Stan and Nan

Sometimes, the simplest stories are the best... This is a lovely, tender book... Stan and Nan are all of our grandparents, their stability and infinite kindness much mourned as our ever-changing worlds spin frantically on.'Rachel Cooke, ObserverMy nan wrote me many letters back in 2011. They were about the love of her life, my grandad, Stanley Burndred. I ve never met him, he died long before I was born, but his drawings, paintings and ceramics have been in my life for as long as I can remember. Every wall of Nan s house would be decorated by his artworks and every windowsill bore his ceramic creations. Whenever we visited Nan in the Black Country I would study the ornaments and pictures, wondering who had made them. It wasn t until I wrote to Nan many years later, receiving in return beautiful handwritten letters detailing his life, that it became apparent that the work was his. The letters were so beautiful I felt my nan s story had to be told. Stan and Nan is the story of an ordinary couple and the people who loved them. The narrative follows their lives from Stan s working-class background, to his premature death, through to Nan s struggle to cope, and the perils of ageing. It is a memoir about the importance of family, and about death, love, living and human connection.