Luckiest Girl in the World, The

This is an engaging and moving memoir that covers a wide spectrum of love, loneliness, loss and triumph over a six year span. It takes the reader from a remote coastal community in BC to the sophisticated art world of London and fine country homes and castles in Scotland and Wales. In the spring of 1933, 11-year-old Verity Sweeney was sent 8,000 miles to England to live with Aunt Doffie, her father's sister. There she was to study dance. She was the luckiest girl in the world her parents assured her. Verity's father was a veteran army engineer who at the time was financially down on his luck. Her mother was the daughter of a wealthy and socially prominent industrialist. Verity left behind her family and joined her flamboyant Aunt Doffie who introduced her to the sophisticated London art scene and enrolled her in classical dance. During these years she frequently visited her mother's family, in the fine country homes and castles in Scotland and Wales.