Tag Archives: 1930s setting

Consider the Lily by Elizabeth Buchan

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Consider the Lily by Elizabeth Buchan was published in 1993.

The story begins in 1929 when cousins Matty and Daisy attend a wedding. They’ve been brought up together since Matty’s parents died. Daisy’s family is upper class but has fallen on hard times, like many, but Matty inherited a lot of money from her parents which has been quite handy for Daisy’s mother as Matty contributed to the family coffers, but Matty was never given any love or even appreciation.

Both cousins have fallen for the brother of the bride, but it’s the vibrant and vivacious Daisy that Kit is in love with. Kit is the only son, his father Sir Rupert is suffering from his experiences in World War 1 and the estate has fallen into disrepair and needs a large injection of money. When Kit is suffering from a hangover and in despair at his situation he makes a decision which pleases his father but makes everyone else unhappy. It transpires that Sir Robert and his family have experienced a lot of trauma over the years.

This was a really good read, it’s 469 pages long but it didn’t seem like that, I suppose because I was engrossed in it. There’s also quite a lot about the planning and planting of a garden in the book, and horticulture in general, but it’s done in a subtle way I think and won’t be intrusive to people who aren’t so interested in plants.

Elizabeth Buchan is married to the grandson of the author John Buchan. The only other book that I’ve read by her is Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman which I believe was dramatised for TV, but looking back at my review of it it seems that I wasn’t as impressed with that one.

The Brandons by Angela Thirkell

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The Brandons by Angela Thirkell was first published in 1939 and this was a re-read for me which is something that I don’t do all that often, well I have so many unread books to get to, but as I read this Barsetshire series out of order originally I’ve always intended to re-read them all again in the correct order. I must say that it was a real treat to be back in Barsetshire, absolute comfort reading which was just what I needed.

The Brandon family consists of Mrs Lavinia Brandon, her daughter Delia and son Francis. Mrs Brandon was widowed early on in her marriage and she seems to have found her situation to be a comfortable one, she has a lovely home and no money worries, she writes popular books. Her long dead husband is used to express what she claims would be his disapproval now and again. She’s regarded as a bit of a silly fool and admits to that but in reality she’s often surprisingly astute.

Mrs Brandon’s very elderly and wealthy Aunt Sissie has been on her last legs for years but now she’s bedridden and is concerned with her will. She’s threatening to leave everything to Francis, but another relative has appeared on the scene. Cousin Hilary Grant is unknown to the Brandons but when they all meet they get on well and as neither Francis or Hilary wish to inherit ‘Nightmare Abbey’ Aunt Sissie’s will holds not a lot of interest for them. They all feel sorry for Miss Morris though, she has had the job of looking after Aunt Sissie and it obviously isn’t an easy task.

As you would expect from a Thirkell book there’s a lot of silly chat and snobbery and I find that amusing but not everybody appreciates that sort of thing. The editor and author Diana Athill seems to have really despised Thirkell’s books – and the sort of women who read them, but maybe she just didn’t have much of a sense of humour!

The Turning Tide by Catriona McPherson

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The Turning Tidecover

The Turning Tide by Catriona McPherson was published in 2019, I’m glad that I’ve caught up with this series which should be read in the correct order if possible. Dandy’s family has just expanded by two as her daughter-in-law has given birth to twins.

The setting is the summer of 1936 and on the east coast of Scotland Dandy is feeling no need to shed her cardigan as there’s a keen wind, as usual! Dandy and Alec have been asked to investigate goings on at the Cramond Ferry. It doesn’t sound like their sort of thing and initially they decline to take the case on, then refuse the second plea, when the third request came along things at Cramond had deteriorated and they decided to take the case on. Apparently the ferrywoman’s behaviour was now so strange that she was refusing to ferry anyone out to the small tidal island in the middle of the Firth of Forth. There has been a tragic accident, the body of a young man has been fished out of the river and Dandy realises that she knows his family. When Dandy and Alec arrive at Cramond island the ferrywoman who goes by the name of Vesper Kemp is raving, filthy and is naked from the waist up. Alec doesn’t know where to look! Vesper claims she murdered the young man.

Various Cramond residents including the local minister don’t believe that Vesper is guilty, surely it was just an accident, but there’s no doubting that there are strange things going on in the small community. Dandy and Alec are the ones to get to the bottom of it all, assisted by Grant, Dandy’s maid who now sees herself as a key component of any investigation.

This was a good read and for me the fact that I know the settings of Cramond and Edinburgh so well added to the enjoyment. You can see images of Cramond here. However the tidal island off Cramond whih is featured in this book sounds much bigger than the actual island.

