A Footman for the Peacock by Rachel Ferguson

A Footman for the Peacock by Rachel Ferguson was originally published in 1940, but was reprinted by Dean Street Press in 2016. It’s A Furrowed Middlebrow Book.

Sir Edmund Roundelay and his extended family, including his three elderly unmarried sisters, live in a stately pile called Delaye. It’s the beginning of World War 2 and everyone is expected to ‘do their bit’ which for the Roundelays means housing a large number of children and their teachers in the unused rooms of the house.  Lady Evelyn Roundelay is having a tough enough time coping with the running of the house as it is, the rules will have to be got around. For the first time the Roundelays are having to deal with people who have been given unexpected status due to their war work, it’s a bit of a knock to their sense of entitlement, but not for long.

In the past the Roundelays had been harsh employers, literally running their young footmen to death so that they could run ahead of their carriage to clear the way for it as they drove through villages, but there are still members of staff who are descendants of past servants working in the household, there hasn’t been much in the way of social movement.

This was an enjoyable read, the blurb on the back says that it was “controversial when first published in the early days of World War II, due to its treatment of a loathsome upper-crust family dodging wartime responsibility. It can now be enjoyed as a scathing satire of class abuses, a comic masterpiece falling somewhere between Barbara Pym and Monty Python.”

It was one of my 20 Books of Summer reads.

Saplings by Noel Streatfeild

Saplings by Noel Streatfeild was first published by Collins in 1945 but it was republished by Persephone Books in 2002.

I’ve read and enjoyed quite a few of Noel Streatfeild’s books for children (of all ages) but this one is aimed at adults, however, the children are to the fore. Streatfeild certainly had the knack of getting inside the skin of young people, and it’s really their experiences that feature most in the book. The Wiltshires are a well-off upper middle class family living in Regent’s Park, London and this book is about how World War 2 impacts on them all.

Lena and Alex are the parents of the four Wiltshire children and as the war progresses and bombs start to fall in London it’s decided that they should move the children to the countryside to live with their father’s parents. It’s explained almost from the beginning that Lena has always put her husband Alex first, she never wanted to be engulfed in motherhood I suppose, the children’s governess/nurse is amused by Lena’s obvious sexual needs. Alex is frankly getting worn out as the bombs fall.

“Lena liked her children prettily dressed, good-mannered and well tended, but when she was about she liked those who saw to these things to be as inconspicuous as possible.”

When disaster hits the family everything begins to fall apart, no doubt their experiences were echoed in some way throughout the country in many families.

I enjoyed this one but I found it to be quite a sad read, possibly what is going on in the world at the moment made it all the more so.

Clydesiders at War by Margaret Thomson Davis

Clydesiders at War by Margaret Thomson Davis is the last book in her Clydeside/Gourlay trilogy. The book begins in 1939 and the Gourlay family has just discovered that Wincey’s parents are still alive, it’s all a bit of a shock to them, but worse than that, the international news is not looking good. Surely there can’t be another war with Germany, after all it’s just over 20 years since the end of the ‘war to end all wars’.

Wincey ends up splitting her time between the Gourlays and her own parents, but everyone is busy anyway as Wincey is running the factory which has contracts to make shirts for the army, and everyone else is ‘doing their bit’ nursing, fire watching and such.

I enjoyed this series which is set in the industrial west of Scotland – Glasgow and Clydebank – which were targetted by the Luftwaffe because of the shipyards on the River Clyde. It all feels authentic as the civilians staying at home end up having a worse time of it than their menfolk who are in the armed forces do. Many servicemen survived the war, but their families didn’t.

The Arms Maker of Berlin by Dan Fesperman

 The Arms Maker of Berlin cover

The Arms Maker of Berlin by Dan Fesperman was published in 2009. It’s the first book that I’ve read by the author and I was encouraged to do so after reading TracyK’s review at Bitter Tea and Mystery.

The action in this book begins in the US where Professor Nat Turnbull lectures on World War 2 history, specialising in the German Resistance. His one time mentor Gordon Wolfe is arrested for possessing stolen files from WW 2 archives and this sets Nat off on a dangerous investigation which takes him to Germany.

The action slips between contemporary America and Germany and 1942 Germany where some of the Nazis are beginning to realise that things aren’t going their way. Some young students have set up a resistance group called the White Rose and they’re involved with Dietrich Bonhoeffer who is under surveillance by the Nazis. Kurt Bauer, the young son of an important industrialist becomes embroiled with the young activists, not for political reasons but because he’s in love with Liesl. His father has warned him to have nothing to do with Liesl as she’s trouble, she is not careful about what she says which is a dangerous thing when there are people queuing up to denounce friends and even family to the Nazis.

