the greatest writers of the 20th century at the London-based publishing company André Deutsch Ltd.

She was born in Norfolk in 1917 and educated at home until she was fourteen. She read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and graduated in 1939. She spent the war years working at the BBC Overseas Service in the News Information Department. After the war she met André Deutsch and fell into publishing. She worked as an editor, first at Allan Wingate and then at André Deutsch, until her retirement at the age of 75 in 1993.

Her books include An Unavoidable Delay, a collection of short stories published in 1962 and two 'documentary' books After A Funeral and Make Believe. Stet is a memoir of Diana Athill's fifty-year career in publishing. Granta has also reissued a memoir Instead of a Letter and her only novel Don't Look at Me Like That. She lived in Primrose Hill in London.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful, beautiful little book!

I say little because it is genuinely small- a size of my hand kind of book, and not much more than a hundred pages. It is also filled with tons of negative space- her writing is more evocative than elaborate, and beautifully sketched scenes in the book lead to rooms and rooms of hinted ones, that you end up wandering in your mind, exploring walls made of questions. It's an exhilarating experience made the more precious because this is a memoir, not a novel- the things left unsaid exist, or existed, and the characters she evokes were and are real people, with internal experiences of their own. Athill ackowledges this- the absolute inadequacy of a writer to inhabit the internal spaces of another's lived experience- and in doing so I think she renders the people in her life more real and believable, even if they are sparsely developed in a literary sense.

This novel is the writer's reflection of her childhood as seen from the lens of her senior years- the writer is in her 80s as she writes it, and is unabashedly glorying in the pleasures of old age- stillness, the leisure to pursue random memories, the privilege of unconnected stories. Out of this reverie, and out of the memories evoked by reaching the age her mother was at when her mother died, the writer has crafted this lovely reflection, which crisscrosses from the voice of a child experiencing the world with immediacy to the voice of an adult nearing the end stages of her life, and seeing connections and explanations which were obscured to her in the hustle and bustle of other stages of her life. Her writing is candid, and her awareness of this as all being bound up in her subjective experience makes her writing not cringe inducingly self aware, but rather refreshing and bracing. I highly recommend this novel as both a look at a world gone by and a tonic against the youth worshiping frenzy of American culture.

[Debbie Robson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course, it’s obvious that an editor who worked with some of the most famous writers in the 20th century is going to be very intelligent and erudite. What is not assured is what sort of a writer that editor would make when he or she takes up the pen herself. Well, in the case of Diana Athill - a very easy to read but perceptive commentator who is not shy in addressing the problems of ageing in a refreshingly honest manner.
By starting her memoir with the chapter Now we are immediately plunged into the problems of old age - her own and her mother’s.
“Why, I was once asked, do so few people send back reports about life on the frontier; and the answer is that some no longer have the ability because they have lost their wits, some no longer have the energy because they are beset by aches and pains and ailments, and those lucky enough to have hung on to their health feel just like they felt before they were old except for not being able to do an increasing number of things, and for an awareness of their bodies as sources of slight malaise, often forgettable but always there if they think about it.”
Luckily for us Athill is in the latter group and in the next few pages she discusses candidly (including the subject of sex) the limitations of old age and the death of her mother. She also explains why she decided to write the memoir and the next thing we know this marvellous old woman is nine years old. We have been transported back in time.
In the chapter Lessons Athill touches on the things she learned as a child including what it meant to be a young child living in the world of the upper classes. “If blood sports were as inevitable as the seasons, class differences were as natural as weather; and thus, like the sports, embraced contradictions which we failed to perceive.”
In the chapter The House Athill recreates the world of the estate owned by her grandparents in Norfolk. “Everything important in my life seemed to be a property of that place, the house and the gardens, the fields, woods and waters belonging to it. Beauty belonged to it, and the underlying fierceness which must be accepted with beauty; animals belonged to it, and so did books and all my other pleasures; safety belonged to it and so did my knowledge of good and evil and my wobbly preference for good.”
Athill looks at how she was brought up, telling lies and owning up to your sins in the chapter entitled God and Gramps and in Pain - a searingly honest chapter on the unhappiness of her parents’ marriage and also her brother’s at being sent to boarding school.
In the penultimate chapter Falling in Love Athill discusses love and sex and her first infatuation with her customary skill and humour. “I don’t remember falling, only having fallen, the hollow shape of love was in existence before we met, and was then gradually filled with this new reality.”
In the last chapter Now, Athill brings us up to date on her life and her memories and finishes with one of my favourite paragraphs, ever, from a memoir.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diana Athill looks back on her childhood years.

I adore this author's memoirs. She's amazingly frank and down to earth and is willing to strip herself bare to share both good and bad memories. Her childhood sounds wonderful - living mostly on a country estate in Norfolk, with a brother and sister and cousins for playmates, lots of time to be outside, imagine things, and never be truly afraid of anything (except the wolves they imagined into being in one of the corridors). There are tales about first ponies and governesses who came and went.

