The Happy Prisoner by Monica Dickens

Posted on 30 December 2023 by Katrina

The Happy Prisoner by Monica Dickens was first published in 1946.

Oliver North has been badly wounded in World War 2. He has had a leg amputated and his stump wasn’t healing well, the explosion has also damaged his heart, but he’s back at home now, although stuck in bed as he isn’t well enough to cope with the exercises required for his rehabilitation. It’s a frustrating situation for a previously healthy and active young man, but his bedroom becomes a bit of a hub for his family and he has an attractive nurse, Elizabeth who attends to him.

It’s a farming community and Oliver hopes to eventually be able to take over the running of the family farm, but meanwhile all of his relatives are in and out of his room telling him of their problems, and he tries to advise them, not always successfully.

His sister Heather’s marriage is in trouble and the return of her husband who had been a prisoner in Japan has not gone well, and his tomboyish sister Violet looks like she’ll be making a disaster of a marriage too.

So it’s a time of upheaval for almost everyone in the family. The war has come to an end at last and people have to adjust to their new life, but there’s also a lot of comedy in this book and the author’s description of a beautiful moth on the first page had me hooked from the start.

I had first read and enjoyed a few books by Monica Dickens (great-granddaughter of Charles) back in the 1970s, then a couple more over the last decade or so, so it was about time I got around to reading more.

Apparently she volunteered for the Samaritans and when she married an American and moved to the US she set up the first American branch of the Samaritans in Boston, Massachusets.

A Belated Merry Christmas!

Posted on 28 December 2023 by Katrina

I hope that you had a lovely time at Christmas, wherever you are.

I’ve been absent from Pining because we’ve been busy celebrating Jack’s BIG birthday, over in the west of Scotland and also back here in the east. It all went very well, at least it didn’t snow and so the football match wasn’t postponed, even the football match virgins among us enjoyed it, but that might have been mainly because of the banter. Let’s just say that I’m glad that our three year old granddaughter wasn’t there. She would definitely have expanded her vocabulary, and not in a good way!

Anyway, one of our Christmas gifts was – a jigsaw puzzle – one of those 500 piece chunky wooden ones. With nothing worth watching on TV when we got home from all the celebrations we broke out the puzzle, and of course it hijacked our life until it was finished. It took me ages to even get the first two pieces together, but it felt so satisfying to complete it, after a frantic search with a torch to find the missing last piece!

Anyway, here it is in progress.

As you can see it’s of Klimt’s The Kiss. I really like his work and I have a print of one of his landscapes in our sun room.

This was the first jigsaw of the winter for us, somehow we’ve been busy doing other stuff, but as we have a queue of four or five others to get through, some that we bought in the summer when we were in the Netherlands – it won’t be the last.

One of my favourite Laurel and Hardy films is Me and My Pall from 1933. Oliver is getting married, but a jigsaw puzzle gets in the way!

The Christmas Egg by Mary Kelly

Posted on 19 December 2023 by Katrina

The Christmas Egg by Mary Kelly was first published in 1958 but it was reprinted by British Library in 2019.

The setting is London and it begins just a few days before Christmas. Chief Inspector Nightingale and Sergeant Beddoes have been called to a poverty stricken flat in Islington. An elderly lady has died, she’s emaciated looking, and her ‘flat’ is really just one room. She didn’t even have a proper bed to die in. It’s all very dirfferent from the life she was born into becaue she was a White Russian before the revolution and her name was Princess Olga Karukhin. She managed to escape from Russia with her son and a box full of goodies, jewels, porcelain, ikons, some Faberge, and she had hoarded them for years. But now she has been murdered and her box is empty. It transpires that she had recently had her treasures appraised by a well-known firm of jewellers, it’s all a bit suspicious.

Olga’s grandson is a drunk. Ivan is well-known in the local pubs and to the police. He’s also apt to boast to everyone that he’s really a Russian prince and that he’s looking forward to getting his inheritance.

There’s a lot of action in this book and some likeable characters, it added up to an enjoyable read. There is of course an interesting Introduction by Martin Edwards.

A Christmas Card by Paul Theroux

Posted on 16 December 2023 by Katrina

A Christmas Card by Paul Theroux was published in 1978. This is one of the books that I was reading to try to get me into the mood for Christmas, but so far non of them have been exactly what I expected, anyway, this was still a good read, certainly a very quick read at just 73 pages and is probabbly aimed at older children really. It’s very slightly spooky. It has some black and white illustrations by John Lawrence.