I enjoyed this although I did find it quite frustrating when the action changed from one time span to the other, always at a sort of cliffhanger when I just wanted to get on with that aspect of the tale.

Voices on the Wind by Evelyn Anthony

Voices on the Wind cover

Voices on the Wind by Evelyn Anthony was first published in 1985. I read a lot of her books in the 1970s and loved them, she specialised in World War 2 espionage books.

In this one it’s forty years after the war and Katharine Alfurd is living in a small Sussex village, she’s fairly recently widowed and only has one daughter who she doesn’t get on with very well, so she leads quite a lonely life and has taken to visiting the local pub, drinking too much and telling anyone who will listen to her about her wartime exploits as an undercover British agent. As she had a French mother she could speak the language like a native.

The 1980s were a time when now and again high profile Nazis who had escaped justice popped up in the news, and that’s what happens in this book. Katharine had been involved with the Resistance in Occupied France and she had come into contact with Standartenfuhrer Christian Eilenburg. Now he is in France after having spent most of his life in Chile hiding from Nazi hunters. He’s about to stand trial and as Katharine had actually come into contact with him during the war she’s asked to travel to France to meet him.

Katharine’s wartime memories were never far away and now her thoughts go back to 1944 when along with others she was sent to France to help the Resistance and prepare for the Normandy invasions.

This was a great read, it does jump around a lot but I didn’t have a problem with that. I’ll be looking for more of her books.

Pastoral by Nevil Shute

 Pastoral cover

Pastoral by Nevil Shute was first published in 1944 but my copy is a 1950 reprint complete with dust jacket.

I really enjoyed this one which is a mixture of unsoppy romance and nail-biting World War 2 action via a bombing crew. The R for Robert crew is based near Oxford, they fly a Wellington bomber and have been very successful, surviving nearly 50 sorties. Their success is almost certainly due to the fact that they all get on so well together, they have trust in each other’s abilities and Peter Marshall their captain is a very fair and even tempered chap. His personality keeps everyone calm despite the appalling stress that they’re all under flying their Wellington bomber to Germany on bombing raids so often.

Luckily all of the men are keen anglers and they all go off on fishing expeditions locally, it’s just what they need to keep their minds off the dangers they face on a nightly basis.

Peter Marshall falls heavily for a young WAAF officer, she’s a radio operator and feels that Peter is moving too fast, she’s not ready to get serious. Peter’s relaxed personality changes completely and he becomes bad-tempered and nit-picking around his crew which has a bad effect on their flying performance.

I found the descriptions of the flights to and from Germany to be incredibly tense, I’ll probably give this one a 4 on Goodreads at least.

The Avenue Goes to War by R.F. Delderfield

The Avenue Goes to War cover

The Avenue Goes to War by R.F. Delderfield is of course the sequel to The Dreaming Suburb and in this one the war has well and truly started, no more of that ‘phoney war’ as it was called in the beginning, before the heavy bombing started. Everybody in The Avenue is joining up or war dodging in the case of Archie Carver who is only interested in making as much money as possible. Often it’s the most unexpected people who are most determined to ‘do their bit’.

Delderfield was great at creating interesting characters and in this book he wrote about what was the reality of war for many, with the civilians often ending up taking the brunt of the German attacks.

He shows how society changed completely, sometimes the changes were for the better though, with The Avenue becoming much more socially welcoming for people, friendships being forged by men who had lived next-door to each other for 20 years but had never exchanged more than a ‘hello’ before. It’s not all about The Avenue however, with a few of the former inhabitants ending up in Germany the action moves there occasionally.

I was really sorry when this book came to an end, but the author tied up all the loose ends very satisfactorily and although the writing isn’t poetic, the sentiments are, or philosophical if you prefer.

My copy of this one is a 1958 first edition and it has a nice wee plan of the neighbourhood at the beginning of the book, something which seems to be missing from the modern paperbacks.

Now I intend to start reading A Horseman Riding By (Long Summer Day and Post of Honor in the US) but I don’t have those books yet. I can’t make up my mind whether to buy the modern paperbacks, or just put them on my Kindle, which is a lot cheaper and quicker. But I prefer actual books – although I’m no great fan of modern paperbacks. Decisions, decisions.

Have any of you read his Swann saga?

At Dusk All Cats Are Grey by Jerrard Tickell

At Dusk All Cats Are Grey cover

At Dusk All Cats Are Grey by Jerrard Tickell was first published in 1940 but it has been published as an e-book by Odyssey Press and when they asked me if I would like to review it I jumped at the chance as I’ve enjoyed reading some of his books in the past.

This is yet another book set at the beginning of World War 2, I seem to have been reading so many of them recently, I suppose the novelists of the day felt the need to write about it and how it was affecting people.