I began reading Diana Athill's memoirs with "Somewhere Towards the End" (written in her eighties), then "Instead of a Letter" (a young lost love that shaped the rest of her life), "Stet" (her 50 years in publishing), and now this one. I fully intend to read all of her nonfiction works which sadly ended last year with her death at 101.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diana Athill was in her eighties when she wrote this memoir. It is full of fascinating social history from her privileged upbringing in Norfolk. Childhood exploits, ghosts in the nursery and a great deal of happiness, Diana Athill knows just how blessed she was. A story of a miraculous walk through nettles while looking for the household dogs is just one memorable tale. Diana Athill paints a wonderfully vivid picture of a life lived by a nice family of a certain class. She also poignantly describes her relationship with her mother - who lived until she was ninety six. With great honesty Diana explores her parents relationship, and why it was that she and her siblings hadn't such a close relationship with him. This is a short, well written memoir which I found completely charming and very readable.

[Sylvia Tedesco · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a delicious book. It reminded me of Colette's "My Mother's House". Diana Athill writes of her childhood growing up with cousins, ponies and a loving family on her grandmother's estate in Norfolk England. It is full of the joys of an upbringing rich in healthy living, training for good manners. This one I am buying through Abebooks.com. Some of the vignettes were so wonderful I had to read them aloud. She is shaping up as one of my favorite writers. It isn't an easy book to find. It came through our inter-library loan system, Link Plus.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Her writing is beautiful, and I want to read some of her earlier books. Somehow, the bulk of this one, on her early life, was nice but dragged, despite the brevity. The later years, with her insights into her parents’ marriage and her own maturing process, was more interesting to me.

[Liina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is my third Athill book and the one I liked the least so far ("Stet" and "After a funeral" preceded it).

She is a somewhat emotionally distant person and it really showed in the parts that were about her early childhood. Yes she lingered on funny and embarrassing moments and memories as one should when looking back at childhood but somehow it didn't add up. Something, some warmth or credibility was missing from it. As soon as the theme turned to adolescent times, first love and such the reading became very enjoyable. But this was mere 25 last pages of the book.

I still think she is superb but to find out how superb exactly I would recommend to start with something else by her.

[Kateandthegirlz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful little book, an autobiography of a privileged British childhood in the 1920s, told with all the insights of age. Lovely.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to Amazon, I bought this in 2011 so I am very glad that I'm finally getting to it. I read my first Diana Athill book fairly recently and I was happy to get to this one, a memoir about his childhood. In this book, Athill talks about her life growing up in Edwardian/between the wars era with a childhood many would envy. She talks about the country house which belonged to her childhood and where she spent months, if not years there, and how life there shaped how she viewed the world afterwards. But she also talked about men and women, love (and sex) and also about class. She doesn't shy away from the fact that she grew up in an upper class childhood and that would affect how she saw things.

This was a delightful memoir to read and though I don't completely get on with Athill's writing style, I did really enjoy this insight into her early life and what it would have been like.

4 stars!

[Bettye · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about Diana Athill's childhood in the English countryside in the 1920s. Athill was lucky to have been born in a family whose grandparents owned a substantial property encompassing a 'park' and a 'farm', along with woods and ponds and various other escapes where she could roam and play with her cousins and her brother. She was surrounded by a loving mother, grandmother, cousins, aunts, uncles. Naturally the whole operation is propped up by servants: a cook, butler, driver, gardeners, maids, etc. The lifestyle was not on the grand scale of Downton Abbey but more of a quietly comfortable and much preferable style. It sounds idyllic to me and I'm glad I was able to experience it vicariously.

[Pascale · Rating 2 out of 5]

Childhood memoirs typically send me to sleep and unsurprisingly this one did too. I only read it because I had enjoyed some of Athill's previous books and wanted to find out more about her background. Now I know that she had a storybook childhood on a vast estate in Norfolk surrounded by droves of fun siblings, cousins and friends. The narrative is sprinkled with the usual dose of anecdotes about pranks and pratfalls. The fact that her parents were ill-matched didn't detract too much from her overall enviable circumstances and the greatest virtue of this book is its awareness of what a privileged start in life the author had.

[Avis Black · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read a bit, but the author kept focusing on the most unpleasant and negative things she could think of. I got fed up with her book and quit. There's a type of author who tries to score 'high literary cred points' by writing as masochistically as possible in an attempt to con-job her way up the literary status ladder. This author is assisted by a high-strung and easily rattled--and equally neurotic--audience quick to award 'I suffered' merit badge points. Authors like this are just silly, self-indulgent nutcases.

