We watch her discover boys, begin her first relationship, fall head over heels in love, move out for her first job and settle on a career that she loves. From there we follow her through childhood, adolescence and becoming a young woman determined to spread her wings and find adventure and independence. We also learn that this particular night her father, Flight Lieutenant Jack Skingley, is killed along with thousands of others from his regiment during an air raid in Germany. Seeing an air raid through the eyes of a young child felt particularly poignant. It begins with an air raid siren blasting in 1944 when Jackie is just three years old. High Heels and Beetle Crushers is a charming and fascinating memoir filled with entertaining and heart-rending stories. I’ve come to know her as a kind woman who’s passionate about her book so while I’ve been excited about reading it, I’ve also been apprehensive as I will only give honest reviews and was hoping it would be as delightful as the woman herself. I was asked to read this memoir by Jackie herself after she followed me on twitter. Follow her relationships with the men in her life from finding her first true love, which through a cruel act of fate was denied to her, to embarking on a path of recovery.

Packed full of stories reflecting the changing sexual attitudes prior to the arrival of the pill and the sexual revolution of the mid-60s, Skingley’s memoir denotes a shift in the political and social fabric of the era. Jackie Skingley grew up with limited career choices but joining the Women’s Royal Army Corps offered her a different life, living and working in the military world, against the backdrop of the Cold War.

This compelling memoir of a girl in uniform reveals the first-hand experience of the social attitudes towards women in post-war Britain.Ī compelling memoir of post-war Britain.

High heels and beetle crushers