'Time is not the same at every age; now, life for me is rushing by at a hitherto undreamed-of speed. Whereas I shan't know the world of your old age, you can't know the world of my childhood, the world in which I grew up. Even to me, it seems another life... 'Early memories are like photographs in an album: fascinating to the sociologically-minded, of intense interest to members of the family and close friends, giving to those who shared them either a sentimental glow or a violent desire to contradict. Life before the Second World War now has a greater attraction for it has gone for ever.'Joan Cherry's letters to her god-daughter capture the essence of the pre-war world between 1922 and 1939, documenting the past vividly for those too young to have witnessed it.