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This book was first published in 1969.
At the beginning of the Second World War fifteen-year-old Bill is evacuated to Wales. He stays on a farm in the hills just above a small village. Bill does not like the Welsh countryside and he resents being sent away from London. When he receives a letter and some money from his father, acting on a sudden impulse, he catches a train back to London. He makes his way back to the house where he had lived with his aunt (his father is in the army and his mother is dead). He finds that there is an unexploded bomb in the garden behind the house and that all the people in the street have been evacuated. All this has a rather surprising effect on Bill. He suddenly feels free.
"Then suddenly I thrilled with excitement, felt it tingling the length of my spine. I was free. I was free. Nobody was going to look after me; nobody was going to worry, or plan for me, or make me eat on time, or delouse me ... I was going to manage on my own until my Dad came home."
And manage Bill does. He earns some money delivering papers until he finds a more lucrative job helping out on market stalls. At night he sleeps in shelters or down the underground. He eats in British War Restaurants or buys sandwiches from WVS canteen lorries. He manages quite well but he does feel lonely.
Then after a week he meets a girl called Julie. She is a little younger than he is. She has run away from a hostel where she was waiting to be evacuated to Canada.
So Julie and Bill join up together and, despite the war, they enjoy their newfound freedom. Julie even gets Bill to show her the sights of London - Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, Big Ben and St Paul's Cathedral. But eventually there is trouble. Teachers and other people in authority are sent round the shelters checking up on children. Bill and Julie have to find somewhere they will be safe from the authorities.
They go to the remains of Julie's aunt's bombed house. They make themselves reasonably comfortable - but of course they are not as safe as they were in the shelters. Then they find and look after an abandoned child, Dickie. Dickie falls ill. What are they to do? It looks as if Bill and Julie will need the help of adults after all. But if they take Dickie to a doctor they will be discovered? And as well as this dilemma they face the possiblity of the already damaged house collapsing around them.
This is an interesting story written around the London Blitz. The book is packed with detail, which really brings wartime London to life.
In Bill and Julie we have two teenagers enjoying their very first taste of adult freedom - in very unusual circumstances. There is also the developing relationship between Bill and Julie although this is stronger on Bill's side than on Julie's.
The story is told in the first person by Bill. This is not his real name. When Julie first asks him his name he lies and says "Bill" and later he never tells her his real name because he does not want her to know that he did not trust her. We are never told his real name.
The book gets its title from the willow herb or fireweed which grew on the sites of bombed buildings. Bill regards it as somehow "healing" the damage which had been done. "It is a strange plant; it has its own rugged sort of loveliness, and it grows only on the scars of ruin and flame."
The story ends with him looking at the bombed spaces around St. Paul's.
"I suppose they will build on this again, some day: but I like it best like this; grown over; healed."
Fireweed won the Book World Festival Award.
Jill Paton Walsh was awarded the CBE for services to Children's Literature in 1996.
Teenage
This book is about four young boys growing up in London in 1949. It shows just what can happen when people allow themselves to be consumed by bitterness and hatred.
On his last day at primary school Eddie is severely caned for something he did not do. His sense of outrage and injustice is far greater than would normally be expected in such a case. He also projects his feelings onto his class teacher because she did not defend him. Eddie also has problems at home with his step father.
His friends are horrified at the harshness of Eddie’s punishment. Two of them also have problems with their fathers. Andy discovers that his father is secretly having an affair with a woman at work while Bob's father, a big, muscular man who hates weakness, secretly regards his son's stutter as a sign of weakness.
Later in the summer Eddie involves his two friends. The three boys are in the church choir and are due to sing at the wedding of the headmaster and class teacher. Eddie refuses to sing and his friends go along with him –– with the result that they are all suspended from the choir. So now they have been let down by the vicar as well as by their teachers and parents.
Then Eddie and Andy find a friend who is someone they can look up to and idolise. The boys play on an old bomb site. They build a den and find their way into a cellar which they use for their headquarters. While playing there they meet Cap who holds them entranced with his stories of his heroism during the War. Bob and Manny are not impressed. Manny is angry because Cap is a supporter of Oswald Mosley and anti-Jewish. As for Bob, he is hostile right from the start because he thinks Cap is making it all up. Then Cap punishes Bob by locking him in the cellar.
Then Eddie and Andy find that Cap has let them down too. The bomb site is going to be flattened and houses built there instead. The boys are about to lose their favourite playground. And who is driving the bulldozer? Nonem other than Cap.
But the boys have a dreadful secret. They know that there is an unexploded bomb on the site. It is under their den. If they say nothing then Cap will be blown up and killed when he bulldozes the den. What are they going to do? Will they keep quiet and let the bomb explode or will they overcome their feelings of bitterness and tell about the bomb?
This story of how hatred and bitterness can affect a person is set against the background of post war Britain. There is the difference in the educational system with grammar and secondary modern schools –– and corporal punishment. There are little touches like the reference to the outdoor lavatory, sweet rationing and something simple for tea like pilchards. And the chief form of entertainment is going to the pictures. For the wider political scene there is the description of the Mosley march.
