Guard Your Daughters

My copy has no dust jacket, and is plain red,
with no title on the cover, which doesn't make
for a good picture, so here is a nicer cover!

I'm very fond of my new friends, but I do get angry when the tell me how dull my life must have been before I came to London. We were queer, I suppose, and restricted, and we used to fret and grumble, but the thing our sort of family doesn't suffer from is boredom

I think I'll start with the afternoon when I introduced Gregory to the family. I'd been into Wools for the rations, and I took a short cut home across the Common, that had seemed so big and wild when we were children. It had a few patches of ling, and used to play the part of the Heather when we were being Alan Breck and David.

I just love the opening to Guard Your Daughters, by Diana Tutton, especially that second paragraph. You know you are in the presence of a pretty special writer, who not only pays tribute to Stevenson, but creates a landscape and plants to stand in for wild Scottish moorland in a game of make believe.Who else would do that? And in just a few words she manages to tell you so much about the Harvey family.

Everyone else who read this (thanks to a recommendation from Simon at Stuck in a Book) seems to have already reviewed it, and since it's been universally praised, I feel anything I say only repeats what has already been written. But that's not going to stop me from having a go! According to Simon, if you like Dodie Smith's 'I capture the Castle' then you will like this, and I do, and I did (if you see what I mean). It's way up there on my best books of the year: amusing, literate, well written, witty, warm - and ever so slightly off-kilter. There's a dark edge here that is not immediately apparent.

It's set in the late 1940s, or early fifties – butter and eggs, which they buy 'illicitly' from the farm, were still rationed when the book was first published in 1953. The Harveys are one of those middle-class families who seem to have fallen on hard times and now live in self-imposed exile from the rest of society, whilst maintaining their superior taste and intelligence. They live in genteel poverty, leading a somewhat eccentric life in a rambling old house which is falling into disrepair. That may make them sound rather horrid, but the five daughters of the house are absolutely delightful.

And another one...

Pandora, Thisbe, Morgan (who is writing the story and is called after Morgan La Fée) and Cressida were named by their mother, whose mental state seems to be very fragile. Teresa, the youngest, was named by Father, because Mother was tired by that stage. Only Pandora, the eldest, has escaped their enclosed life: after a whirlwind romance she is now living in London, married to a man she met at Sunday School. The others seem happy with their lot – apart from Cressida, who grows vegetables, does most of the cooking, and yearns for normality. Thisbe, who is rather waspish, wants to be a poet, Morgan hopes to be a concert pianist, and Teresa doesn't know what she wants to do. She appears far younger than today's 15-year-olds (how the world has changed) but is precociously well read.

I thought the relationship between the girls was really well done -Tutton was spot on with her description of the the bickering and sniping that goes on (sister talk, as my own daughters always tell me) but at the same time they are very supportive of each other, and they do have a lot of fun.

Father is an author: not just any old author, but the 'only, really, great, detective writer there has ever been'. However, he is famously reclusive, for when he is not writing he is totally wrapped up in ensuring his wife's comfort and well-being. He has little time left for the girls, and their world is centred on their home. Visits, and visiting, are frowned upon. They've never been to school, although at some stage in the past there was a governess, appear to have no friends of their own age, and few opportunities for meeting young men.

But there is Gregory, who is totally overwhelmed by the sisters when his car breaks down outside their home and they invite him in. He is obviously surprised by Mother's snowboots, 'huge things of black cloth and rubber to pull on over our shoes', her wet stockings steaming by the fire – and by the girls themselves. While he is there Thisbe, clad in eye-catching tight ski-ing trousers, proceeds to do the ironing (including a 'dreadful torn pair of cami-knickers'), and as he leaves he bumps into the grandfather clock, the door opend, and dozens of wet stockings fall out. On his return visit there's an equally hilarious scene as Thisbe desperately tries to pull metal wavers from her hair, without being the noticed.

And there is journalist Patrick True who, strikes up conversation with Morgan and Teresa in a cafe, visits the family at home, encourages the girls' to tell him tales of family life – but fails to explain until much later that he wants to publish an article about their father.

And another!

The girls' seclusion is brought about by their mother's delicate condition. She mustn't be upset, or she will be ill again – and it seems she is upset by any attempt at independence on the part of of her daughters, or any intrusion from the outside world. She may be obsessively over-protective, and fear for their safety if they are away from home or exposed to outside influences, but it is her own safety and comfort that she is interested in. As the novel progressed I began to wonder if she is mad, or manipulative. Her condition seems to work to her advantage. When she doesn't want to do something she takes to her bed; she has the best of everything, and everyone falls in with her wishes. She really is a monster, and it's hard to know if her the Harvey daughters should be protected from the outside world – or their parents.