Ankle Deep by Angela Thirkell

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This is one of the books which I bought on our fairly recent road trip to England when I managed to buy four Thirkell books, three of them at the Cambridge market. I can’t remember if Ankle Deep was one of those ones, anyway I do know that I pounced on it thankful to get anything by Thirkell which I haven’t read. When I started reading it I was a bit shocked at the state of it because it’s an ex-library book from Enfield, London – of all places. I love books to be pristine, even after I’ve read them but my copy of Ankle Deep looks like it might be possible to get TB from it. It’s the sort of thing which I would normally handle with long tongs, but I steeled myself and dived into it.

This is the first novel which Thirkell wrote and to begin with I was a wee bit disappointed when I realised that this isn’t one of her Barsetshire books because I really do find those ones to be such a scream, but it wasn’t long before I found myself getting totally caught up in the world of
Fanny, Arthur, Valentine, Aurea et al.

Aurea is a young married woman who moved to Canada after her marriage but she has left her husband and children in Canada while she pays a visit to her parents in London. Aurea is not happy in Canada and is no longer in love with her husband so when she meets Valentine Ensor, a young divorced man about town who spends his time entertaining ‘charmers’ by the score, she falls for him in a big way, but it’s all very chaste and funny.

Fanny’s husband Arthur had been an old flame of Aurea’s and Fanny is determined to throw them together again, mainly so that she can play the field more thoroughly than usual, she normally has a string of admiring males tripping around her. She’s one of those life and soul of the party people, a flibbertigibbet if ever there was one. She plans to find a new wife for Valentine, despite the fact that she introduced him to his first wife, who turned out to be madly promiscuous.

Ankle Deep was published in 1933 and I think Angela Thirkell was really using her own ‘set’ as copy, I’m sure quite a few of her friends would have recognised each other and maybe not been too keen on their own portrayal in the book.

I hope if you fancy reading this book you’ll manage to get a copy which is a lot less manky than mine is. I’m not giving you a close view of it, I’m not that cruel but if you want you can see it second from the bottom of this pile, which was my book haul from our trip in October.

October 2011 books

Priorsford by O. Douglas (Anna Buchan)

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Priorsford is a sequel to Penny Plain which you can read about here. It was published ten years after Penny Plain and the story has moved on just about the same amount of time. Jean now has three children and is living in England at her husband’s estate. It’s years since she has been to visit the folks back in Priorsford (Peebles) in Scotland so when her husband has to go away for the winter with a friend who is very ill, she takes the chance to move her family back to where she grew up so that she can catch up with all her old friends and neighbours. Mrs. Duff Whalley thinks the worst, of course, as that type always does.

I think I enjoyed this one more than Penny Plain which was a wee bit too preachy in parts for my liking. This is an enjoyable comfort read but there are plenty of mentions of the hard times which so many people were experiencing in the 1930s. The problems were all so similar to what’s going on today and I briefly thought to myself that we’ve always had periods of unemployment and poverty – and then I remembered what it was that got us out of the 1930s depression – war! They’re going to have to come up with a better solution this time around!

This excerpt is towards the end of the book when Jock is complaining about his office job:

‘It’s a good opening,’ Betty reminded him. ‘Just think how many there are who would be thankful for it.’

‘Oh, I know,’ Jock agreed. ‘There are dozens of men who were with me at Oxford, most of them better scholars, all of them quicker in the uptake, and they simply can’t get a bally thing to do. And people rave about the youth of our country having lost the spirit of adventure, and asking why they don’t go to the Colonies and carve out careers for themselves. But these men have little or no capital, and the Colonies don’t want them.’

As you can see, Priorsford is more than a comfort book, it delves into the problems of the day, but the inhabitants of Priorsford are much the same as before so they’re all recognisable ‘types’. Jean as a wife and mother is rivalling the mother in Little House on the Prairie books for being mild mannered and almost saintly, the way she puts up with her husband and family!

I’m looking forward to going to Priorsford (Peebles) soonish and I want to go to where the Laverlaw meets the Tweed, local legend has it that Merlin is buried there! Have you heard about that Evee, and did you ever discover the location of The Riggs?

The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer

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This book was first published in 1933 and for some reason seems much more like an Agatha Christie book than the others which I’ve read by Heyer. So if you’re a fan of Christie you’ll probably really enjoy this one. I didn’t dislike it but I was just a wee bit disappointed that there wasn’t much of the witty repartee in it which I’ve come to expect of Heyer. Maybe her humour was more a feature of the later books, it’s a shame really because as far as I’m concerned there’s always a place for a bit of fun, even when there’s been a murrrderr!

It’s a classic country house whodunnit, a favourite setting of mine and it’s a plus that I didn’t guess who the culprit was until very late on in it. Either my brain wasn’t in gear or it was more of a puzzle than the last P.D. James book which I read.

It wouldn’t be a Heyer without romance, she seemed to be incapable of leaving it out of any of her books. It’s daft how quickly it all happens though – certainly no problems with her men being incapable of commiting!