Told in the first person by Andy when he is an old man.
Extremely thought provoking.
Young adult.
This is the last book in the Swallowcliffe Hall trilogy.
London 1938. The Grace of the second book, Standing in the Shadows, is now a widow and a teacher living in London with her fourteen-year-old daughter Isobel and her two young sons. Isobel is recovering from tuberculosis and she is preparing to go down to Swallowcliffe Hall to recuperate with her grandmother –– the Polly of the first book.
Isobel feels strange at first but she soon comes to love the old house and the beautiful surrounding countryside. She meets, and becomes friendly with Andreas, a German Jewish boy who has come over to Britain with the Kindertransport. Isobel has no idea how Jews are treated in Germany but Andreas soon enlightens her and Isobel is determined to help somehow. The first thing is to get Andreas away from the surly shopkeeper with whom he is living. And then a way must be found to bring Andreas' mother and cousin to Britain. But Isobel soon finds that there are many people around her who do not welcome refugees.
That is one aspect of the book. Another is the change in the status of English country houses in the 1930s. Swallowcliffe Hall no longer has the grandeur it had in Victorian times. Death duties have taken their toll. The Hall is now run down and many of the rooms are shut up and no longer used. Then when part of the building is damaged in a fire Lord Vye tells Isobel that the family will not be able to afford the repairs. They will have to move to the dower house. Swallowcliffe Hall will gradually deteriorate and eventually be destroyed. Isobel is sad to think of such a thing happening.
Lastly we learn what happened to earlier characters in the series and all the loose ends are tied up. Isobel eventually learns why her mother has always stayed away from Swallowcliffe Hall. We meet again Harriet’s son Philip, now a doctor. He is now a widower and tries, tentatively, to resume his relationship with Grace. Finally we learn what happened to the infant son of Iris Baker, Ralph Chadwick. Indeed it is Ralph who finally manages to save the Hall.
This book rounds off the series and gives a good picture of the plight of refugees just before the Second World War. Should be read in conjunction with the comprehensive web site at http://www.swallowcliffehall.com/
Teenage girls.
This book was first published in 1992.
The children call her "Rosey Rubbish." She is a tramp or bag lady. She is filthy, dressed in rags and her hair hangs down in a greasy lump. Even worse her face is dreadfully scarred.
"All down one side of her face the flesh was twisted and malformed with scars from some injury long ago. Her head hung to one side like a dead thing ... Her eyes were vacant."
Tom is afraid of her but at the same time he feels that she expects him to do something for him. Tom sees her up at the ruins of the old farm with the dog Winnie. Then Tom is transported back to the time of the Second World War. He meets the farmer, Mr Nutter and the little girl May. He goes into the village and has trouble from the boys there who bully him but he escapes back to the farm where he spends an idyllic three days.
Back in his own time Tom tries to find out what has happened to the people he met in the past. The housekeeper, Mrs Pickles, is still alive and from her Tom hears of the tragedy which occurred. Tom tries to go back into the past to warn Mr Nutter and change the course of history. In so doing he learns Rosey's real name and finds out what has caused her to become the way she is.
This book tells of a terrible tragedy and the waste of a life, but it still manages to be a happy book. We hear of the pleasant time May and Tom have on the farm - riding the pig, milking the cows, collecting the eggs and brushing down the horses. And despite everything the book does end on a note of hope.
There is also much information about England at the time of the Second World War. The food is different. It is the first time Tom has tasted full cream milk. He thinks it "tastes of cows." Then, down at the village,
"The fields around him had more flowers, longer grass. Even the air was different. It tasted of soot."
There is a detailed description of a field being ploughed by horses.
We are also given details of the clothes people wear. The boys in the village wear suits with ill fitting baggy trousers and they wear wooden clogs instead of shoes. The village policeman is allowed to hit Tom.
This books really evokes the atmosphere of the 1940's but it is even more a story of how we treat people who are disturbed or mentally ill.
Sensitive and touching and well worth reading.
Teenage
This book was first published in 1990 and has been reprinted many times since.
Newcastle 1942. Twelve year old Harry Baguley survives an air raid but thinks that his parents and sister have all been killed. He decides to run away. 'Before anyone else found him, began to ask him questions, and do things to him.' Above all else Harry does not want to be sent to Cousin Elsie.
The first night he wanders down to the beach and spends the night under an upturned boat. He makes friends with a stray dog -- a sort of short-legged Alsatian with kind eyes. Harry calls the dog Don and they become travelling companions.
