An Impossible Marriage

Right, after Margery Sharp here’s another New-to-Me novelist to enthuse about – Pamela Hansford Johnson who was, apparently, immensely popular from the late 1930s through to the 1960s, but seems to have been largely forgotten in recent years.

I’ve seen a couple of blog posts about her, and read reviews of Wendy Pollard’s ‘Pamela Hansford Johnson: Her Life, Works and Times’, but I knew so little about her novels it was difficult to pick one. So I printed off a list of available titles, took a pin, shut my eyes, stuck it in the paper, and came up with An Impossible Marriage. And yes, I know this is an odd way to choose a book, but it’s no worse than selecting one for its cover, or because you love the title.

Anyway, I downloaded a Bello edition on to the Kindle (hurrah for Pan Macmillan’s digital re-issues), and it turned out to be a pretty good choice because, quite apart from the fact that I really enjoyed this particular novel, I think it’s an excellent introduction to PHJ.



The cover of the Bello edition of 'An Impossible
Marriage' - though I'm not sure if E-books really
do have covers!

It’s the 1950s, and Christie (our narrator) has reluctantly returned to Clapham, where she was brought up, to visit Iris Allbright who, she tells us, had ‘one brief moment of real importance in my life, which was now shrivelled by memory almost to silliness’. Christie (known to most of her friends and family as Chris or Christine) doubts Iris will remember the incident, and adds: “She and I had grown out of each other twenty years ago and could have nothing more to say.”

And she most definitely does not want to rake over the past, but that’s just what she does as she remembers the time she and Iris were friends, when she was the clever one, and Iris the pretty one – they each had their labels.

Iris Allbright was one of those ‘best friends’ sought by plain girls in some inexplicable spurt of masochism, feared by them, hated by them and as inexplicably cherished.

Ouch! Strangely there seems to be a degree of complicity between the more assertive pretty girl and her plain, compliant friend, a little like the childhood relationship between bullying Cordelia and shy, quiet Elaine in Margaret Atwood’s ‘Cat’s Eye’. However sensible or strong-minded Christie may be away from Iris, with her she plays second fiddle, and cannot escape that role, however much she would like to.

Iris, whose devoted mother is putting her on the stage, is exceedingly pretty, exceedingly self-centred, and a collector of men - even those already attached to her friends…

So Christie is understandably wary when she starts going out with Ned Skelton. Ned is older, and seemingly sophisticated. On their first date they go for a drive in his little sports car ‘bright as a ladybird’, and stop at a hotel for a ‘Sunday outing tea’. In an effort to appear older and more experienced she’s bought a new black hat and borrowed a friend’s fur coat, but she is ill at ease. “His flattery in seeking me out seemed almost too great for me to accept,” she recalls. “I felt humble, and angry because I was humble.”



A 1954 edition. 

Describing the early days of their relationship Christie says: “I felt he was already invading me: that he had plans for me.”  That doesn’t strike me as being a good basis for any relationship, but she is besotted with Ned, even though she knows he is not gentle and will not be kind to her.

Two weeks before their wedding, she realises she doesn’t love him, only the idea of him, and breaks off their engagement. But he takes her to dinner at a posh restaurant where Iris is appearing in cabaret… And she is scared that Iris will take everything from her, including Ned. So she marries him, although she knows they are wrong for each other, and she doesn’t love him. She is 18 and he’s 32, and they have absolutely nothing in common.

Initially Christie believes she can make the marriage work. She has hope. But once again she finds herself playing second fiddle, this time to a husband who pays no attention to her needs, takes no notice of her likes and dislikes, and is not interested in any of the things that matter to her. He’s not violent, or abusive: in fact he’s quite charming most of the time. But he’s selfish, manipulative and domineering, inept rather than feckless, incapable of applying himself to anything or holding down a job, and unwilling to take advice.  

Bit by bit he isolates Christie, presumably to make her totally dependent on him, but he never provides for her financially, emotionally, or intellectually. First, of course, she has to give up her job in a travel agency – in 1930 it wasn’t acceptable for married women to work. Then, gradually, her friends are cut out of her life. He doesn’t care for the things she likes, and doesn’t want her to write (she has had poems published). And when their son is born, Ned is jealous of the time she spends with the baby and refuses to have anything to do with the child.

Eventually Christie acknowledges that if she is to survive with her soul intact she must escape. She's been married less than three years, and she's not yet 21, but she is determined to break free, and to take her son with her. She wants to live life on her own terms, to get a job, and to be independent, which must have been a bold and unusual stance when the novel was published in 1954. Set against that is the view of Ned’s mother, equally disappointed in her marriage, who stayed (with the aid of alcohol) because it was the thing to do. But I’m not sure you could say she made the best of things because she’s been so anaesthetised by life she no longer lets herself feel for anyone or anything.

Pamela Hansford Johnson’s career as a novelist covered a similar period to that of Margery Sharp, and they both portray some strong and unusual women. But PHJ is not as warm as Sharp. There’s an underlying sadness to some of her work, and she’s spikier, and not so interested in happy endings. She’s a very keen observer of people and relationships, and her characters are always credible, even if they’re not always likeable, but I get the feeling that she doesn’t really like people (rather like Julia’s daughter Susan in Sharp’s novel ‘The Nutmeg Tree’).

Pamela Hansford Johnson.

Despite that all her characters are memorable, even the minor ones, and she captures emotions in very few words, like Christie’s embarrassment when she discovers her ‘blind date’ is crippled (PHJ’s word, not mine – this was written long before the days of political correctness), or her anguish waiting for phone calls from Ned, wondering what his family will think of her, and what her aunt will think of him.

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.