The blurb on the back of the book says:

‘Miss Heyer’s characters are an abiding delight to me… I have seldom met people to whom I have taken so violent a fancy from the word “Go”.’ DOROTHY SAYERS

I’m pleased that good old Dorothy was generous with her praise of another crime writer, it wasn’t always the case, especially with female crime writers. I believe Margery Allingham was a bit of a bitch where Sayers was concerned which must have been a bit awkward as they both lived just one train stop from each other and were often on the London train at the same time.

I do love vintage crime but feel that there are far more crime writers I should be giving a go. Any recommendations vintage or modern?

A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh

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This is another book from my 2011 reading list and a quick read. I think I’ve said before that you never really know what you’re going to get from Evelyn Waugh. To begin with A Handful of Dust is one of his satirical books on the lifestyle of the English upper classes but exactly half way through it turns into something much less comfortable.

Brenda and Tony Last have been married for several years and have one small son – John Andrew. Tony is really only interested in his family stately pile which is one of those very gothic places which is decorated in a sort of mock Arthurian style. Brenda hates his rural idyll and is bored stiff there.

She’s so desperate that she starts an affair with John Beaver, a young mummy’s boy type whom everybody dislikes. Brenda has no interest in John Andrew at all and spends all of her time in London with John Beaver who is penniless and is hoping to be able to live off Brenda’s husband when she gets divorced and is given alimony.

Quite a bit of the book concerns the hoops which people had to jump through to get a divorce in those days. In fact I can remember as late as the 1970s that men used to go off to seaside hotels and pretend to be having an affair with someone so that their wife could get their divorce without the wife’s lover being named as correspondent. How gentlemanly they were!

Anyway, when Brenda demands loads of alimony Tony quite rightly sees red and takes himself off abroad to avoid going to court. He gets involved with an explorer and ends up in a god awful place where disaster follows disaster.

I really disliked the end of this book. Apparently the American version has a different ending and I would have preferred that one. If you’re interested in knowing more about it have a look here. It is included in the Modern Library List of Best 20th Century Novels. I can’t say that it would make it on to my list. It was readable but I wouldn’t say it exactly set the heather alight!.

My copy of A Handful of Dust is an ancient Penguin from 1953 which originally belonged to my grandad but it was first published in 1934. Evelyn Waugh is mentioned quite a lot in Deborah Devonshire’s autobiography so now I can’t think of him without picturing him rubbing a bottle of alcohol into his hair when he was absolutely stinking drunk – which he often was. He did become part of her set though which he would have been very pleased about as he was a monumental snob, by all accounts.

Look to the Lady by Margery Allingham

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This book was first published in 1931 and it’s another book featuring Albert Campion as the eccentric detective. He’s a sort of upper class silly-ass on the surface but underneath it all he’s in control and has lots of contacts with unlikely people.

Look to the Lady is set mainly in the village of Sanctuary in Suffolk but it begins in London where Percival St John Wykes Gyrth, the heir to a large house called The Tower in Sanctuary has been living rough on the streets since he has had a fall-out with his father. The Gyrth family have had a Chalice in their possession for hundreds of years, it’s about 1,000 years old and steeped in legends and unknown to them there’s an international ring of art thieves after it.

In London, whilst looking for a bench to sleep on, Val’s amazed to see an envelope with his name on it amongst the rubbish on the pavement. Let’s face it, it isn’t a common name, so it must have been meant for him but the address on the envelope is completely unknown to him and someone has already torn the envelope open and it’s empty!

Val decides that he has to make his way to the address to see what he can find out about the envelope and its missing contents. At his destination he finds Magersfontaine Lugg, ex-burglar but now man-servant to Albert Campion, and Lugg gives him Campion’s card.

Mr Albert Campion
At Home

Any evening after twelve.
Improving Conversation
Beer, Light Wines, and Little Pink Cakes.
Do come.
17, Bottle St,W1
(Entrance on left by Police Station).

On leaving Lugg, Val Gyrth takes a taxi to Campion’s address but soon realises that he’s being kidnapped. So begins a story of possible murder, kidnap, attempted murder and a wee bit of romance thrown in for good measure.

If you like vintage crime you’ll probably enjoy this one. It has a good atmosphere of the 1930s and I especially enjoyed it because some of the action takes place near where I used to live in Essex and so when the village of Coggeshall and town of Witham were mentioned it was a bit like seeing an old friend again.

I’m not very good on vintage cars so I looked up a few of the makes which were mentioned in the book Delage and Frazer Nash – very stylish.

Miss Buncle’s Book by D E Stevenson

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A lot of people have been reading and writing about this book recently, so when I saw it sitting next to ‘Mrs Tim’ the other day in my local library I just had to borrow it. I was only supposed to be taking books back and NOT LOOKING – but you know what it’s like.