My copy of the book was published by The Reprint Society in 1954, and seems to have faded from view fairly quickly. 'Guard Your Daughters' is a forgotten book by a forgotten author: I couldn't find any information about Diana Tutton, but she deseves to be better known, and there must be some publisher out there prepared to reissue this wonderful novel - it would fit very nicely into the Persephone canon of work.

I am a Guest Blogger!

WOOHOO! Today I am a guest blogger for Vulpes Libris, with a piece about my family’s somewhat eccentric reading habits. As a child most people have hidden a book under the bedclothes or beneath the lid of a school desk – but have you ever read while ironing? Or left clothes behind to make room for the books you bought on holiday? Find out how it’s done by turning to http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/a-bookish-family/

Vulpes Libris (Latin for the Book Foxes) is a lovely site, with some beautifully written and very erudite book reviews, so I was thrilled when they asked me to produce something for them, and I can't believe the incredible response I have had - I am really touched by all the wonderful comments people have made, and delighted that there are so many people out there who love books and reading.

Anyway, I am sticking with the writing theme, because I am still reading The Far Pavilions. I’ve been reflecting on the art of essay writing - this is what comes of studying on an Open University course! Now I’m not going to reveal exactly how long it is since I left school, but when I tell you that BR (Before Redundancy) I was a journalist for more than 30 years, you will realise that it is a very long time indeed since I last engaged in any kind of formal study, let alone attempted to write an academic exposition.

The learning process is not so difficult. It’s simply a variation on the ‘Three Rs’, with a fourth thrown in for good luck: reading, research, writing notes – and remembering!

Writing essays presents more of a problem. I quickly established that years of writing for a newspaper in no way prepares you for composing university assignments. Creating a 300-word front page lead right on deadline is one thing, but an essay cannot be approached in the same light. It needs much more thought and much more planning.
For example, when I was a very young rookie reporter an older and more experienced colleague once told me to imagine any article as a verbal rather than written exercise. Ask yourself what’s the first thing you would tell your best friend, partner, mother etc because generally whatever you say to them will be the most interesting or most important thing about the story, so that should be the intro. This advice works fine on a newspaper, but is not necessarily to be followed for an essay, which demands a more formal and structured approach, with an introduction outlining the argument you will use to answer the assignment.

There is also the question of attribution. Contrary to popular opinion, reporters don’t make things up, and you are expected to tell readers where the information came from. You know the kind of thing: ‘Mrs Beryl Bloggs said’, or ‘according to a council planning report’….

What you don’t have to do is to give chapter and verse of exactly where your data came from, thus avoiding any accusations of plagiarism, and proving that you are able to locate and interpret the necessary facts. Referencing has become something of a nightmare, which I feel I am failing to get to grips with. I do not seem to have progressed at all, and still end up in an eleventh-hour panic, desperately searching through my sources, while trying to insert the right reference, in the right way, in the right place. Worst of all referencing is included with word count, so my method of adding it at the last minute is a Bad Thing (Sellar WC and Yeatman RJ, 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England, comprising all the parts you can remember, including 103 Good Things, 5 Bad Kings and 2 Genuine Dates, Penguin Books Methuen, 1963) as I then have to start cutting.

Bother, I forgot the page numbers! And as if that isn’t enough, you also need a bibliography, listing every ‘publication’ you used - the books, articles, websites, CDs, DVDs and anything else – all listed in the correct format under the conclusion, which should draw all the threads of your argument together and hark back to the intro and the original question.

And quite apart from all that there are stylistic differences. The short snappy paragraphs I’ve always used are too disjointed for an essay, and don’t go into nearly enough depth, while Journalese puns and cliches are frowned upon.

However, there are similarities and some of the skills I have acquired over the years can be put to good use in my studies. I’ve always enjoyed researching, and I can usually weed out extraneous details and focus on the relevant facts. In addition I know just how important it is to be accurate, so I’ve developed an eye for detail, and will keep on checking facts.

And checking is what editing is all about. It’s the final process, before hitting the ‘send’ button. After all, editing OU essays is not so very different to editing copy on a paper, and it must also be akin to editing literary works in progress. I amass my notes, create a plan, write a draft, add things, take things out, put things back, shriek with horror at the word count, try to sub it down, remember I have forgotten the referencing, swear loudly, start again, panic in case I haven't answered the question, start again... and worry about that elusive perfect ending!