Month: January 2014

Skating Shoes

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

It’s January and the parking lot at Moderate Income Apartments is a bit tricky when it snows as you lug a trash bag to the dumpster. If I fall would I be as graceful as Skating Shoes‘ Lalla Moore? Or would I go smack splat smash on my butt like something out of a Keystone Kops flicker? Given my natural grace (none) I say the latter would be true.

As you might have guessed the Noel Streatfeild kick continues. Nothing like a cozy book on a cold New England January afternoon. And on the chopping block (or shall I say skating rink?) is the charming 1951 tale Skating Shoes (aka White Boots in the UK). Little Harriet Johnson is all wobbly and bobbly from being sick. Her family, a good one but not in the best financial state what with a shop filled with substandard offerings and four children to support, will do almost anything for her to be strong and well again. Enter the family doctor who pulls a few strings and gets Harriet free skating time at the local ice rink. But you need ice skates and well, the Johnson family certainly doesn’t have the money for those. But eldest Johnson child Alec gets a paper route and gives the bulk of his earnings for Harriet to rent ice skates. You know it can’t be easy for the Johnson parents to agree to this but they are in desperation mode. Harriet means just as much to her parents as her three brothers. And Alec is happy to help, he’s not being forced into his decision. Now before you die from the wholesome, who does Harriet meet on her first day at the rink? Only budding future star Lalla Moore. Do the two girls hit it off and become fast friends? Did I eat Utz Sour Cream and Onion chips for lunch yesterday (come on…of course I did!).

The two girls not only become fast friends but lonely orphan Lalla who has everything her rich uncle David’s money can buy gets absorbed into the Johnson family. The children let her join their secret society and plans to turn the shop around, mother Olivia regards Lalla as another daughter and is more than happy to try and helpful Lalla when she gets into a sticky patch. Basically, the Johnson family (except for George’s horrid older brother Uncle “Guzzle”)? Awesome.

Skating Shoes is from the Golden Age of Noel Streatfeild and hits all the classic Streatfeild tropes. Orphaned character? Lalla. Big but loving poor family? The Johnsons? Distant but actually quite awesome and reasonable father figure? Lalla’s Uncle David King. Fame hungry brittle woman who shouldn’t be a mother figure? Hello Lalla’s Aunt Claudia! Talented child getting too big for their boots? Waves to Lalla post skating exhibition. Look into a creative field? Duh…skating. Technical performer vs the popular performer? Harriet might have championships in her future. Lalla? Total Queen of the Ice Capades. Annoying, gorgeous and knows it snot of a younger sibling who needs a good smack? Come here Edward… Snippets from Noel Streatfeild’s childhood? The Johnson family estate and how they’ve declined in the world. Child planning for its future/learning a trade? Alec deciding to how turn the family shop around. Devoted servant? Nana and her everlasting knitting and Miss Goldthorpe the tutor.

Skating Shoes may not be in the first Shoe book you think of (quick! Noel Streatfeild book! you know you want to say Ballet Shoes) but it’s worth the read and you need to snap up a copy when it’s in print.

Daily Rituals

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Sometimes you just need to get away from your desk and plunge into a book. But the tricky thing? The book you’re plunging into has to be attention grabbing but not so involved that you get sucked in and have to pry yourself from a chapter and race back to your desk before the Hounds of Time Keeping swoop down on you like those awesome Ring Wraiths from Lord of the Rings. <cue Blacklight getting excited I remember anything from Tolkein and then realizing it’s because the Ring Wraiths wanted to get get get stupid little Frodo Baggins…>

So what is the reader to do? Well, Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals: How Artists Work just might fit the bill. It’s chock full of interesting facts about creatives and best of all, you can gobble up a few of the profiles and get back to your desk in plenty of time to grab a fresh cup of tea. What kind of creatives and rituals are we talking about? Hmm…for the creatives how about Twyla Tharp, Albert Einstein, the god of the Internet Nikola Tesla, my nemeses William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville and Charles Dickens, Uncle “Stevie” and more. And the rituals? Before you envision Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates making sacrifices in front of their computers and then cranking out a 1000+ page novel before lunch, dial your brain back a notch. The daily rituals in question are how our creatives get their work done. Given bulk of his usual offerings it does make sense that Stephen King writes every single day without fail. And even though I’m not a fan of poetry, I have to give Wallace Stevens some love for waking up early so he could read for two hours before going to work.

