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. 

Farewell Victoria

My vintage Penguin was
published in 1945, and has
a dancing Penguin logo,
used for a short period.

Farewell Victoria, by TH White is a paean to bygone era and must, I think, have been something of a curiosity, even when it was first published in 1933. It's interesting for its record of rural customs in Victorian times, and the feudal existence of people living in a great house, but I felt it was less successful as a novel. Mundy - groom, soldier, coachman, hackney carriage driver – is dying at the age of 83, and looks back on his long life, the momentous events he has seen, and the people he has known.

Somehow there is a lack of empathy for the characters, and they never really come to life, but perhaps that is White's intention, since people and events are viewed from a distance, by a dying man, and what emerges is a series of moments in time: dusty, faded snapshots of the past retrieved from his memory. Here he is at the start of the story, the eight-year-old son of a groom, already good with horses, running errands in the stables, watching the children of the house, trying out horses for them, and caring for their animals.

Time passes and we see him fall in love, only to lose his wife and surviving child to his gamekeeper friend. By the 1870s he is a soldier in the Zulu Wars, and by 1901 when Queen Victoria dies, he marries his second wife, Alice, a cook. As the rest of the world moves into the age of the motor car, Mundy works as a coachman for an eccentric Russian countess, and following her death some 20 years later he sets himself up in business as a hackney carriage driver, with a horse-drawn vehicle.

Mundy himself is known throughout by his surname (although at one stage his brother refers to him as Johnnie), which seemed to distance him even further, annoyed me, though I suppose it shouldn't, since servants were never called by their Christian names, and there are plenty of books with characters who are known by their surname. And I hated the way White compares Mundy and the other lower-class characters to animals. Mundy is like a monkey, his first wife Ellen has kittenish qualities, and Foxwell, the charismatic gamekeeper, is an otter. From what little I could find out about White I think he regarded animals and working men as noble creatures and may have viewed as complimentary, but personally I found it patronising and demeaning – it dehumanises people.

Towards the end of his life, while he is still working, Mundy is described as:

An old man came slowly from behind one of the horses in a stall, wiping his hands upon the sack he wore for an apron. The hair was of that singular whiteness which is seldom achieved except in wigs; the face, wrinkled and fallen in till it was practically a skull, was the skull of an old monkey. It was a gentle face, of happiness and sympathy, that of a domestic animal, such as is called a friend to man.

I think that's horrible when he's talking about a fellow human-being. Overall, White seems to have had an idealised image of the Victorian period (and the past in general) as well as the 'Working Man' who was proud, independent, loyal to his betters, and determined not to accept state hand-outs. He acknowledges the social problems that existed in the 1930s, and says: “The end of the Victorian era had banished man from the world.” But he's no social reformer, and you get the impression he'd welcome a return to the old paternalistic system.

His account of the carnage of the Zulu Wars is very much of its time, with no effort to explain the issues involved, and to see the Zulus as anything other than a savage people in a primitive land, and all I can say is that hopefully we have moved on.

Novelist TH White

Where White comes into his own is when he writes about nature and rural life. A rabbit in the early morning mist; the gamekeeper doing up his gaiters as prepares for the day ahead, and the grooms soaping saddles and leathers and washing the horses, are all lovingly described. He does, however, have a tendency to indulge in some over-blown, fanciful writing – a 'toilsome angler' sticks in my mind, as does a dragonfly flying 'with the action of those aeroplanes which were still within the womb of time'.

I didn't hate 'Farewell Victoria', and I'm not sorry I read it, but it is very different to 'The Once and Future King, or 'Mistress Masham's Repose' (although his keen interest in nature is apparent in both). It lacks the quirky charm and humour of both those books, and somehow seems to hark back to an earlier age, not just in the subject matter, but in the way its written, and the opinions expressed. From reading this I had the feeling that if I had met Terence Hanbury White I would not have liked him, and that feeling was compounded by an interview with Robert Robinson, which is available at the BBC archive http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/writers/12242.shtml 

Beauty Tips From An Old Penguin

Looking beautiful in the 1950s must have been a full-time job for a woman. Even at night there was no let-up. You were advised to sleep with an elasticated band tied ‘fairly tightly’ under your chin and knotted on top of the head (to prevent a double chin),  to don bed socks and cotton gloves (so the creams smeared on your feet and hands would not mark the bedlinen), and to brush your eyelashes with rum and castor oil before retiring. All this – and more – I have gleaned from a yellowing edition of The Penguin Book of Health and Beauty Recipes, by Olga Golbæk, with the most delightful illustrations by Jennifer Rope. Originally published in Denmark, this English translation was issued in 1957 as a Penguin Handbook (PH25), when it cost half a crown, or 2/6 - that’s 25p for those of you who are too young to know about ‘old’ money.

