Location: Westwood Books
Website: https://www.westwoodbooks.co.uk/collections/events/products/victoria-bennett-all-my-wild-mothers
Admission: £5 redeemable against the price of the book
Her eldest sister had died in a canoeing accident. Five years later, struggling with grief, the demands of being a parent-carer for her young son, and the impact of deeper austerity, life feels very different to the future she had imagined. A move to a new social housing estate in rural Cumbria offers Victoria and her family a chance to rebuild their lives.
Constructed over an industrial site, at first the barren ground seems an unlikely place to sow the seeds of a new life. She and her son set about transforming the rubble around them into a wild apothecary garden. Daisy, for resilience. Dandelion, for strength against adversity. Red campion, to ward off loneliness. Sow thistle, to lift melancholy. Borage, to bring hope in dark and difficult times.
Stone by stone, seed by seed, All My Wild Mothers is the story of how sometimes life grows, not in spite of what is broken, but because of it.
