Northbridge Rectory by Angela Thirkell was first published in 1941, and it has quite a different feel from the previous Barchester books. It’s the second year of the war so the town of Northbridge has changed a lot, with an influx of evacuees and soldiers, but most of the story revolves around the rector’s wife, Mrs Villars. Her husband had been a headmaster prior to becoming a rector/minister/vicar. With her previous role as headmaster’s wife Mrs Villars is well used to dealing with young people and their parents. She’s very good at holding her tongue, but Mrs Spender, the wife of a major who has been transferred to the area is a nightmare of a woman with no manners or tact, and she never listens to anyone else. She embarrasses her poor husband constantly, but apparently he adores her!
This is a lovely read which mirrors what must have been going on in all of the towns and villages of Britain, such as groups of people getting together to have a rota to parachute spot from the top of the church tower. The building of a bomb shelter with a scrap metal dump right next to it, with all the junk that the binmen refused to take away at last finding a home. (As it happens all the scrap metal that people gathered for the war effort was completely useless and all ended up in scrap yards eventually.)
There are so many great characters, I particularly enjoyed the fact that the two nieces of Mrs Turner are always referred to as Betty and ‘the other niece’. There’s are many mentions of ‘the other niece’ I just find it hilarious that an author should choose not to name a character properly.
The Mixo-Lydian refugees have arrived and are making themselves unpopular, bullying people into buying their poorly executed needlework, and generally looking down on the locals who are all participating in the war effort in some way.
The whole thing feels very true to the times, mind you, from the cover of my paperback copy of this book you could be forgiven for thinking that the setting is an Edwardian shooting weekend on someone’s estate. I suspect that the publishers – Carroll and Graf of New York – got a wee bit confused and thought it was akin to Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire, instead of a few generations later!