The book is arranged in alphabetical order, from ankles to wrinkles, and is best summed up by a quote from the preface, which states: Its purpose is to persuade women that they can look nice and keep fit by using homely recipes and remedies rather than the expensive products of the beauty-parlours. The author, described as a Danish beauty specialist and journalist, includes a lot of advice which still holds good today, but some of her ‘recipes’ sound quite dubious. There’s a lot of emphasis on ‘slimming’ lotions, potions, creams and baths, which would land a modern writer in a lot of trouble, because you can no longer make that kind of claim for a product, which is a jolly good thing really, especially when you look at some of Golbæk’s ingredients.

For example, there is Goulard’s Lotion which, according to the book, is lead lotion, so how safe would that be? And would ammonia in the bath really be good for your skin (let alone the surface of a plastic bath)? And I can’t say I’d fancy adding turpentine to the bath water either. And should anyone be using iodide of potassium, potassium bromide, potassium chloride, scilla maritima and ground lily roots in home-made cosmetics? Then there’s the most scary recipe for hair bleach, with an alarming warning about not keeping it in a corked bottle in case it explodes...

Tying an elasticated band around the head to prevent a double chin

There’s also a pretty worrying ‘apple-a-day diet’ which seems to .involve eating nothing but grated apple for an entire week, which is not to be recommended, because crash diets are not good for you. In the dim and distant past I once tried an egg and grapefruit diet, and another  time I attempted to only eat bananas for seven days: on both occasions I felt very ill indeed, and the weight I lost went back on within 24 hours as soon as I resumed normal eating. There was also a wine diet, about which the less said the better. Suffice to say I have never been fond of wine since then...

Anyway, enough of my dieting mishaps. Let’s get back to the book. I just love the hints and tips, although I doubt I shall follow any of them. Take the eyes for example, where the author tells us: “You should rinse your eyes twice daily, a practice which not only makes them more beautiful, but helps to preserve their vigour.” And what do you wash them with, I hear you ask. Golbæk offers various solutions, but I think the mix of camomile flowers, tea, rosewater and witch-hazel sounds nicest.

A facial compress is made from layers of gauze soaked in infusions.

There’s an amazing remedy for corns, where you to soak thin slices of onion and two slices of white bread in vinegar for 24 hours, then put the bread and the onions on the corns and wrap gauze round them. “By next day the pain will have gone and the corns be ready to be removed,” writes Golbæk, adding: “Sleep in socks to avoid soiling the sheets.” Would it were that easy! To help soften and sooth sore feet she recommends soaking them in a ‘soft porridge’ of oatmeal and lemon juice, then massaging them with camphor oil – just imagine how bad that would smell!

Many of the ‘recipes’ for bath, hair and skin treatments are centuries-old, and may well work – and you’d certainly have fun making them, especially those using fresh fruit and vegetables. Failing all else, you could probably eat some of them, as the author makes generous use of milk, cream, butter, eggs, porridge oats and bran.

Women were urged to wash their eyes twice a day, using
home-made lotions.

Surprisingly, some recommendations are for things that have once again become popular, like massage rollers for the back, and juicing fruit and vegetables. Instructions for exercises are very sound, and the tips on cleansing and moisturising skin are also sensible, but the whole thing seems to be taken to excess. There are exercises, routines and preparations for every part of the body: elbows must be scrubbed and soaked to keep them soft and white, ankles massaged with special creams to stop them thickening, and the bust splashed with cold water after a bath.

I cannot see how any woman ever found the time to follow this kind of beauty regimen, or why she would want to, especially if she had children or a job (and don’t tell me that women didn’t work in the 1950s, because many of them did). Perhaps they just followed certain things and ignored the rest, or perhaps it was only well-heeled, middle-class women, who took it seriously. At any rate, I feel sorry for all those men, who must have experienced a terrible shock when they saw their beautiful bride in night attire for the first time, with chin strap, bed socks, gloves – and smelling like mothballs!

Elbows had to be scrubbed and soaked once a week.