Tag elizabeth goudge

Going Back (To Go Forward)

unpopularuk Leave a comment

Last month I wrote about discovering Elizabeth Goudge through her children’s novel ‘Smoky-House’ and made a comment about looking forward to reading more of her books for adults as well as for children. Well, in the six weeks or so that have passed since then I’m pleased to say that I’ve ticked that box to some extent, taking in two of her novels for adults and another of her children’s books. The first of her ‘grown up’ novels that I read was one that doesn’t seem to be talked about much, even amongst Goudge aficionados. First published in 1941 (a year after ‘Smoky-House’), ‘The Castle On The Hill’ is set in 1940 and is, as much as anything, another of those tremendous views into the home front of England during the early years of WW2. I read the book shortly after finishing Betty Miller’s 1945 novel ‘On The Side Of The Angels’ and together these two make for a compelling double act, both being the kind of novel where one cannot help but get busy with the underlining pencil as passages and exchanges ring with remarkable clarity and resonance. Miller’s novel is rather more world weary and brutally frank than Goudge’s but, being written after another four years of wartime, this is perhaps understandable, not to say inevitable. War is a central character in Miller’s book (it could hardly be otherwise) but perhaps of more interest is the way in which she explores notions of identity and faithfulness, particularly in relevance to what kind of world one might hope to emerge from the ruins. Characters chaff against each other, conflicts sparking from physical passions and emotional attractions as much as, if not more than from differing ideologies. Questions of sexual identity are certainly central to Miller’s novel and in some ways might be seen to foreshadow the kinds of obsessions seen in the 21st Century. Crucially though, it feels like Miller is sending us a warning from the past with regard to this Cult Of The Individual. “‘The courage to be yourself. Isn’t that important?’” asks one character, echoing what, in the approaching decades of Pop Cultural Marketing would become the central thrust of both dominant and counter-cultures. The question in Miller’s hands is answered with en empathic No. “’On the contrary. We’ve got to learn how not to be ourselves – to have the courage, the strength to be something else. Otherwise there never will be any progress.’” (My emphasis). There is much to be taken from Miller’s novel, even (especially) at this point in the 21st Century, but this puncturing of the dominant idea of the late 20th and early 21st Centuries feels to me to be the most poignant and perceptive.

Elizabeth Goudge’s ‘The Castle On The Hill’ may be less caustic than Miller’s later novel and may too be a more obviously patriotic and propagandist text, yet this notion of individuality being necessarily subservient to some Greater Power filters powerfully throughout the book. The titular castle on the hill is modelled on Berry Pomeroy in Devon, just a stone’s throw from the village of Marldon whose setting and village pub inspired ‘Smoky-House’. Once again Goudge successfully conjures a sense of place, her feel for both the physical and spiritual essence of landscape marvellously on display. The castle and the landscape inhabit the novel with a vivid presence, but it is the characters with whom Goudge peoples the story that carry the weight. Whilst using the displacement of children from London as a vehicle for the clashing of social class and economic wealth (and lack of), Goudge is nevertheless wary of falling too far into the clutches of stereotypes and cliches. There is necessarily an element of this however: the aged patriarch who would really rather exist in the past; the ideological young aristocratic heir who rails against inequality and the suffering of The Poor; the poor who are quite happy thank you very much with their place in the world and who’ll thank you for not being so condescending; the foreign refugee seeking safety in the arms of England (Queen Elizabeth’s prayer before the Armada is invoked here, something the Jingoistic 21st Century ‘Reformers’ would do well to reflect on); the pacifist grappling with what pacifism means in the context of “no ordinary struggle of rival imperialisms but a fight to save the very things that had been won by man’s integrity.” And of course The Children who see everything through the peculiar lens of fairytales (the Pied Piper references might be a little obvious but are still charmingly done).

If it were not all so marvellously written then the book might indeed feel a little like a parody of itself, for as well as this assortment of characters there are the obvious themes of tragedy, sacrifice, loss and love threading throughout. That it rises above the ordinary is certainly down to Goudge’s talent for telling stories in an entertaining yet intelligent manner, placing observations and insight into the words of her characters with a remarkable lightness of touch. My underlining pencil needed a good deal of sharpening, I can tell you.

