Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson is another of my 20 Books of Summer although it wasn’t on my original list which has had to be amended somewhat. This one was a request from the library.
It begins in 1919 in fictional Hazelbourne-on-Sea in the south of England. It’s a tough time for women as those who have been working during the war are having to give up their jobs so that the returning soldiers can have them. Constance Haverhill finds herself surplus to requirements at her family home as her parents are dead, her brother has inherited the farm and his wife doesn’t want Constance around. The estate where Constance worked during the war have got rid of her which means she is homeless as well as jobless, she’s lucky to have found work as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a hotel.
The hotel is a popular meeting place for Poppy Wirrall, she’s the daughter of a baronet and during the war she and a group of women had flown aeroplanes from factories to the airfields. Now they can only drive motorbikes, they’ve set up a taxi company for women only, with sidecars for the passengers.
This was a good read. It features lots of the social problems that came with the end of World War 1. The lack of men for women to marry as so many had been killed in the war, the horror of severely damaged men both physically and mentally, the problem of suddenly having no work for women after they had become used to being wage earners throughout the war years, and then the new laws which favoured the returning soldiers.
That makes it all sound a bit grim but there is some romance and light-heartedness in there too. This is the third book by Simonson that I’ve read, I’ve enjoyed them all, I’ve just had a look at my blogpost of her second book Before the War and I ended it by writing:
Snobbery, racism, prejudice, bitchiness, family strife – all the usual nastiness that goes to make up almost any society of human beings in fact – appear in each of Helen Simonson’s books.
That’s true of this one as well.
This is an excellent review, and makes me want to read when I can get a copy. I will look out for her other books too.
tracybham,
I hope you will be able to get them through your library, and that you do enjoy them.
I have this one from the library as well. I’m really interested in the post-WWI setting. Those years don’t seem to get as much attention as the post-WW2 period.
LisaM,
You are right about post WW1 not getting so much attention, maybe because it’s quite far away now, but it was such an important time for women, in the UK anyway. It really led to them getting the vote, for women aged 30 anyway.
I loved this and am glad you enjoyed it. While Simonson’s first book was the most original, all three were great reads that I am enjoying recommending.
Constance,
It must have been your blogpost which alerted me to the fact that this book had been published, thank you. I agree with you about the first one too.
This was the first book I had read by the author. I enjoyed its almost whimsical feel amongst really tough subjects which showed society of its time.
To have all the opportunities dismissed because the men needed the jobs seems so alien nowadays,
Jo, It does seem strange nowadays but when I started my first job in a library in early 1975 we didn’t have the Equalities of the Sexes law yet and women were deemed to be working for ‘pin money’. Times have changed a lot!