For people who love to know more about the creative process or even little tidbits about the famous who deserve their fame Daily Rituals: How Artists Work is a must read. The writing it interesting enough that even if you don’t care for (or in my case loathe) a particular creative in general you’ll read the few pages devoted to them. I don’t think I can get up any earlier for work like Wallace Stevens but Daily Rituals: How Artists Work has given me greater understanding and new ideas about approaching the creative process.

A Vicarage Family

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I’m on a Noel Streatfeild kick so let’s look at the first volume in her semi-autobiographical series, A Vicarage Family.

Our Noel character is Victoria, the second eldest of the Strangeway children, the misunderstood child of the local vicarage. Poor Victoria can’t seem to do anything right in most people’s eyes with the exception of the maid Annie and her beloved cousin John. Without these two wonderful people? Victoria’s very soul would be crushed. Her father comes from a good family with some land but it’s a narrow living compared to his other siblings. Granted, looking at this Edwardian vicarage life with 2014 eyes, having servants, sending your children off to private school and the like seems pretty sweet indeed and not too bad even if the children can’t eat cake and ices at a birthday party because it’s Lent. A life with servants, even the skeleton crew that runs the vicarage is pretty darn awesome when you’re the person who has to do all the housework.

Reading A Vicarage Family, you see how Noel Streatfeild was able to make her books so true to life for her readers. Whenever you encounter a little girl whose growing out of her clothes and there just isn’t the money to replace them with something better, those velvets that have been let out and patched and have the velvet nap going in all directions (the Fossil girls, Harriet Johnson, etc) it’s something the Strangeway girls experienced. The feeling of horror and disappointment and shame the Streatfeild characters feel is so real, so vital that you can feel in your bones that the Streatfeild sisters endured this too. And if you’ve read the Bell family series (if you can get your hands on them? Do it. Seriously.) you’ll know why out of all the perfect Bell siblings, imperfect stocky Ginny jumped off the page and into your heart. Both Ginny and Victoria fight to be understood and loved for their talents in the same way the world showers love and attention on their siblings.

And A Vicarage Story gives something not found in the Shoe books. In the Shoe books, the parents/parent figures are loving and care deeply about their children. In Ballet Shoes, Garnie is willing to take in boarders to give her charges a decent life. Given the circumstances she has been raising the Fossil sisters in, taking boarders is a step down on the social ladder but it’s a step Garnie takes. Skating Shoes‘ Olivia and George do everything possible to restore their beloved Harriet back to health even if it means accepting financial help from their son Alec. The money for Harriet’s skates is found and Olivia extends her maternal care and love to Lalla Moore without a thought.  Sure Rachel and her adopted sister Hilary end up in the clutches of Cora Wintle after their mother dies but their mother scraped and scarified to make sure her adopted daughter could dance. And Pursey and their tutor are willing to stand up to Cora Wintle for Rachel. And even when Ginny messes up? Mrs Bell loves her.

Reverend Strangeway does care about his troubled daughter and tries his best to understand her. But Victoria is just one member of the extended flock he ministers to. And the elder Strangeways love Victoria and understand her life isn’t easy and try to give her both love and the tools to make her way easier. Victoria’s mother? Mrs Strangeway? If Victoria fell down a well or disappeared? Not a problem. It’s not that Mrs Strangeway doesn’t want to be a mother, she doesn’t want to be Victoria’s mother, yes she comes to have a better relationship with Victoria as she gets older but that’s as a confident or companion not as a mother.

Just try reading about Victoria’s birthday dessert or what happens when the family gets the flu. In Annie we understand why the loving and devoted servant is so important in the Shoe books. When you haven’t received love from your parent, a person who doesn’t have a blood tie can still love and cherish you no matter what.

If the Deaccession Squad came a’calling at the local library and I couldn’t convince the librarians to sell me A Vicarage Family and it’s sequel On Tour? I would combing Awesome Books UK, hoping against hope that they had copies of A Vicarage Family available even if it was a 1970s paperback reprint. And given the prices for the trilogy on-line? Would some kind publisher (coughcoughBloomsburyGroupViragoPersephone Classicscoughcough) please please please talk to the Noel Streatfeild estate and put out the Strangeway books in an omnibus? Pretty please?

 

Traveling Shoes

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Getting books from the inter-library loan system can be a gamble. Some times you stumble across a gem (Circus Shoes), some times you want to hurl the book across the room screaming “Burn It With Fire!” but refrain since it’s 2 am and it’s a library book you don’t feel like spending gas money to replace (The Children on the Top Floor) and others fill that sweet spot while you hunt down more treasures.

