"This is how it began, and how it would end, on the long pale strand of a Lincolnshire beach in the last hour of sun, the daylight moon small as a kite in the sky..."
In the autumn of 1929, a small child was kidnapped from a Lincolnshire beach. The girl became an artist and had a daughter, arts writer Laura Cumming, who has recounted her mother’s strange tales of life in a seaside hamlet of the 1930s, and of the secrets and lies perpetuated by a whole community, in her new book On Chapel Sands.
Talking at Hay Festival Winter Weekend today, Cumming gave the story of her own pursuit of truth.
"Families often divide between those who are obsessed with the past and those who are strictly forward looking," said Cumming, placing herself firmly in the former category.
She began with a few criss-crossing lives in a fraction of English coast – the postman, the grocer, the elusive baker – but soon her search spread right out across the globe as she discovered just how many lives – including her own – were affected by what happened that day on the beach.
On Chapel Sands is a book of mystery and memoir. Two narratives run through it: the mother’s childhood tale, and Cumming’s own pursuit. Humble objects light up the story: a pie dish, a carved box, an old Vicks jar. Letters, tickets, recipe books, even the particular slant of a copperplate hand give vital clues. And pictures of all kinds, from paintings to photographs, open up like doors to the truth. Above all, Cumming discovers how to look more closely at the family album – with its curious gaps and missing persons – finding crucial answers, captured in plain sight at the click of a shutter.
Discover the full Hay Festival Winter Weekend programme here.