Category: The Home Front

Henrietta Sees It Through

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

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 There’s a Visitor clad in an outdated uniform who Henrietta and Mrs Savernack think must be a spy.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.

 

 

 

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.