I’m back – after a few days away, due mainly to life getting in the way and specifically to idiots viewing our house.
Anyway, the only thing keeping me semi-sane at the moment is reading and I’m behind with blogposts. A couple of weeks ago I finished reading Mrs Miniver. It’s one of those books that just seems to have always been there, probably more because of the film than the book. Anyway I realised that I had never read the book, nor even seen the film although I’ve probably seen some clips from it.
The first thing that struck me when I read the blurb on the back of this Virago is that as Jan Struther was of Scottish heritage then this one would be fine for Peggy Ann’s Read Scotland 2014 Challenge. Her father was Henry Torrens Anstruther, an Edinburgh advocate and Liberal MP for St Andrews. Jan Struther was the pen name of Joyce Anstruther, she dropped the -An- of the surname as her mother was also a writer using the name Anstruther. Jan married Anthony Maxtone Graham which is of course another weel-kent Scottish surname.
‘Mrs Miniver’ was originally a column which was published in The Times, beginning shortly before the start of World War II. She was asked to write the column by Peter Fleming, brother of Ian Fleming, it’s funny how all those bookish people are linked one way or another. Jan Struther obviously based the Miniver family on her own. Mrs Miniver’s family is described as being middle class but I think upper middle is nearer the mark as in 1939 you had to be pretty well off to be able to afford a car and indeed a cottage in Kent as well as a house in Chelsea. Nowadays you would have to be a multi-millionaire to afford that life-style of course!
Having said that Mrs Miniver did write about things which everyone was experiencing, like getting gas masks and going out in a black-out for the first time (inky), driving to Scotland ( and I must say if you’ve never done that then it’s high time that you did), visiting Highland Games, at the end of which Mrs Miniver writes: The music began to quicken intolerably for the final steps: and Mrs Miniver saw the rest through a mist. For I defy anyone, she said in self-defence, to watch a sword-dance through to the end without developing a great-grandmother called Gillespie.
First published in book form in 1939 and later in film, which I believe is quite different from the book, but Churchill credited it with doing more for the Allied cause than a flotilla of battleships. It’s a fun but informative read.
Katrina,
Ahhh! Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon! Oh, what an absolutely wonderful, wrenching, moving film, which was produced in Hollywood, naturally, much to my disappointment, which I discovered years after viewing the film several times.
I first viewed it at age 12 and was so incredibly overtaken by it, that I ordered the book. I read it, yes, but it wasn’t like the film Mrs. Miniver at all, not a bit! Disappointment.
I’d like to read it now, so many, many decades later, because I think I could appreciate its idiosyncrasies now and the fact that the action takes place long before any real war action begins.
Gosh!! Do get a hold of the film. It’s one that Ken and I love to see over and over.
Judith
Judith,
I think you would probably enjoy the book more now and I will be looking out for the film on TV as I know it was on a channel about a month ago. It’ll be interesting to see how different it is, I think the book is supposed to be better, they usually are anyway.
I’ve been meaning to read the book, I left a copy sitting on the shelf at a used-book store & have regretted it ever since. I am not quite as fond of the film, though I think Greer Garson is an amazing actress, and it does have Teresa Wright as well. I’m curious to see how it differs from the film.
Lisa,
Me too, it sounds like it’s going to be very different from the book. I don’t even remember an actress called Teresa Wright. I don’t have many bookshop non-purchase regrets, it’s other shops that I do that with, thinking about buying something until it’s no longer available.
This title sounded so familiar so I went and searched my shelves and guess what!? I have an old old copy of it! I’m so tickled! I was born in Struthers Ohio. Wonder if a Scot settled that town?
Peggy Ann,
I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. I think that your birthplace Struthers must have been settled by Scots, poor things, I bet they were homesick.
The book and film of Mrs. Miniver are very different to each other, because of what M-G-M hoped to accomplish with the film. The idea was to show Americans, who still at that time tended towards isolationism, why it was important for America to fight. By showing the plight of Britons who weren’t so very different from Americans, a tremendous amount of sympathy and understanding was generated. Many, many changes were made to make the film easily understood by American audiences. The biggest was to give the Minivers a single, suburban house, not too dissimilar from an American one (well, a very, very nice American one), in place of the house in Chelsea (17 Wellington Place, still there) and the cottage in Kent enjoyed by the book’s Miniver family, as well as Joyce Anstruther’s real family. At certain points, the film’s evocation of Britain is a bit heavy-handed – Dame May Whitty’s ‘Lady Beldon’ is dressed exactly like Queen Mary! And the linear plot of the film has nothing to do with the book, which is a series of vignettes, with only the characters linking them. But the film did its job, making Americans understand that more than a nation was at stake – a peaceful, free way of life everywhere was under attack. I would one day love to see a new film of Mrs. Miniver, adhering more closely to the original book, perhaps a BBC series. My vote to play Kay Miniver would be Keeley Hawes.
Sandy McLendon,
I saw the film recently on TV and realised that it was very different from the book, as you say though – it did what it was meant to do, shameless propaganda really but the times were desperate. I agree with you about Keeley Hawes, she’d be perfect for the part of Kay Miniver. It would be nice to have a film which was truer to the actual book. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Katrina
Katrina,
How nice to know that you agree about Keeley Hawes. Since you’ve now seen the film, I wonder if you have any opinion about where the film’s Miniver house and its fictional village of Belham were supposed to be? Obviously, it’s the Thames Estuary somewhere, but I’ve never been able to puzzle out what real place most closely matches. The bombing sequence (where the family are all huddled in an Anderson shelter) makes London look perhaps five or six miles off, and the bit where Clem takes his boat to Dunkerque means that there would have to be navigable water all the way through to Ramsgate. Any opinion? I’m a Yank (in Iowa) and Internet maps, etc. are not as helpful as I could wish. If you have no idea, or no time, I do understand. Thanks!
Sandy,
Despite reading the book I somehow had the feeling that it was Essex, probably because I lived there for a few years and it’s coastal and close to London too. I don’t know Kent very well. Have you had a look at villages in Kent, there’s a list of them here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Villages_in_Kent. I think that the town which Mrs Miniver visited as a child was probably Margate, from the description.
I’m in Fife, Scotland – in fact close to the East Neuk of Fife which gets a mention in the book.