In this wonderful memoir, Gillian Clezy weaves together three strands: the outward events of her 80+ years, psychological insight and a profound, inclusive religious faith.

Plaits can be a metaphor for our growth, both conscious and unconscious. The hair is an innate part of us. We cannot feel with it, but we can see the results and feel the knots of a wounding yank or a pulled pigtail. The plaiting requires three equal strands to be intertwined with varying results, but the whole keeps on growing whatever the circumstances in the outer world, which, in turn, may have a strong effect on the outcome of the plaiting process.

This memoir begins just before WWII although two of its greatest influences were men of the nineteenth century, one from the north of England and the other from Switzerland.

As I write our world spirals down into another Middle Eastern vortex of confrontation. I reflect upon my own level of response then and wonder at the wisdom or otherwise of the current repeated visual representations of war and terror on TV