Noel Streatfeild’s 1962 offering Traveling Shoes (published in the UK as Apple Bough) fits the last category. It has all the usual cozy goodness you expect from a Noel Streatfeild book, a family of talented children and their devoted governess/nanny and their adventures using their talents to earn their livings. This time around our charming talented bunch of tots are the Forum clan, eldest daughter Myra (the worrier), Sebastian (the classical musician), Wolfie (the budding pop song writer) and Ettie (the dancer). For a change, the Forum parents are both alive (father David is a musician and mother Polly paints-no orphans here!), artistic and flakier than the almond croissant that I’m tempted to brave Sunday afternoon crowds to get my little undead raccoon paws on. Trust me when I say David and Polly totally belong in 1990s Portland or 2000s Brooklyn.

Everything is fine and dandy in the Forum household at their shabby house Apple Bough until Sebastian is discovered to be massively talented. And before you can say “Sir Garnet”, the Forum clan is traveling the world as Sebastian gives concerts all over the world. At first everyone loves the whirlwind life but after four years the children want a proper home, their beloved Apple Bough was sold when Sebastian went on tour even though the Forum parents think everything is marvelous. Enter the children’s visit to their clergyman paternal grandfather (ding ding Streatfeild trope!) and a plan to have a proper home is born. And three other Forum children learn there just might be life outside of being Sebastian Forum’s sibling.

I know there is wonderful children’s fiction out there, things that will inspire and teach and uplift you. But dang it if sometimes what you need is a Noel Streatfeild tale. I mean Wolfie, the handsome little budding pop song writer, oh how you want to smack the smug right of him, especially once he becomes a popular child actor. And of course Ettie is the most talented and amazing and wonderful dancer since…well…since Posy Fossil first danced in the day nursery. Will she be accepted to the Royal Ballet? Will I eat candy for lunch? Duh. Add in the cozy governess Miss Popple and the children clinging to their proper British background like it’s a security blanket and it’s pure Streatfeild heaven.

Sure you might want to shake the vague out of the Forum’s mother Polly because really…for the mother of four she’s one of the most self-centered mothers in a Noel Streatfeild book. I know she’s an artist and artists have the creative and must create or die but dang. There were times I wondered if she loved the glamor of being Sebastian’s mother and the touring life more than Sebastian himself. Does it ever cross her mind that she should be the mother and not push off her duties on her oldest (and least artistic) child Myra? Myra is headed for a nervous breakdown or becoming Miss Popple 2.0 to her siblings children.

Would I track down Traveling Shoes in a white hot panic on Amazon, Awesome Books UK or eBay if the library’s copy falls victim to the Deaccession Squad? Nope. But I would snap it up if I found it at Book Barn or a library book sale. It’s not the best Noel Streatfeild ever, and if you’ve read other Noel Streatfeild books you’ll find things that occur over and over but Traveling Shoes is a nice solid Sunday afternoon read.

 

Tea by the Nursery Fire

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During my mad “Oh My Great Tulu! The Deaccession Squad is taking away All The Books!” frenzy, I trolled the internet to find disappearing treasures and snapped up six books in a white hot heat including some titles I had lurking in Amazon wish lists. Strike while the iron (and the Awesomebooks UK coupon codes) are hot and all that. And among three grey bundles shoved into my mailbox with the stamp of the Royal Mail? Noel Streatfeild’s Tea by the Nursery Fire.

Why this book? Well, first I adore Noel Streatfeild and have read just about everything my library system can cough up by her (including <shudder> Thursday’s Child and The Children on the Top Floor) and second, as much as I long to re-read the Bell family series and get my hands on Beyond the Vicarage, my conscience and bank account aren’t willing to spend the money. But $5 Noel Streatfeild book about Victorian nanny? Sure why not?

Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century (also published as Gran-Nannie) is the story of Emily Huckwell, the nanny who raised Noel Streatfeild’s father and his siblings. For anyone fortunate enough to have read Noel Streatfeild’s semi-autobiographical novel, A Vicarage Family, this is the same old nanny who all the Strangeway aunts and uncles adore and has everyone racing up to the old nursery for Gran-Nannie’s strong beef tea (called “Golden Sovereigns”) the second they arrive at the family estate. However, don’t try and fit Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century in the Strangeways timeline because the Strangeway children are born in the 1890s vs Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century’s version of Isobel/Victoria/Louise who are born in the 1910s. Pop an Advil, pour yourself a nice cup of Lady Grey tea and consider Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century an alternate universe.