The tale is told by the elder of two young brothers, Marcel who is nine years old. Louis is his younger brother (yes, that Louis). Their father had decided to take them to their home in Indian Falls to spend Christmas there, they’ve never been there before and driving through a blizzard is not the most sensible thing to do, inevitably they end up lost. As it’s a very rural area and the few houses and businesses around are closed up for the season they’re in trouble, but eventually they see what seems to be a hotel or road house and stop to ask for help.

An ederly man invites them in, his name is Pappy apparently, and they end up staying overnight, but in the morning Pappy is nowhere to be seen, but he has left a Christmas card behind and they realise that the card is as good as a map, according to the boys’ father the building on it is an image of their holiday home, and they can just follow the road to it – which they do.

It’s Christmas Eve and the older boy, Marcel, notices that as night falls outside the Christmas card becomes dark too, and he has also noticed that there’s a tiny spot of light on the card which moves, he guesses that it’s Pappy moving around and he’s coming in their direction. Earlier when they had gone to cut down their Christmas tree Marcel had thought he had seen the strange man and he is nervous.

This is quite an atmospheric read, but all’s well that ends well.

I was just surprised that the author, Paul Theroux had written a book using his sons as the charaecters, like A.A. Milne did disastrously to Christopher Robin, but it doesn’t seem to have done Marcel and Louis any lasting harm, that we know of anyway.

Christmas Term at Vernley by Margaret Biggs

Posted on 12 December 2023 by Katrina

Christmas Term at Vernley by Margaret Biggs was first published by Blackie in 1951, but I read a 2012 reprint by Girls Gone By Publishers. It has a few black and white illustrations by W. Spence.

I enjoyed this one despite it not really having anything to do with Christmas, it’s just mentioned in passing close to the end of the book.

It begins at the home of Judy and Philippa (Phil) Fraser right at the end of the school holidays. Their two brothers are also at home and they’re preparing to go back to their boarding school too.

Vernley, in common with most schools has been split up into two ‘houses’ called Raleigh and Drake. Both Judy and Phil are in Drake which is regarded as the rather useless house, they’re the duffers. They never get enough points to win the end of year cup and they’re getting a bit despondent about it. Everyone in Drake is pessimistic about the situation which is half of the problem. They just don’t have the confidence that they can do as well as Raleigh at anything, and Raleigh in turn have a sense of entitlement and superiority.

In the past Phil has been a big part of the problem as she is a bit of a harum scarum and her exploits have led to Drake having points deducted. She’s constantly ‘turning over a new leaf’, but she just can’t help herself so gets into trouble again and again. Her eldest brother John thinks that Drake’s dire record is a bit of a slur on the family name and has a bet with Judy that Phil can sort herself out this time and help Drake to win the cup. She just needs to be encouraged.

This is the first book I’ve read by Margaret Biggs and I was particularly impressed with her dialogue between the schoolgirls. It all seems very authentic to me, with plenty of cheeky banter going on between the girls. There were a couple of hockey matches which seemed long to me, I was never keen on hockey, but no doubt if you were an enthusiastic hockey player in your schooldays then that would be a plus for you.

Aberdour Castle, Fife

Posted on 10 December 2023 by Katrina

It was back in October when we visited nearby Aberdour Castle for the second time, it must have been about 15 years since we first went there. It’s just a ruin now but there are parts of it which are quite habitable – well almost. If you want to enlarge the photos click on them.

The gardens are well maintained now and they even have an orchard.

The photo below was taken from the Doocot (Dovecote)

But there are habitable rooms in the castle as you can see below. With a few rugs, tapestries and curtains I could quite happily move in!

There is a rare painted ceiling

And a large hall which is actually bigger than these photos make it look.

I’m sure you can hire this place for a wedding, if you are so inclined.

James Douglas, the 4th Earl of Morton acquired this castle in 1564. He loved gardens and his travelling in Europe and particularly Italy had influenced him when he set about planning his garden. Sadly it doesn’t take long for gardens to disappear once a property falls into disuse.

Stories for Winter and nights by the fire – British Library Women Writers

Posted on 8 December 2023 by Katrina

Stories for Winter and nights by the fire is a recent publication from British Library from their British Library Women Writers series. I must say that I’m not a huge fan of short stories as I prefer to get stuck into a decent sized novel, but I really enjoyed this compilation, I don’t think there was a duffer in it – for me anyway. A few of the writers were completely new to me.

