On a clear day - Anne Doughty

Clare Hamilton is just nine years old when her childhood is abruptly ended with the death of both her parents in the typhoid epidemic of 1946. Though part of a large extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins - most living in and around Armagh - Clare feels bereft, and with the cares of the world on her shoulders. Her little brother, William, is a difficult child at best of times, and looking after him proves a full-time job. Taken in by her kindly Aunt Polly to live in her cramped house in Belfast, Clare knows only that she wants to go back and live in the country. When her Granny Scott dies, leaving her blacksmith grandfather alone, Clare seizes her opportunity and returns to Salter's Grange to take care of him. At first tentative and awkward, the relationship between the old man and his granddaughter develops into a warm and loving bond that will sustain Clare through the years of her adolescence - as she grows into a lovely, intelligent young woman with the world at her feet.