Tag Archives: 1940s fiction

Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton

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I had absolutely no idea that Richmal Crompton had written books for adults. Happily I’m familiar with her Just William series for children of all ages but apparently she always wrote a William book and an adult book at the same time, so she has written a lot, but this is her most successful book for adults. It was another library choice.

It’s a Persephone book but it was first published in 1948. It’s really about two very different families who have become related by marriage. Each of the large families are headed by widows, Mrs Willoughby is a control freak and is very much in control of the family business and purse-strings, there’s plenty of money about but there’s that whiff of nouveau richeness about them and that dreadful vulgarity ‘trade’ as far as the Fowlers are concerned.

Mrs Fowler, is completely different, bookish, very airy fairy and relaxed about everything, the family is comparatively down at heel, old gentry, but definitely classier than the Willoughbys and much loved by everyone.

It’s all about family dynamics and how the personalities of the various family members and their actions impinge on each other. That probably doesn’t sound all that exciting but I did enjoy this one. Bizarrely Mrs Willoughby is described as having an eagle’s-beak nose which she points at her family when she is annoyed with them and they are all terrified of her.

The two women have very different ways of bringing up their children but the outcomes are not so different, both women come to realise that things could have been better if they had been a bit more like each other.

The women characters, all of whom seem to do a lot of sewing and knitting, are the backbone of the book and although there are plenty of male characters they are very much minor ones in comparison.

I’ll be looking out for more of Richmal Crompton’s adult books, but I don’t think they’re all that easy to come by, apart from the few which have been reprinted fairly recently.

The Old Bank House by Angela Thirkell

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This book was first published in 1949 so we’re still in the middle of food shortages and rationing despite the fact that the war has been over for three years. Food is often a topic of conversation but the inhabitants of Edgewood still seem to manage to do quite a lot of entertaining. For me, as this was my ‘book at bedtime’ it was quite confusing at times. I think Angela Thirkell is an author who quite uniquely has several characters in her books with the same names or variations on the theme, so it can be confusing, specially if you’re tired. She was being really too true to life as at the time she was writing it was common for new babies to be called after a favourite relative or friend, as everyone in my family was. I could really have been doing with a list of characters and their connection to other characters at the beginning because it was almost as bad as War and Peace, some characters are known by three names or titles, depending on who is with them at the time and it was a wee while before I had them all straight in my head again. It doesn’t help that I’m reading the books out of order as I haven’t managed to find them all yet.

I did enjoy the book though, technically it might not be the best writing style, at times she rambles like crazy but it all adds to the charm. Thirkell shamelessly nicks ideas and even dialogue from the classics, you could play a game with it all – spot the quote – but after all, there’s nothing new under the sun!

As ever, there are people to be paired off but I think the most important part of the book is the acceptance of Sam Adams as a force for good in the town. He may not have been one of their sort and frankly a bit common on the outside but he learns fast and beneath all his loud bluster there lives a sensitive and kind soul.

In fact I find just about all of the characters to be recognisable, which makes me wonder if anyone recognised themselves in these books as it seems clear that Thirkell must have used her friends, family and neighbours as copy. There are so many bits in this book which I’ve heard people say or said myself, or felt. One person says when his mother dies that it’s strange being on the front line now, a feeling that we all have I’m sure when we are ‘orphaned’ no matter what age we are.

Mr Macpherson, Martin’s land agent features in this book, speaking broad Scots which Thirkell manages to write very well, and that isn’t an easy thing to do. However she did have the advantage of a Scottish father and presumably grandparents too. Her first husband must have been of Scottish descent too, being a McInnes. The author Colin McInnes was her son. In fact it’s quite a surprise to me that Angela Thirkell isn’t claimed as a Scottish author herself. Oh all right, I’ll claim her as a Scot anyway.

Growing Up by Angela Thirkell

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I was really chuffed to be able to get three Thirkell books at the market in Cambridge because they’re as rare as hen’s teeth here. Growing Up was first published in 1943 and this one is a first edition, though I’m really not interested in things like that, and it’s obviously not deemed to be valuable because it cost me all of £2. The book was reprinted in 1990 I think.

Angela Thirkell used Anthony Trollope’s setting of Barsetshire for her books and also a lot of the characters are supposedly descendants of Trollope characters. Thirkell nicks ideas quite shamefully really but her books are always entertaining and amusing although I think that in common with many authors of that era she throws a lot of characters at you and it can be a wee bit confusing at times until you get them all sorted out in your mind.

It’s set mainly in the villages of Winter Overcotes and Winter Underclose – and I can assure you that I saw places with far stranger names in my recent sojourn to the south of England – and of course it’s wartime with everybody worried about their loved ones who are off who knows where fighting for King and Country. All of the women seem to be knitting in what spare time they have, which isn’t much as they’re doing their bit and even the married women are working at the hospital, otherwise they would feel like traitors.