Joanna is the twenty-two year old daughter of Lady and Sir Robert Shirley. Sir Robert is a gentleman farmer in the Cotswolds but he is very poor and he is almost certainly going to have to sell off more land. Joanne decides it’s time she got out and earned a living. She has a rare talent (for a Brit anyway) in that she picks up languages very easily and as she has spent time in Austria and Germany skiing in the past she’s fluent in German.

She gets a job in an advertising agency in London but while she is socialising in the city she meets up with Colonel Seymour who offers her an undercover job when he discovers that she can pass as a native German or Austrian. Joanne isn’t at all keen to spy on Austrian refugees as she is asked to, but with mayhem ensuing across Europe she’s only one of many who have to do things they would rather not.

Of course there’s a lot more to the book than I’ve said, there’s also some romance thrown in. I’ve noticed that some other people who have reviewed this book have been disappointed that Tickell didn’t spell out exactly what Colonel Seymour’s department was up to. For me that just added to the authenticity because so many people were involved in ‘hush hush’ work, and at the time nobody questioned the fact that people couldn’t talk about the work they were doing. Walls have ears – as the slogan said.

My thanks go to The Odyssey Press who provided me with a copy of this book for my Kindle. I enjoyed it a lot, although maybe not quite as much as Tickell’s Villa Mimosa, Appointment with Venus.

One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes

One Fine Day by Mollie Panter-Downes was first published in 1947 but my copy is a 2011 Virago, how I hate those new Virago covers, bring back the original green ones, please.

This book was written in 1946, a time when everyone was trying to adjust to a normal life without war, it’s not made easy by the fact that everything post-war has changed, especially for those who had had some money and were used to servants looking after them. It’s a day in the life of Laura, a middle class wife and mother of Victoria, a ten year old. Laura’s not terribly domesticated and she’s a bit of a dreamer so she’s struggling to cope with cooking and mending.

Laura Marshall’s husband is getting into the routine of commuting by train to London from Wealding in Sussex every morning, but he’s also constantly worrying about the state of his garden and house, there’s no help to be found anywhere and it all seems to be crumbling around him.

This is so well written and observed, Panter-Downes has Laura comparing the differences between her middle class husband’s standoffish attitude to his own daughter and a local working class man’s obvious adoration of a young relative. They’re poverty stricken and slovenly, but happy. Of course Stephen had gone off to war, leaving a small girl behind and he’s having trouble recognising that wee one in the self-contained ten year old that she has become while he was at war for five years.

When Laura makes a visit to the local ‘big house’ she thinks:
All those windows, she thought in horror. For the rest of her life, now, she would see things from the point of view of cleaning them. Confronted by a masterpiece of architecture, she would think merely, How much floor to sweep, how many stairs to run up and down. The world had contracted to domestic-house size, always whispering to the sound of somebody’s broom.

There’s quite a lot of humour in the book, often in the way that the ‘lower orders’ express themselves. But Angela Huth who wrote an introduction to the book seems to have missed some of it, as she’s under the impression that the big house is being turned into some sort of institution.

In fact the family in the big house has decided to hand it over to the National Trust and retreat to a self-contained flat in the property, as many such stately home owners did around that time. Perhaps Huth didn’t understand the ‘joke’ that the charlady gives the information that National Trusses will be taking over the big house. Most of the humour is from the way the working class people speak but it isn’t really in any nasty condescending way.

It’s a very enjoyable read and I just hope that I can get my hands on more of her books. You can read her obituary here.

Casting Off by Elizabeth Jane Howard

Casting Off cover

Casting Off by Elizabeth Jane Howard was first published in 1995 and until a few minutes ago I had thought that it was the last in the Cazalet series, but apparently the last one All Change was published in 2013, the year before Howard died.

I know that a few blogpals are intending to read this one soonish so I don’t want to say too much about the storyline that runs from July 1945 to 1947.

You would think that people would be relieved beyond belief that the war in Europe was over, but of course for lots of people it meant the end of a time when they had plenty to do, they had had a sense of achievement or importance as they had been needed in the various voluntary organisations helping the war effort. Everyone is trying to get used to the changes although of course some things aren’t changing quickly enough, such as the rationing which is getting worse.

Members of the Cazalet family are beginning to move back to London instead of all being at the family country home – Home Place. Relationships are changing, some might not survive.

Three quarters of the way through this book I was feeling quite depressed by it as I really didn’t like the turn things were taking, and I couldn’t see how the author would get the many loose ends tied up by the end, and I had been under the impression that this was the last book.

I ended up being fairly well satisfied with it, especially as the characters that I particularly disliked seemed to be getting their richly deserved come-uppance. I’ll now have to get the last in the series All Change.

I’m thinking about buying the DVDs of the BBC series because I didn’t see it when it was on TV. Did any of you watch the series and if so did you enjoy it?