But some of the writers I regard as old friends, such as Elizabeth Bowen. Her story Ann Lee’s is about two women friends who visit a hat shop where one of them had bought a hat before. There’s too much to choose from and the time passes quickly with no hat decisions made, then a large man enters the shop and he’s obviously not welcomed by Ann Lee. This one had quite an abrupt ending which left me wondering – with a bit of a shiver – what happened in that shop after the women left? I wanted more really, and that’s my problem with short stories.

The other writers are: Edith Wharton, Mary Angela Dickens, Elizabeth Banks, Katherine Mansfield, Elizabeth Bibesco, Violet M. MacDonald, Kate Roberts, Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Elizabeth Berridge, Frances Bellerby, Elizabeth Taylor and Angela Carter.

I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of this book for review by British Library.

A Country Christmas by Miss Read

Posted on 6 December 2023 by Katrina

A Country Christmas by Miss Read is a compilation of short stories which have been published previously. The White Robin is the longest at around 140 pages , I suppose it would be called a novella. It’s about the excitement in the village of Fairacre when an albino robin is sighted and makes its home close to the school playground. The children feed ‘Snowboy’ and look forward to the remote possibility of more albino robins next Spring.

Most of the stories are set in the village of Fairacre although there’s also an excerpt from one of the Caxley books.

The original publication dates range from 1951 to 1992, and those featuring the village school seem even older than the 1950s although I imagine that they are quite true to how things were in a rural school, probably more old-fashioned than a city school. This is what makes the stories charming though, and the children’s behaviour and chat, and the teacher’s comments to them seem authentic, they’re certainly entertaining.

As ever there’s love, laughter, gossip and tragedy, but most of the stories have a Christmas or winter setting which I appreciated, despite our weather being freezing at the moment.

On a different subject, I was listening to BBC Radio 2 this morning, to a piece which is available to listen to in the BBC Sounds Archives. It dated from the 1950s and the interviewer was asking children what they wanted for Christmas. They hoped to get things like a sewing set, a doll and one wee lad wanted a pencil sharpener!! How different from nowadays when kids expect to have things costing hundreds of pounds for Christmas!

BBC Archives from 1966 can be seen below, children were asked to imagine life in the year 2000, but there are all sorts of things available, although they might be blocked for people outside the UK.

Ryan’s Christmas by L J Ross

Posted on 5 December 2023 by Katrina

Ryan’s Christmas by L J Ross was published in 2020 and it’s the first book by the author that I’ve read. I chose it because of the title, but it might have been better if I had read one of her earlier books as she refers to several of them in this one.

Ryan’s Christmas has been inspired by several such previous books. DCI Ryan and his team of murder detectives are having a festive jaunt out in Edinburgh, but on the way home to Northumberland the weather is awful, they run into a snowstorm, then they run out of fuel. They’ll all freeze to death in the car overnight if they don’t find shelter.

Luckily they discover that they are close to Chillingham Castle, apparently it’s the most haunted house in England! In fact the owners run ghost hunt weekends, so the staff are used to looking after guests, and they’re made welcome there.

You’ve guessed it – there’s a murder, but which of them is the culprit? With the telephone lines down and no mobile phone signal in the remote area there’s no easy way of getting help.

I enjoyed the setting of this book as it’s all familiar to me, that’s the way we drive when we visit friends in Sunderland, so I know Northumberland quite well, it’s a lovely area. For my taste though there was a wee bit too much romance going on in this book, but I realise that a lot of readers will enjoy that. According to the blurb on the front of the book L J Ross is a multi-million best selling author. I’ll give another of her books a go sometime in the future anyway, but this one was just too much of an homage – or a cliche – for my liking.

Garden update

Posted on 4 December 2023 by Katrina

As you can see from the photos we’ve had our first snowfall in the east of Scotland. Four inches’ worth. It’s not early for us to have snow but it isn’t usually as cold as it has been during the day. It stayed below zero so the snow just sat there for a few days. Thankfully most of it has cleared away now as it got to 4 Celsius today and it rained – just when we were out walking for The Guardian. My phone still said we would have sunshine and clouds – as the rain was falling.

Pining for the West

Meanderings about recipes, books, craft and more