He has his bankbook with him and he withdraws his money. Now he always has enough money for fish and chips. But Harry knows he must leave Newcastle. 'Away. Up the coast. To where there were no people to bother them. To where there was plenty of food.' So Harry and Don begin their journey northwards along the coast of Northumberland. He sleeps in a haystack and then he stays for some days in a makeshift cabin with a beachcomber. He moves on and takes up residence in an abandoned pillbox and makes friends with the soldiers at an anti-gun station. Finally he stays with a teacher, Mr Murgatroyd whose wife has died and whose son was killed when his ship was destroyed. Harry helps to fill the gap in Mr Murgatroyd's life. But Mr Mugatroyd says that '... people have to be informed. Everything's got to be regular and above board.' He takes Harry back to Newcastle and Harry finds that his parents and sister were not killed after all. Harry goes back to his family but Mr Mugatroyd takes Don and Harry says he will return to Mr Mugatroyd for the school holidays.
This is really the story of two journeys -- the actual physical journey up the coast, and also a kind of spiritual journey from city boy to country boy. Harry learns about the country from both Alfie, one of the soldiers, and also from Mr Murgatroyd. When he is finally reunited with his family Harry finds that he does not want to stay with them.
'It was too much. On the one side, there was Don and the open air, and the great winding coast of Northumberland. His whole kingdom that he'd found for himself, made for himself. On the other hand these shabby angry bossy people in their digusting Ridges house.'
There are dramatic descriptions of air raids. Information about the war years is trickled into the story -- rationing, clothes coupons, the blackout, war news about Rommel. There are magnificient descriptions of the coast and wildlife of Northumberland. There is a breathtaking episode when Harry and Don are caught by the tide on the Lindisfarne Causeway but manage to reach one of the towers of refuge. The part of the book which I like best is when Harry and Mr Mugatroyd climb Hedgehope and they see Lindisfarne, the Farne Islands and the mountains of the Lake District all spread out before them.
This book won the Guardian Children's Fiction Award and was highly commended for the Carnegie medal. Personally I would say that it is a very worthy read for teenagers. There is a section which helps to push this book into an older category. Harry is involved with a paedophile. Nothing actually happens and the language is not too explicit. Even so I would say to parents and teachers. Read the book yourself first and make up your own mind whether it is suitable for your own children -- and for your board of governors.
Teenage
This novel is based on a true incident.
In 1940 the ship the City of Benares was taking ninety
evacuee children to Canada. For the first part of the voyage they
had an escort but once they were several hundred miles out into
the Atlantic it was judged that they were now out of the danger
zone. In other words it was too far for the German u-boots to
track them and the naval escort left. It was then that the torpedo
struck.
Of the original ninety children only thirteen survived, including
six boys who survived eight days in a lifeboat.
This is a fictionalised account of their story. The children in
the book are entirely fictional characters but their story is
founded on fact. In the story the name of the ship is changed
to the Karachi.
The story starts in the early days of the London Blitz. Once the
bombing starts Jimmy Smith's parents take the opportunity to send
him to Canada and he is put on a train for Liverpool. Once there
he meets some of the children who are to be his travelling companions.
They go through some of the preliminaries and the reader is given
some insight into the poverty of much of the population of England
at that time. Some of the children's clothes are so tattered that
they have to be discarded at once and new ones issued and one
boy is so malnourished that the medical officers suspect that
he may have tuberculosis.
Then they finally board the ship. Again there are more indications
of the usual privations of their lives. Jimmy has never seen a
bathroom before. In his house they have only a tin tub which is
taken down once a week. And then such a thing as a menu is completely
strange to the children and they do not realise that they are
to choose only one dish from each section.
They begin to settle down to shipboard life. The escorts keep
them busy with games and activities. Then there is lifeboat drill
and they are warned to keep their lifebelts on at all times but
Jimmy cannot imagine a ship the size of the Karachi ever
being torpedoed.
At last it is estimated that they are out of the danger zone.
The naval escort leaves and the escorts begin to relax. Then,
that very night, the ship is torpedoed. The escorts manage to
get most of the children aboard the lifeboats before the ship
sinks.
Jimmy finds himself in a lifeboat with five other boys, a girl
from first class who has been pulled out of the sea, one of the
lady escorts, a priest and some of the crew. They are soon separated
from the other lifeboats. As the ship was struck in the middle
of the night the children are all in pyjamas which are quite inadequate
for the freezing temperatures. They sail through a storm and it
often seems that they will be engulfed by mountainous waves. There
is very little food which has to be strictly rationed. Even worse
is the scarcity of water. Because of his meagre water allowance
Jimmy's throat is so dry that he cannot eat the biscuits he is
given.
The dangers, misery and deprivation of the time in the lifeboat
are realistically described and the reader can almost feel the
cold and the wet and share the children's despair as they wonder
if they will ever be rescued. The characters are well portrayed
and really come to life. Apart from Jimmy there is clever Keith
still trying to come to terms with the recent death of his parents
in a bombing, Sidney bravely trying to bear the pain of frostbite
and George, the survivor who does so much to keep them all going.
Compelling reading indeed. A worthy winner of the Lancashire Children's
Book Award.
12 to adult
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