Our Mothers Ourselves

In a world shaken by the great upheavals of World War and the collapse of Empire, six women from different corners of the world transcend the constraints of their different backgrounds. Their physical and emotional migrations open the way to personal journeys which redefine them and enable their daughters to live lives of greater personal freedom and fulfillment.
This book tells the stories of our mothers, six ordinary women who undertook extraordinary journeys. It is a tribute and an expression of love.

"This is a beautiful book. It celebrates the often ignored extraordinariness of all mothers in this moving memoir of six daughters who reflect on their own mothers. It is a book that is full of love and the power of the mother/daughter bond that lives on and influences us in every aspect of our life."

Julia Samuel MBE, author of: Grief Works, This too Shall Pass and Every Family has a Story

"Such a rich subject and such moving writing."

Jill Dawson, author of Trick of the Light, Magpie and Fred and Edie

"Our Mothers Ourselves captures the drifts and currents of ideas, even as continuities surface through the seas of change."

Namita Gokhale. Zee JLF Co-Director /Sahitya Akademi Award winner

"All the mothers in the book are in some ways 'ordinary' for their time and place of birth, but their stories are extraordinary when brought to life by their daughters. And it is extraordinary to read about the past through cultures different from my own."

Dr Hannah Milton in the British Journal of General Practice

Cathy Hull began her career as a community tutor forty years ago establishing an adult education centre based in a comprehensive school. She has held senior posts in education including at Goldsmith's University and the University of Kent. A focus of her work has been helping adults to value their informal experiential learning. At Macmillan, she established Macmillan Open Learning with programmes validated by over twenty-five UK universities and 22,000 students globally. Cathy has taught comparative literature for over forty years which together with her passion for memoirs has inspired this reflection on her mother.Kumi Konno was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1959. She studied at Chelsea College of Arts in London. Her writing includes several series of articles for Japanese design magazines and a translation of an interior design book. She has curated national and international exhibitions of contemporary art and craft. She has always been interested in the methodology of creation; the relationship between human memory and creativity. This is her first foray into memoir writing.Dr Vayu Naidu-Banfield: Inspired by her mother Jayarukmini Naidu MA, Vayu's PhD in Leeds on Epic Storytelling led to projects in HM Prisons - reflecting on the positive impact of stories on diverse inmates; in Battered Women's Shelters as myths of Mother as woman. Vayu Naidu Storytelling Theatre created intercultural performance productions touring internationally and Britain. During her AHRC Post-doctoral research on migration, mental health, multilingual literacy, she met Cathy Hull in Canterbury who mentored Learning for Lecturers. With Dr Caryn Solomon, she co-created storytelling awakening the human in organizationaldevelopment. Novels: 'Sita's Ascent'; 'The Sari of Surya Vilas'; [//]Dr Rupal Shah has been a GP in the same Inner London practice for the past seventeen years. She has been immersed in her patients' stories over this period and has come to realise that stories and health are inextricably intertwined; so that now, writing her own feels like a natural progression. Rupal has a background in medical writing and also works as an Associate Dean for Health Education England, with a particular focus on promoting inclusion in training and reducing bias. She is married to Alistair and has two daughters, Anya and Ava.Veena Siddharth is a human rights advocate. She has worked on poverty, women's rights, reproductive rights, and exclusion in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In writing her mother Saroja's story, Veena aims to examine how we create new roots and connections when we leave what is familiar. Veena speaks several languages including Spanish, Nepali, Tamil, Italian and French. She finds inspiration in playing the viola in a chamber group and frequent walks in nature. Veena lives in Costa Rica with her husband Seth, son Kailash and daughter Leela.Dr Caryn Solomon: Caryn began her career teaching Social Psychology and the Psychology of Women at Boston University. Forty years later, she ended it teaching Organisation Development at the London School of Economics. In between, she headed up an Organisation Development team in an international company for fifteen years and was a consultant to many organisations in different parts of the world. What she has learned throughout is the power of narrative - the transformative impact of stories in both the telling and the hearing. Storytelling has been a feature of Caryn's family. This story is one her mother helped to tell.

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