Wild Strawberries - Sweet as Saccharine...

The Leslies, who star in Angela Thirkell’s Wild Strawberries, lead a charmed life in their beautiful ancestral home, cared for by faithful servants, and looked up to by local villagers. There is no shortage of cash, no nastiness, no rain, and everything is bathed in a golden glow. It’s all as sweet as saccharine and as frothy as cappuccino, but very enjoyable nonetheless, although it did leave me feeling a need to read something with a little more bite and substance.

First published in 1934 (a year after High Rising, which seemed sharper, and which I love unreservedly), it portrays the kind of world that Thirkell knew. It’s hard to imagine that world now, with its strict social codes and class structures and the deference of working folk towards those higher up the scale. For example, I’ll bet you wouldn’t find a local vicar these days hanging on to start his service until the arrival of the local gentry, but that’s just what happens here. Not only that, but when the Leslies do arrive (late), scatty Lady Emily takes a long time to settle herself and her family, and she continues to talk to them throughout the service.

Lady Emily, who heads three generations of Leslies, is delightfully dotty. Vague and forgetful, she is constantly in a muddle, always mislaying her possessions and getting hold of the wrong end of the stick in conversations. She is always drawing up complicated plans to organise the lives of her family, servants, visitors and villagers, in the belief the belief that she is helping them – but everyone ignores her efforts and goes their own way, just as they have always done. The blurb on the back of my copy (Virago, 2012), describes her as a matriarch, which I always think implies a woman of great force and determination, and Lady Emily is neither. She may interfere, but since no-one takes any notice, she does no harm, and she is incapable of imposing her will on others – indeed, for much of the time she seems to have little will of her own, fluttering from idea to idea, and from one activity to another, without ever settling. But she’s so warm and friendly, and kind and caring, that it’s impossible not to like her.

Her husband is much quieter and calmer, who tolerates his wife’s idiosyncrasies, and is occasionally exasperated by her actions, but the relationship between them is actually quite touching. We don’t see a lot of him, and we don’t see a lot of the two of them together, but there is genuine affection between them, and they still grieve for the loss of their eldest son in the First World War, and appear to support each other in their loss. 

Their family comprises surviving sons John, a steady, hardworking widower, and idle, feckless David, who has an eye for a pretty girl but no intention of settling down, and their beautiful, placid daughter Agnes, as well as her three young children, and grandson Martin who, as the son of the dead eldest son, will inherit the estate.

Then there’s the servants: Nannie, Ivy the nursemaid, Macpherson the agent, Gudgeon the butler, Conque, Lady Emily’s French maid (universally known as Conk), and various others who make brief appearances but have no role to play in the story. And there’s a full cast of other characters, including the vicar; the Boulles (a French family who have hired his home for the summer); assorted villagers, and one of David’s friends, highly educated, cold-hearted Miss Stevenson, one of the few women to hold a responsible job in radio.

Wild Strawberries also features Mr Holt, a social parasite who spends his life sponging off the rich and famous, inviting himself to stay at their comfortable homes, and to be ferried around by their chauffeurs, enjoying their food and drink, demanding the attention he feels he deserves. He has built a reputation as a gardening expert (although he has no garden of his own) and it was this expertise which provided his opening into society, when he was younger and wittier than he is now. Thirkell gives us a rather cruel – and sad – picture of an ageing man, a bore and a sponger, who is no longer welcomed by people he thought were friends.

And, of course, there is pretty Mary Preston, the kind-hearted, penniless niece of Agnes’ husband, who has been invited to Rushwater (the family estate) for the summer, and promptly becomes infatuated with David, although Lady Emily and Agnes think she would make an ideal wife for John…

Novelist Angela Thirkell.

The plot, such as it is, is not strong. It’s another of those novels where not a lot happens, and the focus is very much on the small, everyday things in life, and the relationships between the characters, but that’s very much the kind of novel I always enjoy. Here the portrayal of the life led by the landed gentry in the early 1930s is superb, and there are some brilliant cameo portraits of the lesser characters, like the horrendous, overbearing Madame Boulle, who is convinced that everything French is best, and that she is always right (she reminded me of the German girl who once stayed with us on an inter-school exchange, with the difference, of course, that our little fraulein believed Germany reigned supreme).

