Lecture outline

On This Spot Fell One Tear of Love is the new memoir from acclaimed novelist Louise Doughty, who after thirty years of making it up has turned her skills to the lives of her parents before she was born. Ken Doughty died of Alzheimer’s in Leicester Royal Infirmary – his wife Avis died suddenly of heart disease two years later. After their deaths, Louise, who was born in Melton Mowbray, embarked on the lengthy process of emptying the bungalow where they had been raised, a place her family had lived in for fifty years and one that contained the layers of their lives built up like silt. At the bottom of those layers was a battered black suitcase in which she discovered how her parents had broken each other’s hearts, and mended them, and how most of her views about them turned out to be wrong. On This Spot Fell One Tear of Love is primarily a love story, but it is also about that particular moment during the post-War era, where a young, working-class couple could give their own children previously unimaginable privileges; foreign travel, healthcare, education. Louise is the beneficiary of this moment, and an acclaimed novelist as a result – but also considers how her parents’ modern equivalent would struggle to give their children such advantages.

Biographical note

LOUISE DOUGHTY is the internationally bestselling author of ten novels, most recently A Bird in Winter, out now in paperback from Faber & Faber UK Ltd. Her previous books include Platform Seven, filmed for ITVX; Black Water, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; the bestseller Apple Tree Yard, adapted as a hit miniseries for BBC One; and Whatever You Love, nominated for the Costa Novel Award and the Women’s Prize for fiction. She has been nominated for many other prizes including the Sunday Times Short Story Prize and the CWA Silver Dagger, along with creating and writing the hit BBC drama Crossfire. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been awarded honorary doctorates by Leicester University and the University of East Anglia. She is also a Trustee of the National Literacy Trust. Her work has been translated into thirty languages. On This Spot Fell One Tea of Love was published by Phoenix (Orion) in August of this year

Attending the lecture

The lecture is open both to members of the Society and to guests.

The lecture will take place in the Leicester Museum & Art Gallery, New Walk https://www.leicestermuseums.org/leicester-museum-art-gallery/

The hall will be open from 6:45 and tea and coffee drinks will be available between 7.00pm and 7.15pm before the formal start of the event at 7.30pm.

The lecture will also be streamed on Zoom. A recording of the lecture may be available to members only.