Another thing to consider, even though it just might be the aftereffects of diving into Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century after a nasty bout of sickness, but if you’ve read Flora Thompson’s Lark Rise to Candleford series, you might just forget which book you’re reading for a bit. The lives both Laura (Lark Rise to Candleford) and Emily/Nannie/Gran-Nannie lead are very similar especially in Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century‘s Part One-The Child. Both girls are the eldest child of a village family forced in the work world at an early age. Thanks to their father’s professions and mother’s service at the big house, both girls are raised a cut above the rest of the village children. They’re not the girls getting knocked up by farm hands in the hedgerows and doomed to a live in a tiny and overcrowded cottage popping out a baby a year. But instead of the post office, Emily/Nannie/Gran-Nannie goes off to raise other people’s children.

Even though the timeline and 100% accuracy of Emily story is in question (the back cover proclaims the the book is drawn on fact and family legend and my brain says more legend than fact), Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century gives an interesting (and brief) portrait of what life held for women at the time. You have Emily’s mother who trades brutal working hours for marriage and a narrow living even if it was better than most of her village contemporaries, Emily’s mistress (the spoiled daughter of a wealthy family who might have married a bit below her) with her lack of maternal instinct and caring only for herself and her oldest nursling John’s wife Alice (Victoria/Noel’s mother) who marries quite young and is implied she is marrying partly for love and to escape her family). Emily/Nannie/Gran-Nannie has a chance at love which is snatched away by an accident and spends her life raising children that aren’t hers biologically but might as well be for all the attention and love they get from their mother. And you have to wonder if Sylvia (the mistress of the house) ever wanted to boot out Emily/Nannie/Gran-Nannie because the children like her so much better than their biological mother.

Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century isn’t just for the Noel Streatfeild fanatics. Given the revival in interest of all things Victorian and Edwardian (hey there Downton Abbey and Gosford Park!), Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century should appeal to readers who want to know more about a vanished era. And of course, Tea by the Nursery Fire: A Children’s Nanny at the Turn of the Century would make a fine little BBC One film…

 

Celia’s House

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Oh the curse of being a reader who loves old British novels. Either your beloved author is slowly be rediscovered or you’re stuck combing the libraries to find anything by that lovely author. I should consider myself fortunate D.E. Stevenson is in the rediscovery stage but it’s agony waiting for The Two Mrs Abbots and The Four Graces to come out as e-books and trade paperbacks. But while I wait for mid year 2014 to come around, I’m trolling the inter-library loan system to see if any other D.E. Stevenson books out there will enchant me as much as the adventure of Barbara Buncle did.

The stacks of my local library coughed up D.E. Stevenson’s Celia’s House, a 1943 novel (republished in the 1970s), a charming story about the Dunne family and their Scottish ancestral home Dunnian. The basic plot, ancient disappointed in love spinster Celia Dunne leaves her family home and fortune to her grandnephew Humphrey Dunne instead of her expected heir Maurie Dunne. The catch? Humphrey only has a life interest in Dunnian. After his death, Dunnian will pass to his daughter Celia (who isn’t even born left alone conceived) at this time. Old Miss Celia dies, the Humphrey Dunnes move and time passes focusing on the younger generation of Dunnes. Oldest son Mark learns to love the land, distant cousin Deb finds a home her flighty mother Joan can’t provide and the new Celia is born. The family survives World War I intact, hearts are broken and love is found in the 1920s/1930s and Dunnian faces World War II.

Celia’s House was a quick and cosy read while curled on Mr Couch with the January winds whipping around Moderate Income Apartments. As when the Dunne clan is preparing breakfast in the thick of World War II? Well, it felt perfectly decadent to be eating Aldi’s private label Double Chocolate Milano knockoffs while wondering if I should turn the rest of the challah bread into French toast. The Dunnes are getting ready to eat burnt porridge <cue Jane Eyre flashbacks> and tiny bit of bacon. And one of the characters actually likes Spam.

Besides making me feel like a truffle eating prize sow in my lovely warm living room while reading (Blacklight: “oink”), parts of Celia’s House seemed lifted right of out Miss Buncle Married. There’s no deep mystery needing to be solved or worrying if the now Mrs Abbot will be revealed as scandalous author John Smith. What we do have is the device of an elderly aunt making a will that favors a different relative than expected with unusual conditions (Miss Bunce Married: Jerry gets the estate if she isn’t married, Celia’s House: Humphrey gets the estate for his life only and then it goes to his daughter Celia). And the estate in question not being entailed so that the elderly female relation can do whatever she likes with the place. With certain males shaking their heads and thinking it’s a dashed shamed that the dear old place isn’t entailed. In Celia’s House, the reader is spared the scene of the expected heir finding out their beliefs are only castles in the air but I do rather wish we could have seen the Maurice Dunnes finding out the news versus just the devoted servant saying oh dear me, how upset they was and now they are gone. The similar scene in Miss Buncle Married is quite good and you can almost see the disappointed would be heirs forehead veins sticking out and the handkerchiefs being crumpled in rage.

