Ida gandy biography

Ida Caroline Gandy, née Hony (1885–1977), was an.
Ida was born in 1885 in Bishops Cannings where her father was the vicar.
Ida Caroline Gandy, née Hony, was an English social worker and author.

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Ida Gandy

English social worker and author

Ida Caroline Gandy, née Hony (1885–1977), was an English social worker and author. She wrote children's books, plays, and books about rural life in Wiltshire and Shropshire.^[1]

Life

Ida Hony was born in 1885 in Bishops Cannings, Wiltshire, where her father, the Rev. Charles William Hony, was the vicar. Annie Elizabeth Lewin, her "somewhat unconventional" mother, was a writer. Hony moved to London to take up social work, working for the Workers' Educational Association. After moving to Peppard in Oxfordshire, she married the local GP, Thomas Gandy, in 1915. The couple had three children:^[1] the diplomat Christopher Gandy, the mathematician Robin Gandy and the physician Gillian Gandy.^[2]

Ida Gandy wrote stage plays for the local amateur drama group, and published her first non-fiction book, A Wiltshire Childhood, in 1930.^[3] In 1930 she persuaded her husband to move to Clunbury in Shropshire. She was active in the local Women's Institute, and during World War II was the Billeting Of

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Ida Gandy – Writer

With hindsight. Aldbourne in the late 1940s was a bit of a ‘literary oasis’ with writers Hammond Innes, Gerald Brenan Foster all living here at that time. At the close of that decade, another writer moved here and took the village to her heart: she was Ida Gandy.
Ida was born in 1885 in Bishops Cannings where her father was the vicar. Her somewhat unconventional mother was a writer and no doubt some of this rubbed off on Ida because she became a compulsive writer at an early age and she was keen on social reform. She took herself off to London to undertake social work, not the conventional choice for a young girl from a ‘good’ family in the early 1930s. She took a job with the Workers’ Educational Association which resulted in a move to Peppard in south Oxfordshire, where she met the local GP. Dr Thomas Gandy whom she married in 1915. He became chairman of the local Labour Party, so both he and Ida seem to have been keen socialists. They lived there for fifteen years and raised three children but Ida still found time to writ

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A Wiltshire Childhood

September 24, 2019

This book offers up exactly what childhood should be, a childhood that is lost to us in today's world, which is heartbreaking. At least we can read of it in memoirs such as this lovely offering. I do not give five star ratings lightly but this one really did touch my heart. I am sad that it sat for so long on my shelf before I took the time to read it. It should have been a quick read but I drew it out to savor its loveliness. My kids are mostly grown now but I like to hope that I was somewhat like the mother of this clan. She got it just right.

A few quotes:

"For houses in general we had a fine contempt, holding them useful as shelters from cold and wet, but for little else. All real life, according to our ideas, was lived out of doors."

"Also, our mother gave us an amount of freedom that was undreamed of among children of our age."

"My father was too genuinely religious a man to look for irreverence where he knew none existed, and my mother wise enough to feel that a child's greatest safety lies in the absence of fear."

"But sometim