This book is an autobiography by Maureen Penn, spanning her first sixteen years. Maureen lived at the top of High Street, Westport, the last house on the left before High Street turns into Monument Street. Maureen was clearly an observant child who turned out to have a prodigious memory for she is able, after all these years, to describe all the families in High Street and other families in the town such as the Shanleys, the Burke’s, the Clampetts , the O’Malleys (the builders on the Mall) and the Kennys (Mr Kenny was the Bank of Ireland Manager), all of whom employed Maureen’s mother as a cleaner or a child minder. Maureen describes events in the town – walking to school past the cattle up Mill Street on Fair Day, the stalls set up near the Octagon by traders from out of town, the Mission arriving in town and all the tents set up opposite St Mary’s for the sale of rosary beads and statues. Maureen describes characters in the town and their antics, like Corncrake and his brother who lived at the top of High Street opposite Barrack Hill and Tommy Giblin who she ran messages for. When money was tight, Maureen’s mother sent her around the town to ask for food. She remembers going to Burke’s Garage, to Mrs O’Malley on the Mall, to Mrs McGreal in Castlebar Street for dripping, and to Patricia McGreevy when Patricia was minding the shop while her parents were at Mass. Maureen was nine in 1942 when her mother died of T.B. Maureen and her two younger sisters were placed in St Columba’s Industrial School on Altemont Street. The second half of the book contains Maureen’s detailed memories of all the nuns and her class mates. She describes the daily routine of life in St Columba’s, the children marching through the town in their black uniforms (the ‘Black Army’), the generosity of Westport shopkeepers like the McHales to the children in St Columba’s,  and Maureen’s later years when she worked in the School kitchen waiting for her father to return from London to collect her. While the story is a sad one, it is also optimistic, funny and nostalgic. It takes the reader right back into the streets of Westport in the 1940’s.