In his introduction (which I looked at after I completed the novel), Alexander McCall Smith) compares Wild Strawberries to a Noel Coward play. Personally, I don’t think Thirkell is as witty as Coward, but as I can see what he means, because much of the dialogue is very mannered and stylised, and as I read I could see the story unfolding before me like a Merchant Ivory film.

Cheerfulness Breaks In

Oh dear, over the last few months I’ve missed writing posts when I’ve been at my mother’s, and when we’ve been away, and I don’t seem to be able to get back into the swing of things at all. I’ve even read less than normal, which is unusual for me,  but now I’m taking stock of things, trying to get organised and catch up, and aiming to try and write ahead of myself, if that makes sense. Hopefully, if I have posts in hand, I can schedule them to appear if I have to dash off to Mum at short notice.

So, after a bit of an absence, here is a review of sorts on Angela Thirkell’s Cheerfulness Breaks In, which I enjoyed every bit as much as ‘High Rising’, although I gather some readers don’t regard it as one of her best novels.

Here we meet some old friends, like independent novelist Mrs Morland, her friend Amy Birkett, and Amy’s husband, the headmaster of exclusive Southbridge School. But there are a host of new and equally memorable characters. And whilst the humour is still there, the tone is slightly darker, and there’s an underlying sadness, for ‘Cheerfulness Breaks In’ opens in the late summer of 1939, during the last few weeks of peace, before the start of the war, when well-heeled, middle-class families were still leading their cosy, comfortable lives, not knowing just how much things would change during the coming conflict. To start with, I thought Thirkell’s characters are all blissfully unaware of what lies ahead, but on reflection I think they know – after all, most of them are old enough to remember the First World War, and they’re not stupid. However, the only way they can cope with that knowledge is through a kind of under-stated British jokiness, and pretending to close their eyes to what is happening.

As the months pass we see how small village communities are affected by the early stages of WW2. Southbridge, an acclaimed public school, must share space with pupils from London’s Hosiers’ Boys Foundation School, its left-wing head and his serious-minded staff. Elsewhere, residents take in evacuees from three city primary schools, and a nursery is moved in with a family in one of the big houses. And there are other newcomers in addition to the evacuees – European refugees who have fled Europe and the threat of Nazism and are regarded as strange and exotic, even more difficult to understand than Londoners.

There are bound to be tensions between locals and incomers, but the rivalry between the visiors comes as a surprise. Despite their differences, the children settle down and the adults mostly learn to get along with each other, but there are practical problems to be dealt with, like the infestations of headlice which so shock the villagers, and any parent who has ever tried to get rid of these horrid little creatures will have every sympathy with their efforts, which seem doomed to failure.

Women hold weekly sewing parties, where they hand-stitch clothes to be sewn for evacuee children (and very drab and uninspiring they are too, but there obviously wasn’t much in the way of choice when it came to materials), and a canteen is set up where many of the children are fed each lunch time with good, wholesome food, which sounds as uninspiring as the clothes.

Gas masks are distributed, blackouts are installed in all buildings, there is talk of rationing as shortages begin to bite, and girls who have are between school and marriage become volunteer nurses at the local hospital, where patients have been sent home in readiness for war casualties.

The book is very much of its time. Foreigners are viewed with suspicion, servants are grumpy, and women are the second sex, subservient to their menfolk, expected to look good, but not to be too clever – or, if they are, not to show it. All good feminists will feel their hackles rise, but appearances are deceptive and some of these women are tougher – and more astute -than they look, and have subtle ways of getting their own way and dealing with others.

Thirkell has a nice line in social satire, and the book is very funny: the account of dim but beautiful Rose Birkett’s wedding is a joy to read, as is the description of a Christmas party held for the young evacuees.