What’s also gone? Remembering the book is called Celia’s House. Yes, it does get mentioned the young Celia is the true heir to Dunnian versus her brother Mark and we see her as a small child adoring and loving the dear old place but the bulk of the story belongs to Mark, his failed romance with gold digger Tessa and distant cousin Deb. It’s a shame because D.E. Stevenson leaves some nice little crumbs to imply the young Celia is the reincarnation of her great-great-aunt Celia. The young Mark sees a ghost which an old portraits implies is the late Miss Dunne. Alice (Mrs Humphrey Dunne) has a vision/visitation from the late Miss Dunne the night before Celia is born. The newborn Celia seems knowing of her surroundings from birth and is the spit of Miss Dunne. And for heavens sake, the end? Oh come on! Then again I would also love to see more of the late Miss Celia Dunne’s story too.

Given that Celia’s House was written in wartime and if I’m not mistaken had a limited print life due to wartime printing restrictions, could this have made D.E. Stevenson wrap up her novel sooner than the story should have been wrapped up? The ending, while quite heartwarming and lovely, feels very abrupt. Even one little chapter more would have balanced the story quite nicely.

Hopefully, given the D.E. Stevenson rediscovery and the last reprinting of Celia’s House being the Holt, Rinehart and Winston  1977 edition, perhaps Sourcebooks Landmark could try and acquire the rights to add Celia’s House to their D.E. Stevenson reprints. Even with it’s flaws (more reincarnated Celia, less Edith please because I don’t care a fig for her), Celia’s House is a charming book crying out to be read by more than just D.E. Stevenson fanatics.

 

 

 

Kehua!

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Scene from earlier this morning:

Blacklight: <standing at the sideboard looking at his weekly pill organizer> “Gwen. Is today Wednesday?”

Me: “Yes!”

Blacklight: “Are you sure today is Wednesday?”

<cue me growling from Mr Couch>

Blacklight: <holding up the Fay Weldon novel Kehua!> “Let me guess. Pink cover. British girl book?”

<cue flames coming from the top of my head>

Well, Blacklight did get some of it right. The cover of Kehua! is pink. And Fay Weldon is a British author. But I wouldn’t exactly bundle Kehua! into the chick lit box. Even if it’s not my favorite Fay Weldon book ever (The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil) Kehua! is oceans better than oh say….Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (My Inner Critic: “Darling even We Like Kindergarten with the horrid little girl with the undead eyes that see beyond seeing is better than Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy…” My Inner Critic? Does have a point.)

Even with it’s oceans better than Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy status, I am of two minds about Kehua!. One part of me is jumping up and down and shrieking in mad joy over having a new (well new to me in America) Fay Weldon to devour. Yes, I know there are her Habits of the House books but I’m not feeling those novels even though I know darn well Fay Weldon wrote for the original Upstairs, Downstairs. My preferred Fay Weldon books are her very sharp novels of modern (20th century/21st century) life and manners. I want feminists and scandal and improbable names and people with causes and missions. Kehua! delivers with characters Scarlet, Cynara and Lola. And matriarch Beverly? Some of her adventures are pure young Fay Weldon as a single mum and others? I want a volume of nothing but Beverly’s memoirs STAT (oh wait…why don’t I just re-read Auto da Fay because that is as close as I’m going to get.) There are secrets upon secrets and the lives of women and what we learned from our mothers. And then there is the other part of me.

Now this second part of me groaned, read the first 50 pages, put Kehua! down for almost a week and once I did decide to keep reading could not get through parts of Kehua! fast enough. A Fay Weldon book should last no longer than an Aero bar or a Magnum Double Caramel ice cream or a Starbucks tall hot chocolate no whip cream around me. A Fay Weldon book should be devoured and send me to Amazon and the library to scoop up my favorites. Even the seemingly endless The Hearts and Lives of Men gets devoured and let’s face it, I lose count of how many times Nell’s parents get together and break up because it’s more than the main couple on an 1980s soap opera. Okay, let’s get super real, The Hearts and Lives of Men IS a 1980s soap opera but I still devoured it.