It’s set in England during the 1930s and people like Barbara Buncle are finding things very hard indeed. Like many genteel people of that time she is living off the small amount of money that the dividends from her inherited investments pay out. Times are hard and consequently the dividends are poor. Paid employment is out of the question, buying hens as an investment is considered and rejected. So Miss Buncle decides to try her hand at writing a book and she uses her own village of Silverstream and most of its inhabitants as ‘copy’.

She sends the resulting book Disturber of the Peace off to the publisher, Abbott and Spicer and Arthur Abbott decides to go ahead and publish. Miss Buncle has been a bit too faithful with her copy, in fact her fictional village Copperfield and its inhabitants are almost a carbon copy of Silverstream and so it isn’t long before the village folks are revolting!

In the second part of Disturber of the Peace, Barbara Buncle decides to (write) right all wrongs by having a ‘golden boy’ walking through the village playing a reed pipe, and when people hear him it makes them do things that they wouldn’t have dreamt of doing before.

In that way Miss Buncle herself takes the part of the golden boy of her book. But the villagers are still clueless as to who the author is and some of them are determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

The storyline is really clever and the whole thing is very funny, it’s a great comfort read. It was her most successful book although I really liked Mrs Tim too.

D E Stevenson was a cousin of Robert Louis S. and so was part of that famous family of lighthouse builders/engineers. Dorothy called her books her ‘lighthouses’ and I think that they really must have been like that as she was so popular during the dark days of World War II she probably saved quite a lot of people their sanity.

Had she been born a boy she almost certainly would have been a lighthouse engineer/designer, as I believe that R.L. was deemed to be a bit of a failure when he didn’t go into the family business.

Although Miss Buncle’s Book is set in an English village, it wasn’t part of Dorothy’s experience as she lived in Scotland her whole life, moving from Edinburgh to Glasgow when she married and then eventually settling in the Border town of Moffat, where she is buried.

Moffat is certainly a nice wee town, it’s a while since I’ve been there but as I recall it has a statue of a sheep in the middle of it and a shop which sells lovely freshly made vanilla ice-cream.

Next time I go there I’m going to take some photos of the town and look for her grave. I hope the good ice-cream shop is still in business!

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

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I Capture the Castle cover

Dodie Smith began writing this book in 1945 but it’s set in the 1930s and people have been telling me that I should read it for at least 30 years so I put it on my 2011 Reading List to make sure that I got around to it this year at last.

I really enjoyed this book and I wish that I had read it when I was about 17, which happens to be the age of Cassandra Mortmain, the narrator. Although Cassandra is supposedly telling the story through her diary which she speed writes in great detail and using her own version of shorthand, it doesn’t read like a diary to me, which is a plus.

Cassandra lives with her beautiful older sister Rose, their schoolboy brother Thomas, a step-mother called Topaz and their father James Mortmain who had written a very successful book years before but had been unable to write anything else after a traumatic incident. They live a very spartan life as tenants of Godsend Castle which has no electricity or running water and in fact they have very little to eat and virtually no clothes because they have hardly any money and no means of earning any. Rose despairs of ever being able to meet anyone and get a life of her own.

Then the Cottons, who have just inherited the castle and nearby Scoatney Hall arrive and it’s all quite Pride and Prejudice-ish. I have to say that the father, Mortmain did annoy me because he seemed to be unconcerned that his family was starving and they had had to sell everything of value. But I suppose he was supposed to have a problem with depression.

I really liked Cassandra and I know that people have thought that she seemed to be too immature for a 17 year old but I felt that she was just right for a young woman who had led a sheltered life in the country and was the product of genteel poverty. It’s a class thing, if she had been brought up in a working class family she would have been more mature because she would have had to leave school at the age of 14 and earn a living somehow.

Cassandra and Rose were in an even worse position than an Austen or Bronte character because they didn’t have the possibility of becoming a governess, which was the only occupation open to women in their position in the past. They were unemployable.

Anyway, that’s all I’m going to say about the story but I can see why this is such a popular book with people, and Joan, I thought of you when Cassandra mentioned the horror of the butcher shop.

I have to admit that like Rose and Cassandra, I inherited a fur coat from an elderly lady although not something as horrific as a bearskin. It’s actually a vintage mink which is about 60 years old and I’m the third owner of it, or maybe even the fourth. It’s not something that I would ever have bought, but when you think about it, mink are so ghastly to all other animals that I can’t imagine what else they were put here for. It takes up a lot of space but I don’t see the point in destroying it now, it’s a historic artefact to me. Obviously Dodie Smith had a thing about fur as she want on to write 101 Dalmations.

I don’t like the film tie in cover which Virago chose for the book, especially when you think of what the cover could have been like. I think Virago covers have gone down-hill recently, I liked the old ones.