[Les Dangerfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book of childhood memories after hearing about the news of Diana Athill's death as I'd never read anything by her before. It's a collection of disparate memories around a handful of themes rather than a chronological account. I loved the first section which consists of anecdotes telling how she learned key lessons during her childhood and the whole book is full of delightful descriptions of the experience of being brought up in a well-heeled rural lifestyle in the early part of the 20th century.

[Colin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yesterday Morning is one of a number of memoirs that Diana Athill has written late in life. Focusing primarily on her happy early life in a comfortable upper middle class family in south Norfolk, but framed by passages giving the view from old age, it is a short but clearly observed and moving book. Athill is particularly astute when it comes to describing the joys and anxieties of childhood. I look forward to reading her other books.

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a pure joy reading Diana Athill’s books. This one is about her childhood, growing up in her Gran’s grand house in Norwich. It is a childhood with riding and reading, adventures and outdoor pursuits, and with servants and boarding schools and parents living abroad, and a children‘s hour with the adults every evening - when her gran read aloud to all the cousins staying in the house. What a joy!

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another charming memoir by Diana Athill. Beautifully written, as always, and her memories and descriptions are so vivid and fresh. Given her age, what she writes of provides a fascinating glimpse into a past long gone. Truly her past is a different country

[Jillian · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very small book, but it took me ages to read it. Despite its brevity it seemed to drag. Never mind -one more off my groaning TBR.

[Claire O'Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely light read 😊

[Marie-Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful and wise reflections on age and ageing, childhood, family, class, life and death. Bravo.

[Jeanne Symonds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sheer delight 😊

[Izzy Matthews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very enjoyable and honest memoir

[Sofía · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly descriptions and observations, wanted there to be more stories

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Paul Helliwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

another corker of a book from diana athill

it's in a cutesy granta hardback edition (oxfam hereford - £3).

it begins with an excerpt from a wislawa szymborska poem ('under one small star'). I quote the second line;

'may my dead be patient with the way my memories fade...'

but perhaps the third line of the poem would be better;

'my apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.'

like many books by diana athill yesterday... begins with death (and old age) and then moves on to memory (specifically her memories of her childhood).

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Yesterday Morning: A Very English Childhood." A rather privileged childhood, too: with servants and ponies and private mentors. The book begins with vivid and poignant meditations on aging, then reveals itself as one of those remarkable memoirs in which childhood activities, beliefs and attitudes are remembered in great detail and described fondly and unapologetically. (For example, the passages about a little girl's first sense of romantic attraction are marvelous. In a very different way, so is the minutely recalled attitude of the youngsters toward what they described as "bigs" and "littles"-- which led to young Diana's deliberately peeing on the edges of the carpets!)

I don't apply a 5-star rating very often, but I've read this one twice now, and am retaining on my shelf for some future re-read. It's that pleasurable.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike most of the childhood memoirs I have read, Diane Athill's is not one of a hard, or sad childhood, but instead is a feel-good book of a happy childhood, expressing all the innocence and happiness a childhood should and I really enjoyed it. Even though I am younger than Diane, and therefore of a different generation, much of what I read reminded me of my own carefree childhood days, and of how different it was in the days when you would go outside and play for hours, when it was safe to do so, or considered safer at least, than it is nowadays, and in the time before kids preferred to sit in front of computers and games consoles instead of playing out in the real world with their friends.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very nice, short book recounting the childhood of well-known editor, Diana Athill. Athill describes a very idyllic, very Edwardian childhood and family history, but she is funny and disarmingly straightforward.

I knew she was my kind of lady when she described how her mother went for a sleep cure after a decidedly sad turn of events:

"Sleep cures were popular during the twenties: the patient was sedated so heavily for several days that she was oblivious of whatever was done to her in the way of nourishment and evacuation (it sounds delicious)."

I hope to read the rest of her memoirs!

[Lizzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lightweight and pleasant memoir of growing up in the country in 1920s England. Enjoyable because it's so beautifully written; the details from the past interest me; and she has some fine insights into human behavior. As someone who can't remember much about my childhood, certainly not details like breakfast routines, I'm astonished by the detail and quality of her memories, but she wrote it when she was 85. Maybe when I'm 85 this stuff will come back to me too. Another reviewer notes the excellence of the introduction where she muses on what she's lost by growing old.

[Dora · Rating 2 out of 5]

Diana Athill lived a very privileged childhood in South Norfolk with servants, ponies and acres of parkland to play in. I knew several of the younger Athills who had a holiday home in North Norfolk and they always did think they were a cut above us locals. I suppose in her lifetime it was acceptable to look down on what she calls “the working classes” but it isn’t anymore and, even though she writes well, I am giving this book just 2*.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Athill's honesty. She doesn't avoid the unpleasant parts of her life, and the happy parts weren't sentimentalized either - but it is not a grim story. The part about her parents' relationship and how it affected her was very candid. I like how Athill tries to give everyone a fair shake, and give their side of the story as well as she can. Enjoyed this book.