But Kehua!? It was more making dinner from potluck leftovers versus a candy bar and chips.  It’s both the story of Beverly and her female descendants AND our unknown writer writing a book about the characters and her own possibly supernatural adventures in her home as she’s writing the we’re reading. For some people, this device is going to be the most brilliant thing ever. For me? Too jarring for reading Kehua! but if you got the money to make a top notch miniseries (like Case Histories) then I’m all for it. (But who to cast as our Fay Weldon Expy? Helen Mirren is much too young.) The two stories of Kehua! work much better as two short novels like Weldon’s brilliant The Spa Decameron (with a Fay Weldon Expy of it’s own) and The Heart of the Country. I wanted more of Beverly’s New Zealand girlhood, her adventures with Dionne and more of the possible ghosts haunting the author if she was being haunted or was she experiencing a time slip? The tidbits we get in this book aren’t enough to fully satisfy but you will not starve for plot. Maybe I’m just greedy.

Still a middling Fay Weldon novel (a middling novel from Fay Weldon is another writer at the top of their game) is better than no more Fay Weldon novels ever. I fear the day of no more Fay Weldon. She is not immortal or even de-aging like Grace appears to in the much criticized The Bulgari Connection. Age has not dimmed Fay Weldon’s sharp wit or observing eye in the least. And I’m grateful Europa Editions is publishing her and beyond grateful for the Anglophile at my local library who used our library’s tiny new book budget to snap up Kehua! instead of whatever author is trying to get some of that sweet Fifty Shades/Twilight market. Not everyone blindly reads the New York Times Best Seller list. And hopefully even a middling Fay Weldon (remember not a bad thing) will inspire a reader to explore her other work.  Beverly is a most interesting lady and even her dutiful Alice has surprising hidden layers. Lola? She has the potential to live a life even more full of twists and turns than her great-grandmother Beverly. And even with it’s flaws (this could have been two brilliant short novels, D’Dora kept making me think of D’orothea from Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City) Kehua! is most welcome to haunt my bookshelves.

 

 

Henrietta Sees It Through

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There is something about winter and especially a deep freeze that makes me put a brand spanking new Lovecraft letters collection on the the Lovecraft memorial shelf and grab a cozy British read instead. Yes, I will eventually read volume 2 of the Lovecraft/Derleth letters but right now? I’m looking at a Nestle Aero bar and trying to figure out how much of a person’s chocolate ration it is. Thoughts like this  bubble right up when you’ve read a World War II book  like Joyce Dennys’ Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945. Granted, Henrietta and Charles would be much likely more interested in the state of our liquor cabinet versus my Aero bar stash. And I’m quite certain that would be the case for Henrietta old childhood friend Robert, still fighting in the war. However, since Blacklight and I only have beer, some very dry sherry, tequila and tiny flavored vodkas, they might very well be disappointed.

And sadly, Henrietta, Charles and Robert aren’t the only ones who might be disappointed. Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945 collects more of Henrietta’s letters to Robert full of village life and gossip. There’s a Visitor clad in an outdated uniform who Henrietta and Mrs Savernack think must be a spy. Actually? The dear man is reduced to his old uniform as one of his few decent outfits after the twin impacts of the Blitz and his family using his clothing coupons.Henrietta deals with The Garden and her desire to do useful work for the war effort. Lady B is still her marvelous brick of wonderful, worried about elastic becoming scare (this is one dear lady who understands the value of a proper undergarment) and wanting to bash Hitler and mother Henrietta, Charles and the Linnet all at once. Faith and her long suffering Conductor marry and become parents to the delightful baby No-well (Noel) born on Christmas Day. And the War comes to an end.

But like the now empty Aero bar wrapper next to me on Mr Couch, Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945 ends much too soon. Unlike the first Henrietta collection, the missing letters do leave a jarring hole in the narrative. At one point we learn the Linnet has gotten engaged and then it seems the next time we see the Linnet she is a married lady who still can’t quite believe she is married. To be very frank, I would have loved to know more about the Linnet’s wedding versus Faith and the Conductor’s wedding. Of course Faith’s wedding is perfect and lovely and wonderful. It’s Faith. She could get the Archbishop of Canterbury to give her clothing coupons for stockings. I wanted to see Henrietta, wonderful Henrietta with her flaws and gawkiness be mother of the bride versus Faith plotting to have her wedding at the church that’s most flattering to her complexion. Faith annoys me just as much as the perfection of Eden annoyed me in A Dark-Adapted Eye. I want to see more of Henrietta’s struggles to get evacuees of her very own. If the missing letters are still floating around somewhere in a back issue of the Sketch, they need to be included in any re-issue.

