Decades later, Laura Cumming delves into the mystery surrounding her mother's disappearance.Įxamining everything from old family photos to letters, tickets and recipes, she uncovers a series of secrets and lies perpetuated not just by her family but by the whole community and in doing so unlocks a mystery almost a century old. Uncovering the mystery of her mothers disappearance as a child: Laura Cumming, prize-winning author and art critic, takes a closer look at her family story. The child remembers nothing of these events and at home, nobody ever speaks of them again. Acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Velazquez Laura Cumming shares the riveting story of her mother’s mysterious kidnapping as a toddler in a small English coastal villageand how that event reverberated through her own family and her art for decades. 'A modern masterpiece' GuardianAutumn 1929 - a young girl is kidnapped from a beach.įive agonising days go by before she is discovered safe and well in a nearby village. To unlock the secrets of that photograph is the matter of Cumming’s book.**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER****SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD**Uncovering the mystery of her mother's disappearance as a child: Laura Cumming, prize-winning author and art critic, takes a closer look at her family story.
This photograph, too, is fraught with mystery: it shows George on a beach, holding the very young Grace, before she became Betty before she became his daughter. He is a rare, sombre presence in the family album but in a single photograph he is smiling. ON CHAPEL SANDS: MY MOTHER AND OTHER MISSING PERSONS By Laura Cumming BRAND NEW Author: Cumming, Laura Language: english Publisher: Chatto & Windus. Uncovering the mystery of her mothers disappearance as a child: Laura Cumming, prize.
As an adult, she called herself Elizabeth.This shifting sense of her own identity, as mutable as the vast, flat expanses of the Lincolnshire coast where she grew up, is partly anchored by a series of photographs of her as a child: she is always smiling, and usually alone, apart from the unseen presence of the photographer, her father, George. On Chapel Sands: My mother and other missing persons by Laura Cumming.
Her new parents renamed her Betty - a name she came to detest. She was christened Grace, and aged three she passed into the care of George and Veda Elston, who lived in the nearby village of Chapel St Leonards. No father’s name was given on her birth certificate. She was born in a Lincolnshire village on August 8, 1926. On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons Laura Cumming Chatto & Windus, £18.99 The lives of our parents before we were born are surely the first great mystery, writes Laura Cumming. New West End Company BRANDPOST | PAID CONTENTįew of us can recall our lives before the age of three but for Cumming’s mother the facts were effaced rather than illuminated.
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