Barbara Ewing

[2][3] Her father's job at the Ministry of Education included reviewing books, and he brought many home for Ewing to read as she was growing up.

[8] Television acting roles included the Granada Television comedy series Brass with Timothy West (1983–90), the character Treen Dudgeon in the BBC series Comrade Dad (1986) with George Cole and Doris Hare, A Ghost Story for Christmas, titled The Ash Tree (1975), playing Anne Mothersole who was tried as a witch, and she was in one episode of The Sweeney (S4-E7 'Bait') in 1978.

In the UK she has been in episodes of Casualty, Doctors and Holby City on the BBC, and The Bill and Peak Practice on ITV, and appeared in some Ruth Rendell mysteries.

[8] Ewing featured in Apirana Taylor's play in 1995 called Whaea Kairau - Mother Hundred Eater in Wellington, New Zealand directed by Colin McColl, designed by Dorita Hannah and produced by Taki Rua Theatre.

[13] Covering her childhood, adolescence and early-adulthood in New Zealand, the book takes the reader up to 1962 when she left for the UK, and draws from diary and later journal entries Ewing kept from the ages of 12 to 23.