The elderly ladies who featured so largely in my youth… [formed] a community bound by simple habits, a world where people’s pride was not diminished by their poverty. It was a world of charming characters, each with his or her own set of personal quirks. In an age of bland uniformity, where people cling to youth as if it were a virtue, I recall with great fondness Daisy, Una and all women of that generation. I do so because those people possessed a deep sense of sincerity, which we have lost.

The elderly ladies who featured so largely in my youth… [formed] a community bound by simple habits, a world where people’s pride was not diminished by their poverty. It was a world of charming characters, each with his or her own set of personal quirks. In an age of bland uniformity, where people cling to youth as if it were a virtue, I recall with great fondness Daisy, Una and all women of that generation. I do so because those people possessed a deep sense of sincerity, which we have lost.