Lucy Caldwell has a gift for bringing to life the everyday details of the texture of suburban family life. So there is an appropriately stark contrast when normal life is disrupted by war. The domestic situation continues in a familiar setting under extraordinary stress. In some ways this is similar to our experience 80 years later during the COVID-19 lockdown.
I felt myself to be part of the family. I worried for each of them and appreciated the strength they needed to find to cope with the fear, discomfort, changes, uncertainty and inconvenience of a city under attack and a nation at war. I hadn't even realised before that Belfast came under aerial attack during the Second World War.
However involved in a story I become, it's very rare for me to shed tears. I was surprised to do so with These Days. It was a cumulative pressure and tension which required release.
I felt myself to be part of the family. I worried for each of them and appreciated the strength they needed to find to cope with the fear, discomfort, changes, uncertainty and inconvenience of a city under attack and a nation at war. I hadn't even realised before that Belfast came under aerial attack during the Second World War.
However involved in a story I become, it's very rare for me to shed tears. I was surprised to do so with These Days. It was a cumulative pressure and tension which required release.