Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • On Chapel Sands

  • My Mother and Other Missing Persons
  • By: Laura Cumming
  • Narrated by: Laura Cumming
  • Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (213 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

On Chapel Sands

By: Laura Cumming
Narrated by: Laura Cumming
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Brought to you by Penguin.

BBC Radio 4 book of the week.

Uncovering the mystery of her mother’s disappearance as a child: Laura Cumming, prize-winning author and art critic, takes a closer look at her family story.

In the autumn of 1929, a small child was kidnapped from a Lincolnshire beach. Five agonising days went by before she was found in a nearby village. The child remembered nothing of these events and nobody ever spoke of them at home. It was another 50 years before she even learned of the kidnap.

The girl became an artist and had a daughter, art writer Laura Cumming. Cumming grew up enthralled by her mother’s strange tales of life in a seaside hamlet of the 1930s, and of the secrets and lies perpetuated by a whole community. So many puzzles remained to be solved. Cumming began with a few criss-crossing lives in this fraction of English coast - the postman, the grocer, the elusive baker - but soon her search spread right out across the globe as she discovered just how many lives were affected by what happened that day on the beach - including her own.

On Chapel Sands is a book of mystery and memoir. Two narratives run through it: the mother’s childhood tale and Cumming’s own pursuit of the truth. Humble objects light up the story: a pie dish, a carved box, an old Vick’s jar. Letters, tickets, recipe books, even the particular slant of a copperplate hand give vital clues. And pictures of all kinds, from paintings to photographs, open up like doors to the truth. Above all, Cumming discovers how to look more closely at the family album - with its curious gaps and missing persons - finding crucial answers, captured in plain sight at the click of a shutter.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Laura Cumming (P)2019 Penguin Audio
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Homelands cover art
Confessions cover art
An Act of Treachery cover art
The Long View cover art
A Bird in Winter cover art
Jigsaw cover art
Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All cover art
The Great Silence cover art
Lost for Words cover art
Cwen cover art
Kiss Myself Goodbye cover art
The Great Fire cover art
The See-Through House cover art

Critic reviews

"A modern masterpiece." (Guardian)

"A moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life." (Sunday Times)

What listeners say about On Chapel Sands

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    124
  • 4 Stars
    45
  • 3 Stars
    23
  • 2 Stars
    15
  • 1 Stars
    6
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    115
  • 4 Stars
    38
  • 3 Stars
    21
  • 2 Stars
    8
  • 1 Stars
    7
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    102
  • 4 Stars
    45
  • 3 Stars
    21
  • 2 Stars
    14
  • 1 Stars
    7

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A heartfelt real story

Tender, colourful and descriptive. I would recommend it to all my friends who are interested in family history.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Evocative and touching

A beautifully written and read exploration of the effect of the mores of times past on the intimate story of a family in a small Lincolnshire village and the lasting legacy of a fateful decision. Evocative, deeply touching and as absorbing as a detective story.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beautifully written story!

Beautifully written and perfectly narrated. I enjoyed this book very much. Was recommended to me by my newly discovered cousins whom I was visiting for the first time in Chapel St. Leonards!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Heartfelt prose read by a melodic voice...

Beautifully narrated with wonderful reference to visual imagery...a heartfelt account which reads like a melody!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Narrated with feeling

In ways this heartfelt family history is like a forensic detective story, but containing beautiful prose plus insightful analysis of paintings which I now need to find...

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful

Moving, beautifully written and read.
An insight into a different time. Listened to it all in a few days

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Beautiful book. Deeply moving.

What a tender account of a flawed family and the complexities of pre-war affairs, strained marriages and local loyalties. Beautifully written and poetic. So much love and respect and deep thought about the deep bonds and ties of family. A bonus that it was read by the author. It felt almost like a private conversation.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Stunning and so moving

Highly recommend this book, so complex and layered about the secret histories of parents. Compassionate, gripping, humane. I absolutely loved it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

This book is unputdownable!!!

I love this book. I could not stop listening.. and the final moments had me in tears.. I love the story, woven through with art.. beautifully told. It’s an absolute must listen too.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

fascinating story of a reunited family

chapel at Leonard was a place for my childhood holidays, I enjoyed this book partly because if this but I loved the way this broken family was put together.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful