The Great Western Beach

Emma Smith was born Elspeth Hallsmith in 1923 in Newquay, Cornwall. Her first book, Maiden's Trip, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, and her second, The Far Cry, was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. From 1923 to 1935, Newquay, with its eccentric residents and exotic holiday-makers, its tennis tournaments and bathing parties, invigorating walks and teas at the Rose Cafe, was the Hallsmith children's entire world, remembered in meticulous detail by young Elspeth. Written with enormous love and a gently caustic wit, it generates an atmosphere hauntingly different from the usual run of childhood reminiscences.