One-Time Debutante’s Memoir, Half A Pair Of People Sparkles With A Journey Of Self-Discovery

On The Table Read, “the best book magazine in the UK“, in Half A Pair Of People, published poet and octogenarian Patricia Huth shares how she walked away from her lavish lifestyle and marriage to find herself and happiness in the City of Spires.

Patricia Huth

Recounting a life of luxury, dancing at The Ritz and curtseying to the Queen, Patricia Huth’s compelling and captivating memoir shares how she walked out on a loveless upper class life and marriage and embarked on a quest to find herself, peace and fulfilment in Oxford.

Written honestly and with a huge dose of humour, the author shares her naivety when at the age of 42 she found herself single and needing to learn a new way of living, whilst tackling adversity, misogyny and more.

Ultimately finding fulfilment through her passion of poetry (and publication of five anthologies), and love (marrying an Oxford academic), this memoir, which is garnering a multitude of five star reviews, is a celebration of the human spirit; and leaves the reader wishing they could spend an afternoon in the company of its talented and delightful octogenarian.

Half A Pair Of People

This is an early 1980s memoir of a one-time debutante who left an unhappy marriage to live in Oxford. She had curtsied to the Queen, had been the lady of the manor, and a magistrate.  Finding a new niche in society included enrolling in the Open University, playing the fairy in a pantomime, and being the solo chef in a boil-in-a-bag hotel.

A new, important, and interesting discovery was how vulnerable Huth had become as a single woman. She joined a women’s support group and volunteered at the Oxford Rape Crisis Centre.

She remarried in 1993 and shared the raising of her husband’s children. He died in 2017and Huth now partners a retired professor.

About Patricia Huth

I was a privileged white married woman living the life of luxury in a large manor house in the New Forest. Subsequently I had been a debutante, curtsied to the Queen, danced with dukes at The Ritz and Claridge’s. But the marriage was very unloved and I was very unhappy.  Didn’t Princess Diana say she had everything and nothing? I felt the same.  

I left for Oxford and the memoir is mainly about my adventures there as a venerable and naïve single woman of 42.  I was the fairy in the local pantomime, worked in a down-town hotel, joined Oxford Rape Crisis Centre and in the process got to’ know myself’ as advised by the great and good.

I read voraciously but my real love is poetry and have written five published books.  To describe myself: I would say I am a very anxious person and have found life and its vicissitudes so difficult but, now at 82, things are relatively peaceful and I am happy to be here, alive.

I am a well-published poet via acotswoldpoet.blogspot.com. Half a Pair of People is my first book.  Seven years after an unhappy marriage and divorce, I married an historian who died in 2017. Since June 2018 I continue to live in the Cotswold with a retired professor.

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Published by Nielsen, Half A Pair of People (ISBN No: 978-1399919111) is available in paperback (£9.45) on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3Ilkk9S

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