War doesn’t stop romance though and yet more inhabitants of Barsetshire discover that they know each other’s ‘people’ and end up pairing off. There’s fun and daftness on the way as ever and these books must have helped people through it all.

I’ve been reading the books out of order, just as I get them really but one day I intend to re-read them as they were written, if I ever manage to get them all. You can see a list of her publications here, if you’re interested.

The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford

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I’ve been neglecting my 2011 Reading List recently. I was supposed to be reading one book a week from it in an effort to eat into the piles of unread books which have been in the house for years but I’m way off course now. I’ll probably catch up when the winter weather hits us though as I can’t do anything in the garden then. This book is one from the list.

The Pursuit of Love was actually a re-read for me as I first read it when I was about 14 but I wanted to read it again before reading Love in a Cold Climate and The Blessing. I’m in a bit of a Mitford phase at the moment after visiting Chatsworth House.

I’m pleased to be able to say that I enjoyed it this time round just as much as before. I still had quite a lot of laugh out loud moments, especially at the antics of Uncle Matthew, the very eccentric aristocrat who was actually based on Nancy’s father. In fact the whole thing is very autobiographical as the Mitford children were actually chased by their father and his bloodhounds across country fields when he wasn’t able to hunt foxes, much to the horror of any witnesses, Nancy Mitford used the experience in this book. If he hadn’t been a rich lord he would definitely have been banged up in prison but the children didn’t seem to have been damaged by it. What am I saying?! Unity was a Nazi, fell for Hitler and shot herself in the head and most of the others were unusual, to say the least.

Anyway, back to the book. The story is narrated by Fanny who is the only child of ‘the Bolter’ and she has been ‘doorstepped’ by her mother shortly after her birth. Aunt Emily brings up Fanny but she spends a lot of time with her large family of cousins, the Radletts.

Linda is the second eldest girl in the Radlett family and she’s desperate to get married as she’s so bored by her life at home. It was a time when girls were expected to get married before they were 21, after which they were deemed to be ‘on the shelf’. At Linda’s ‘coming out’ ball she meets Tony Kroesig who she finds amusing, but unknown to her he’s slightly drunk and so she doesn’t realise that his real personality is very different from her first impression. When Tony proposes marriage Linda jumps at the chance and nobody can dissuade her from it. Her father (Uncle Matthew) is horrified at the thought of having a ‘Hun’ in the family and his attitude makes Linda all the more determined to marry Tony.

Well, I know it doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs but honestly there are plenty of comedy moments in it and I’m going straight from The Pursuit of Love to the next one in the trilogy – Love in a Cold Climate.

You might know that I can be a bit of a nit-picker where details in books are concerned. So I wasn’t chuffed when Nancy Mitford mentioned the Dunkirk evacuation of the English army. My father-in-law wouldn’t have been amused by that as he was at Dunkirk in that very Scottish regiment the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. She should of course have said British army.

The Franchise Affair by Josephine Tey

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I read The Franchise Affair as part of the Flashback Challenge and the Thriller and Suspense Reading Challenge.

This book was first published in 1948 but I first read it in the early 1970s when I was a teenager. I borrowed it from the English department library at school. It was seen as being a vintage classic even then but I think they probably had it because Josephine Tey is a Scottish writer.

However, it is set in an English provincial town where Robert Blair is a lawyer dealing with wills and property conveyancing. When he gets a phone call from Marion Sharpe who is in need of a lawyer, he tries to pass her on to Ben Carley, the local criminal lawyer, but Marion perseveres and he ends up going to visit her.

Marion and her elderly mother have recently inherited a large, dilapidated house and the police have informed them of a complaint which has been made against them by a 15 year old girl, Betty Kane.

According to Betty Kane, the Sharpes had abducted her and kept her locked up, beating and witholding food from her until she agreed to do the housework for them. She says she was held prisoner for a month until a door was left unlocked and she was able to make her escape.

The police decide that there isn’t enough evidence to charge Marion and her mother, but the Ack Emma – a tabloid newspaper gets a hold of the story and the dregs of society decide that they are judge and jury, making life miserable for the Sharpes.

When the police decide to charge the Sharpes, Robert Blair despairs of being able to help them but he turns to sleuthing and with the help of others the full story begins to unfold.

I really enjoyed re-reading this book but I have a vague memory that I didn’t much like it the first time that I read it. Before then I had only read Agatha Christie mysteries and Tey is very different from her. In fact I think she is much better than Christie but I’ll have to read more of her books to be sure.

If you like vintage crime, this is one that you should definitely read.