What I do love about Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945 are the tiny glimpses we get into what life at the Home Front was truly like. Henrietta goes to get a new paintbrush and there’s just huge brushes and tiny brushes. What is the artist Henrietta to do? The revelation Henrietta is an artist (did we ever have that stated in either book?) gives new light to her tearing through her rag bag to get just the right colors to paste on the windows in the first book (has Charles ever forgiven her for using his best/favorite pajamas with the heavenly blue color?) or her helping Lady B recreate a hat seen in a local shop window using bird feathers and colored inks. And let’s not forget her quite clever make do and mend turning an old pair of pajama pants into a stylish blouse straight out a Ministry of Information pamphlet. Even little things like the tailor getting fresh measurements for Charles when he gets a new coat reminds the reader life for the British, even in a delightful and warm village like Henrietta’s, rationing’s effect on the body. Rationing didn’t starve you but it was certainly hard to maintain too much excess flesh when your monthly chocolate ration could be as low as 1 ounce per person. And yes, I devoured over a month’s chocolate ration without thinking at the beginning of this review.

Even with it’s flaws (those missing letters! Just how missing are they? <sigh>) Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945 is a must read. I am ready to raid my sewing stash and hop in a time machine to make sure Lady B has all the elastic she needs for her corsets. I’ll even bring her some Flexees shape-wear. And some paintbrushes for Henrietta too! Wait…I better bring the very dry sherry for Charles (we only use the sherry to make Seafood Newburg because I didn’t realize cooking sherry existed, yes I am dim). Tins of fancy dog food for Mr Perry and Fay? Faith? Ehh…let the Conductor rustle up stockings and lippie for her. But I will bring a book for Baby No-Well. And if Jennifer Worth’s Call the Midwife books can be turned into a lovely television show, why not the Henrietta books? I would be glued to PBS for that in a heartbeat.

 

 

 

What the Devil is A Clothing Coupon?

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

I’m at work, stacks of printouts growing taller and taller on my desk and listening to Kate Macdonald’s Why I Really This This Book (p.s. it’s brilliant and if you love older books you need to listen to this podcast ASAP) when I found myself nodding and saying out loud as one of the very handsome IT guys from next door strode by my desk “Oh I have so been there…wait…so I’ve been using context clues in reading?” Because like Kate trying to figure out sledding and what delightful goodies Katy’s family sent her at school, I’ve been using context clues to figure out concepts in all the older British novels that seem to make up more and more of my reading. But context clues can only take you so far. Sometimes…well sometimes you need more. And I need to remember that very handsome IT guys walk by my desk ALL THE TIME.

Luckily, earlier reading and having parents who plopped me down in the front of the television with them while they watched Upstairs, Downstairs back in the dark ages (aka the 1970s), Victorian culture doesn’t confuse me as badly as it could to say…Blacklight. Let’s just say whenever I run the vacuum cleaner over my bare toes (shoes are evil) yes I curse the vacuum cleaner but a little voice also says “girl, you could be using a carpet sweeper and used tea leaves and be on your hands and knees”. Or when I blind myself with shampoo in the shower? The little voice “imagine how gross your hair would feel if you couldn’t shampoo it every day? Or had to use soap on it? And no lovely fancy dan conditioner?”. That little voice? Quite wise.

But until I stumbled across certain books, that little voice wasn’t quite so knowledgeable about World War II England. I mean I figured out rationing and clothing coupons thanks to Noel Streatfeild’s Theater Shoes and 1940s House on PBS, but I didn’t realize just how complicated the whole thing was. Now? If my fellow Anglophile coworker ever came over for tea? There would be certain gaps in my bookshelf.

The following books are quite wonderful on their own as social documents of daily life in World War II England and can be purchased from your local bookseller. But they also add a certain “ahhh…oh yes” to reading and re-reading World War II fiction and non fiction. Silly example. Reading Joyce Dennys’ Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945, I wondered how Faith would get a layette together and deal with rations for little No-well (Noel). Well it turns out there are clothing coupons and ration cards to address that very situation.

