Barbara Townsend’s ‘The Colour of Flying’ | A book launch that touched the child in us all

Most book launches celebrate the author and their writing journey. But at the launch of The Colour of Flying — A Childhood Memoir by Barbara Townsend — something else transpired. Words, memory, and emotion were woven into the inquisitiveness of childhood. Through her younger self, Missy B, Barbara invites readers into the vivid 1950s — a world of laughter, curiosity, and quiet heartbreak. This wasn’t just a book launch; it was a celebration of storytelling, imagination, and rediscovering the child's voice within.

---

I love attending book launches and meeting authors (two of my favourites being Prue Leith and Sally Andrew). Each launch has been a different event experience with various takeaways (including a signed copy). But every now and then, a book launch feels less like an event and more like a homecoming.

The launch of The Colour of Flying | A Childhood Memoir by South African storyteller, Barbara Townsend, was one of those occasions — where words, memory, and emotion gently gathered in the same space. 

Because a childhood memoir was under the spotlight, we weren’t just hearing the author speak; we were being invited into the rooms and playground of her past - into the heart of who she once was as a child in the 1950s. 

What unfolded was more than a conversation about a book; it was a rediscovery of the child within us all.

As I sat in the audience listening to Barbara reflect and read from her memoir, the event morphed into a relaxed evening filled with laughter, tenderness, and the soft ache of remembered childhoods.

Through the eyes of Missy B

Barbara's memoir is written in the present tense in the voice of her childhood - Missy B. 

A child has a kind of breathless approach and head-over-heels view of the world. -Barbara Townsend

When she talked about her childhood, it was the small details and casual, passing remarks of everyday moments that, for me, told the real story.

• Flies drowning in a can of farm milk. 

• The pink of her mother’s lipstick.

• Big words — hysterectomy and haemorrhoids — overheard through her dad’s office door.

• Her Oupie’s three teapots, painted with flowers and birds, which he couldn’t take with him to the Old Age Home. (Hence the name, Tea Pot Publishing?).

For a child, it’s the small, random things that often take up the most space in our minds — stuck there like bubblegum under a school desk.

And then, as we grow taller and Christmas trees grow smaller, those moments start to fade. But they never truly disappear. One smell, one comment, one familiar texture can bring it all rushing back — the feeling of childhood, alive again.

The facts aren’t as important as the framework of that memory, and how it reminds us of how we once felt.

When memory becomes story

Barbara captures this so perfectly as a storyteller. 

When she read extracts from her memoir, it didn’t feel like an adult reflecting back. It felt as though we were eavesdropping on Missy B herself — in real time.

As Barbara’s adult voice merged with Missy B’s, we were transported onto the page: her precocious love of words, her confusion at how adults viewed her, her sharp commentary on life, and her delight in little things — her loving stepmother, Aunty B, calling her klein liefie, or her Oupie teaching her the botanical names of plants before she could read or write, and how, in her memory, he lived on marmalade and fruitcake.

The art of conversation

For any book launch, unless you’re flying solo as an author, the interviewer is key to the atmosphere and flow.

This is where Felicity, Barbara’s longtime friend, shone. 

She was the bridge between the audience and the author — grounding Missy B’s tender childhood voice while gently drawing out the humour and wisdom of the woman before us.

Felicity framed her comments and questions with care and context - engaging the audience and connecting her personal knowledge of Barbara with moments from the memoir. It was moving and authentic.

She had also chosen excerpts for Barbara to read. Some made us laugh out loud; others left us quiet, eyes glistening. Each passage pulled us deeper into Missy B’s world.

More than a book launch 

This launch wasn’t about self-promotion or a writer’s publishing journey. It was about not forgetting — and finding your voice.

The Colour of Flying is Barbara’s legacy: a gift for her grandchildren (and all children), helping them glimpse a world so far removed from their own — and yet, perhaps not so different. Struggles, loss, and bullying were all part of childhood in the 1950s — endured, navigated, survived, and ultimately overcome.

It’s also a reminder for adults: to dig deep and write down our stories to leave a trace for those who come after us.

But, most of all, this memoir celebrates the spunk, resilience,  and daring imagination of childhood.

The girl who tried to fly

Barbara shared her ‘Icarus moment’. As a child, she had always loved anything that could fly — birds, kites, or the lady in the flying circus. But before she could realise her dream of joining the circus, her hair and legs, she was told, needed to grow longer.

So, in true Missy B spirit, she took flight anyway — jumping off a wall with an umbrella, a sheet, and water wings; her own, perfectly imperfect, attempt at flight.

The colour yellow

And then there were Barbara’s bright yellow leather sandals — for me, the ultimate nod to her childhood. 

When I think of Missy B, I think of happiness and sunshine, the fleeting innocence of childhood, shining brightly against the shadows of loss and growing up.

A spellbound silence

When the interview ended and questions were invited, there was a hush. Not because there were no questions, but because no one wanted to break the spell.

We all sat suspended in that shared silence — holding the echoes of a little girl’s world that had become, for a brief moment, our own.

A fantastic evening

If I had to describe Barbara’s launch in a single word, it would be fantastic — one of the very first words Missy B fell in love with.

Now, all that’s left is to get out my teapot, make a cup of tea, and open to Chapter One of The Colour of Flying, recognising that I’m holding someone else’s story — and someone else’s childhood — in my hands.

---

Written by Leanne Johnson