Our Wandering Years

About the Book

This book is an unusual true-life story as seen through the Diary of a teenage girl. The book portrays the adventurous and sometimes hilarious mis-adventurous life of a young widow and her 3 children, which takes place in 4 countries - South Africa, America, Canada and England. It paints a picture of the impact of the Second World War spent in South Africa. Their family is caught, while returning on an ocean liner to South Africa for a visit, by the declaration of war in September of 1939; then five years later, once again on a boat, they are delayed for almost a year in England. This time it is because of the announcement of V-E Day. They hope they are finally on their way “home” to America. Flora Ethne, the oldest of the 3 children, starts to keep her Diary at age 14. She has an amazing way with words and describes the life of her family stranded in South Africa during the war, and her grasp of the progress of the war is vivid as she listens to the BBC radio broadcasts. It’s also a story of their Mother’s courage and resourcefulness in keeping her family together and making a home for them wherever they happen to land, always with the day-to-day hope and determination of returning to their home in America.

About the Author

F.M.K.Ridgway is the pseudonym for the three siblings, Flora Ethne, Michael and Kareth (Bunty) Ridgway who collaborated in the writing of this book. All three were born in Durban, South Africa in the early nineteen-thirties. Flora Ethne is the writer of the Diary that basically recounts their adventures and Bunty compiled the information. Michael was to have contributed some of his memories but unfortunately died before the book was finished. Flora Ethne married her pen friend Harry Coy and has nine children, she still resides in her grandmother’s house. Kareth (Bunty) married Mark Bostock, has six children and only lives five houses away on the same street as her sister. Michael moved to California where he married Nadine Lentz, and lived there for thirty years.