  • The British Home Front Pocket-Book 1940-1942 from the Ministry of Information. (ISBN 978-1-84486-122-4) A treasure trove of information about everything from rations, evacuation, air raid shelters and more. I now know how to build a shelter in the middle of my living room if need be. (Blacklight: “WHOOO! Fort!”)
  • 101 Things for the Housewife to Do 1949 by Lillie B. and Arthur C. Horth (ISBN 978-0-7134-9056-5) Yes, this from 1949 but remember Britain was still under rationing and restrictions even in this post war time. Make do and mend was still in full force. And after reading the section on growing bulbs? I completely understand the Provincial Lady’s agonies every year.
  • Make Do and Mend: Keeping Family and Home Afloat on War Rations edited by Jill Norman (ISBN 978-1-84317-265-9) Facsimiles of actual Government Ministry leaflets about how to make your clothes last long with proper care and mending. Turns out I haven’t been too far off in my attempts to darn my dad’s socks. And I can totally see Vera from A Dark Adapted Eye reading each one of these pamphlets with the greatest of care before turning two old dresses into a new one or unraveling a sweater to re-use the yarn to make things for the infant Jamie.
  • Eating for Victory: Health Home Front Cooking on War Rations edited by Jill Norman (ISBN 978-1-84317-264-2) Even more facsimiles of Government Ministry leaflets with the focus on food and heating your home. Maybe Faith from Henrietta’s War: New from the Home Front 1939-1942 should have read these instead of lamenting the loss of silk stockings for her amazing and awe inspiring legs? And even though these are British publications, I can see the ladies of “Noah’s Ark”, especially Mrs Rasmussen giving a nod of approval before turning a toothpick, a pinch of salt, a tomato and three broken crackers into a lavish feast fit to build the puny Steve Rogers into a great big buff ripped to all get out Captain America without the super soldier formula.

Right now I have Lillie B. and Arthur C. Horth’s 101 Things to Do in Wartime 1940 on order. And if it’s anything like the above titles? It will be a most welcome addition to my bookshelves.

*what is a clothing coupon? Clothes were subject to rationing in the war. People were issued ration books with clothing points or coupons. You had to give so many coupons plus cash to purchase new shoes or stockings or materials or notions and the like. Used/secondhand clothes didn’t need coupons but had fixed prices.

Henrietta’s War

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

You know you’ve discovered a good book when you mention said book to a coworker and the coworker’s eyes light up while they demand you send them the author’s name and titles ASAP. Another sign your book is a winner? Seeing Coworker’s shoulders slump when you explain “oh golly gee…you can get them from the X and Y libraries…once I return my inter-library loans…”. But Coworker forgives you because they’re just as big an Anglophile as you are.

Now what book had Coworker plotting just how fast I could read and return a certain book? Henrietta’s War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 by Joyce Dennys. I’m not certain I might have stumbled across this little charmer without Amazon’s Customers Also Bought Items By while I was bemoaning  how very budget wrecking snapping up E.M. Delafield on Kindle would be to my wallet. The local library system had a few of Joyce Dennys’ books and the descriptions seemed interesting, so what did I have to lose?

Like her fellow Andre Deutsch Limited author Helene Hanff, Joyce Dennys was doing a spring clean one day when she came across some old writings from World War II. But instead of the relatively anonymous Helene Hanff’s letters to a London book shop, Joyce Dennys’ old writings were from her articles published in each issue of Sketch magazine, letters from an imaginary Doctor’s wife in the countryside writing about life at home to her childhood friend Robert fighting in the war. Our Doctor’s wife, Henrietta is a faithful correspondent, giving Robert all the little details about her daily life with the Doctor (Charles), her two grown children Bill and the Linnet, their dog Perry and all their friends and foes in the village.

I’m very tempted to burble on and on about the charming writing, the rough little sketches in each letter (done by Joyce Dennys herself) that even though they are just rough little sketches, you can get the warm and loving nature of Lady B in all her Helen E. Hokinson like club woman glory and the glamorous divorcee Faith who oozes a magic spell over everyone like a Peter Arno showgirl. So yes, burble I did. Henrietta’s War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 really is truly charming. You get a look at a way of life that is vanishing and how the everyday residents of a seaside village are coping with the upheavals. Liquor is in short supply but Charles manages to scrape up some sherry to offer to Lady B and use the ends of this and that for Christmas cocktails. During Marmalade Week, the residents are wondering how they will make their usual bounty with restrictions on sugar. Village glamor girl Faith has the idea of using saccharine tablets in place of the desired sugar. Her plan is flawed but it’s a plan. But a war isn’t going to keep our villagers from their rounds of visits and parties even if face powder and stockings are soon to be in short supply.

Henrietta’s War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 is a slim book and before you know it, you’ve devoured Henrietta’s letters to Robert and have questions plaguing you. Will Henrietta get to join in war work or is she just doomed to tend house and dig in the garden with a hot water bottle on her back until the war ends? Will Faith’s devoted suitor The Conductor ever get Faith to be all his? Will Lady B keep being the utter rock of grace and sense in wanting to defend her beloved country? But worry not, because there’s a second Henrietta book, Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945.