{"id":263941,"date":"2026-07-15T01:46:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T22:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/in-my-fathers-house-miranda-seymour\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T01:46:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T22:46:05","slug":"in-my-fathers-house-miranda-seymour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1kitap1.com\/en\/in-my-fathers-house-miranda-seymour\/","title":{"rendered":"In My Fathers House – Miranda Seymour"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My mother talks eagerly to the curator about a keeper\u2019s pet owl and the laundry room where she kept two angora rabbits. I peer down narrow slits through which oil was poured on to the heads of medieval intruders; my mother has found the walk above the castle chapel from which she dropped paper streamers upon the bald head of a visiting minister.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m down in a dungeon, contemplating the life of Henry V\u2019s twenty French prisoners, kept in windowless gloom fifty feet below the tower where my grandfather, centuries later, would hide from view. She\u2019s walking along the Long Gallery, recalling the elaborate family pantomimes in which she, as the youngest child, invariably took the smallest part. Sitting in the Chirk Tandoori that night, while rain beats against the windows, we replay our favourite moments from the day. Mine was climbing an airy flight of stairs to the upper drawing-room, still lit by candles and the silvery reflections of the long glasses on its walls.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t need to close my eyes to see the little girl squaring up to the artist in her lemon-yellow frock, centre stage. Nothing had changed. \u2018And yours?\u2019 I ask. I\u2019m sure she\u2019ll pick the garden where she walked beside Rudyard Kipling, listening to the stories he shaped to fit the setting. I\u2019m forgetting that her last companion at the castle was a haughty tabby cat. The moment she chooses is the one in which, stalking out of the mist and along the gravel path, a grey tabby advanced to whisk a bushy tail around my mother\u2019s calves, before vanishing behind a wall of clipped yew.<\/p>\n

Her eyes are shining at the memory. \u2018He was welcoming me home, wasn\u2019t he!\u2019 And she reaches forward to pat my hand. \u2018I\u2019m glad we came!\u2019 I\u2019ve asked my mother whether, back in 1945, she was told about the deferred sale of Thrumpton. Her memory is only of the fact that my father talked about the House with a tenderness that touched her heart.<\/p>\n

She had just become aware that her family were about to lose their own home. Chirk, which had never belonged to them, was about to be reclaimed, in its newly repaired and improved state, by its owners, the Myddleton family.<\/p>\n

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Further praise for In My Father\u2019s House: \u2018Utterly riveting, ruthlessly honest and strangely touching, this portrait of the author\u2019s extraordinary father both appalled and moved me \u2013 and made me laugh out loud\u2019 DEBORAH MOGGACH \u2018Miranda Seymour\u2019s wonderful memoir is a kind of posthumous conversation with her father. The ending is particularly powerul. What a gripping, poignant, dramatic, emotionally searing book she has written!\u2019 JOYCE CAROL OATES \u2018Few books capture the pain and laughter of upper-class English life as vividly as this one. It is a gem of a memoir and I wish there were others like it\u2019 ALEXANDER WAUGH \u2018A brilliantly crafted true story, In My Father\u2019s House gains depth and complexity from its willingness to explore the ethical dilemma of revealing painful family secrets.<\/p>\n

There is more to learn about human nature in this short memoir than in many novels two or three times its length\u2019 PAT BARKER \u2018A gem of a book \u2013 Miranda Seymour\u2019s riveting memoir tells a moving story of family love and hate that manages to be subtle and funny, as well as profoundly surprising in its emotional twists\u2019 RUPERT CHRISTIANSEN \u2018Fascinating . . . Charming and candid\u2019 Mail on Sunday \u2018Thrillingly odd, yet oh-so-elegant and tasteful, I devoured it in one swift sitting, and have been urging it on my friends, aspirational and otherwise, ever since .<\/p>\n

. . The tale Seymour tells is so strange and sad, so sordid and yet touching, that you find yourself caught between wonder that she waited for more than a decade to write it \u2013 and wonder that she was able to put pen to paper at all\u2019 RACHEL COOKE, Evening Standard \u2018Never anything other than compelling . . . Extremely well crafted and holds the reader\u2019s attention throughout\u2019 LIZA CAMPBELL, Literary Review \u2018A rich and entertaining account of the upper classes in the early to mid- twentieth century.<\/p>\n

There are endless family tragedies, trysts and twists. Those who loved her last book, The Bugatti Queen, will applaud the return to her clever, light style . . . The detail is thrilling . . . Needless to say, perfect for anyone who\u2019s ever obsessed about a beautiful house in the country\u2019 SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE, Tatler \u2018This outstanding book is a very funny and very sad portrait . . .<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.<\/em><\/p>\n

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