Category: A Vicarage Family

On Tour

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

The Noel Streatfeild kick? Still going strong…once this review is done? Off to e-Bay to see if any of her Susan Scarlet romances are available for a decent price! First, let’s take a look at volume two of Noel Streatfeild’s semi-autobiographical series, On Tour: An Autobiographical Novel of the 20’s.

Published in the UK as Away From the Vicarage, On Tour: An Autobiographical Novel of the 20’s shows us Victoria Strangeway as an adult. World War I has ended. It’s been a very rough time but the vicarage has survived. Victoria, Isobel and Louise have returned from their war work, younger brother Dick has been wounded but will be headed to university soon. The vicar is still a walking saint and Mrs Strangeway? She still can’t manage her household for beans even though the vicar has inherited property from his late parents. And there’s a new Strangeway, littlest sister (totally a surprise baby) Theodora. Who knew the vicar and Mrs Strangeway were still…well…you know…Theodora is charming, clever and wonderful and thanks to the age gap between her and the others, is almost an only child. Louise has dropped a bombshell, she’s getting married and moving abroad with her new husband. Is there a place for Victoria in all this change?

Turns out the answer is NO. So Victoria summons her courage and goes to train as an actress. Because of the general family reaction (actress=scarlet woman) Victoria decides to take the name Victoria Sonning. Her theatrical training is hard and she has little money but Victoria is determined to live life as much as possible and shake off the vicarage shackles. A reader used to Streatfeild’s children’s novels might get a little shock when you realize that Victoria is pretty much prostituting herself to get money and clothes from her suitors. She never goes the full nine yards but you get the feeling she’s come awful close a few times. And is it that much different from Louise marrying so young? But sisters are doing what they have (and who they have) to do to escape the confines of the vicarage. Their parents aren’t horrible people but vicarage life is confining and narrow for the eldest Strangeway children.

Victoria manages to survive her stage school and then plunges into the world of a professional actress. She gets work and travels all over but you get the feeling that her stage work doesn’t truly fulfill her. And she certainly doesn’t care for the narrow and grimy life in theatrical digs and the constant moving around. Africa is enchanting but being thought of a Jezebel and a man-eater thanks to a some less than brilliant behavior and two male members of the theater company dying casts a cloud and stain on her acting career. People will always remember the scandal over how good her performances are.

On Tour is such a sadder book than A Vicarage Family. The younger Victoria had a fire and a zest that not even the wartime death of her beloved cousin John could quench. The older Victoria? The rough patches in life really send her skidding. The spark that got her to pursue a theatrical career vs life as an unpaid curate/domestic slave to her parents dims the farther she gets from school. Her longing for a home and love leaps off the page and when she realizes her so called love isn’t truly “in love” it’s a cut that almost destroys her more than the scandals that plague her acting career.

The other issue that makes On Tour a much different experience than A Vicarage Family is how closed off Victoria is. In A Vicarage Family you feel all the injustices and joys of Victoria’s life. She crackles and blazes and jumps off the page. You understand exactly why Annie is drawn to her and defends her. Maybe it’s because of the upheavals of the war or the changes in society but On Tour Victoria holds back and only gives us glimpses into her life. Was Noel Streatfeild ashamed of her life and feelings then? What was so awful that she makes Victoria a pale shadow of the girl that intrigued us so? Is it because S-E-X rears it’s head?

You can almost feel the squirming when Streatfeild writes about the appearance of Theodora. Yes, Noel/Victoria was a product of a very Victorian upbringing (Her sister Louise had no clue why she was getting sick every morning only weeks after being married. Just how much if any talk did Mrs Strangeway have with her daughters?) You might be tempted to think what keeps Victoria from actually jumping into bed with her suitors during her training isn’t the consequences (Theodora/the village girls illegitimate babies) but the actual act of sex itself. She is certainly repelled by Louise’s husband Him. Maybe it’s this disgust of sex that keeps her with her “we shall have a white farmhouse” suitor for so long because it seems crystal clear to me that this suitor might be happier with Dick Strangeway than Miss Victoria Sonning. Then again I could just be having one of my Gwen’s Crazy Literary Theories. Because I find Victoria Strangeway an interesting character I want to read more about no matter who or what she loves.

Even with it’s issues, On Tour is a must read. Even if many things are white-washed it still gives an interesting look at leaving a very moral and upright world for one with looser boundaries. And it makes you want to track down more of Streatfeild’s adult works. And exploring an author’s full writings is never a bad thing.

 

 

 

A Vicarage Family

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

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?