I suppose the book could be described as a comedy of manners, but it’s the characters and their relationships with each other that make the novel so enjoyable, and the way they focus on the small things in life, rather than the dramatic world events going on around them.

It reminded me a lot of my mother’s stories about the war, when a Catholic girls’ school moved to the area where she lived, and I thought it was interesting to compare Thirkell’s story with others about the same period, like ‘Henrietta’s War’, by Joyce Dennis, EM Delafeld’s ‘The Provincial Lady in Wartime’, or Mollie Panter Downe’s ‘Good Evening, Mrs Craven’.

Falling Leaves in High Rising!

Falling leaves... A cover - and some pages!

I'd never heard of Angela Thirkell until I read a post by Claire at The Captive Reader, who is a great enthusiast and has written about her on several occasions. Since Claire seems to enjoy many of my own favourite novels, I find I usually like her recommendations. So when I spotted a vintage Penguin edition of High Rising (number 339) at the top of a sack full of books destined for recycling, I just had to rescue it – but I would have to say I have never, ever read a book in such poor condition. Few of the pages were still attached to the spine, but I carefully gathered up the loose leaves and counted them to check they were all present. They were, but the book is way beyond the stage where glue and Sellotape might effect some kind of repair. Sadly, I fear, honorable burial (or, in this case recycling) really is the only option.

Now charity and second-hand sellers often speak about 'pre-loved' goods, and when I see a book in pristine condition I always doubt it's been read, let alone loved – but this book has obviously been read, and read, and read. It's so well thumbed, worn, and brown with age that it's barely a book any longer, but you can tell it's been much loved, and I'm proud to be its last reader. The downside to all this is that I loved 'High Rising' so much I will have to buy another copy which isn't falling to pieces.

It's set in the imaginary county of Barsetshire (as created by Anthony Trollope), and the main protagonist is widowed Laura Morland, popular author of what she describes as 'good bad books'. Left in dire financial straits when her husband dies, she makes a living the only way she knows – by writing. Her mysteries all take place the wholesale and retail dress business, although her own sense of fashion is less than perfect, revolving as it does around 'hurried bargains in the sales', and her hastily pinned-up hair is always falling down.

Her success gives her financial security and she can afford 'a small flat in London, and a reasonable little house in the country, and a middle-class car'. The only thing that makes Laura occasionally admire herself a little is that she has a secretary, a part-time secretary, but a secretary nevertheless. Success as a writer also gives her independence, and she has no intention of becoming romantically involved with anyone. She enjoys her lifestyle, and appreciates her good fortune. “She was quite contented, and never took herself seriously, though she took a lot of trouble over her books,” writes Thirkell.

Much of the humour in the book comes from her relationship with Tony, the youngest of her four sons, and the only one who is still at school (the others have left home). She loves him dearly, but at the same time is irritated by his exuberance, his constant chatter, his untidiness, his inability to stay clean and tidy – and his obsession with trains!

Laura's circle of friends includes her secretary Anne Todd, who has spent years caring for her difficult mother who suffers from a heart condition and what is probably dementia. Then there is Dr Ford, whose admiration for Anne knows no bounds. But Anne harbours a secret passion for George Knox, who writes serious historical books and is being kept away from his friends by his ultra-efficient new secretary, mad Miss Grey, aka the Incubus, who has set her sights on marrying the boss...

Meanwhile Laura is convinced that her publisher Adrian and George's shy daughter Sibyl are made for each other, but by bringing them together she paves the way for scary Miss Grey to move in on George. Finally, it's left to Anne to dream up a scheme to repel the invader, with help from Laura's friend Amy who, as the wife of Tony's headmaster, has had experience of dealing with a mad secretary.

The novel was published in 1933, and Thirkell's portrayal of village life, with its minute social distinctions, is very funny and beautifully nuanced, and I love her writing, and the literary allusions. But it's the characters who stay in your mind, because they are so keenly observed. It's a light-hearted, beautifully written thoroughly enjoyable read, and I heaved a sigh of satisfaction when I finished, and started trawling the net looking for more of her work.