Through everything too there ripple the deep waters of Goudge’s faith. It seems like God is never far away in her novels and whilst this might be something that would have guaranteed their rejection by my younger self, these days I find it all rather gratifying. Not so much in the sense of Organised Religion (which still seems to me to be largely an example of humans seeking a means to obtain personal and structural power) but rather in the sense of God as connective glue, if you like. Indeed, as ‘The Castle On The Hill’ nears its conclusion, Goudge seems to acknowledge this by echoing that quote from Betty Miller’s book in saying: “Separateness is only an illusion, a sort of curse on us because of sin. We refused to be children of God, we wouldn’t be brothers of each other, and so there was egotism and the hell of loneliness. But it’s only an imaginary hell. You can break out of it if you break away from yourself.” (again, my emphasis). Or, as Goudge almost immediately puts it more plainly: “life is God and life is love”.

Amen to that.

Unsurprisingly God threads throughout the other Goudge novel for adults that I have recently read, as befits a story that is part of a ‘Cathedral Trilogy’. The 1936 novel ‘A City of Bells’ is the first installment and is another marvellous evocation of place, in this case the Somerset Cathedral town of Wells, where Goudge herself lived with her father the Reverend Henry Leighton Goudge who taught in the cathedral school there. The novel is essentially a piece of Romantic Fiction masquerading as a book of faith and place, or perhaps vice versa. Either way it is both a charming period piece that evokes its late 19th/early 20th Century setting and a source of ageless wisdom, as the best pieces of art always seem to be. Once again Goudge’s feel for place inhabits the pages as the streets and buildings of Wells and its surrounding landscape are captured in deft strokes. Visiting the town even today one would recognise almost all of what Goudge describes, although artisanal cafes and bijou restaurants might sadly have replaced the bookshops and fruit sellers. Certainly the cathedral and the Bishop’s Palace are most likely essentially unchanged in the 90 years since Goudge penned her novel, and I dare say that some of the characteristics of the clergy remain largely intact also. As with ‘The Castle On The Hill’, it is as much the interplay between these characters that lends pleasure to ‘A City Of Bells’ as its delicious sense of place, allowing explorations of ingrained attitudes of class distinction as well as the more mundane (or alternatively more divine) pursuit of love and the sense of belonging.

From my limited knowledge of Goudge’s work these seem to be common themes, ones that she prods and explores in a subtly different manner each time. There is also, as in ‘The Castle On The Hill’, the idea of the neglected/misunderstood (musical) artist who doubles in both instances as a father figure to ‘lost’ children. In the case of ‘A City of Bells’ this child is Henrietta, and if the denouement is ultimately as eye-rollingly obvious as it is unbelievable then this is all to the good, for Goudge is certainly one for operating within the expectations and structures of the fairytale. She does this with a tremendously deft turn of phrase too, as the style of her writing shifts almost imperceptibly as episodes switch focus from adult to child and back again. It is all exquisitely done and lends ‘A City of Bells’ a unique charm as it seems to oscillate magically between two worlds.

If ‘A City of Bells’ inhabits, at times, the liminal space between the worlds of childhood and adulthood, then the 1942 ‘sequel’ of ‘Henrietta’s House’ unashamedly opts entirely for the fairytale form of childrens’ fiction. Set once more in the familiar surroundings of Wells (or the fictional Torminster if you prefer), ‘Henrietta’s House’ is set a few years after ‘A City of Bells’ and reunites us with many of the characters first met there. Inevitably when reading the book as an adult one can feel a degree of irritation at the unflagging ‘innocence’ of the writing style. This is no criticism of the book but rather an acknowledgment of the pleasures of growing up/old. If ‘Henrietta’s House’ feels unrelentingly charming to the extent of being ever so slightly sickly sweet then this in turn is arguably a sign of its success as piece of welcome escapism for children in the midst of WW2. If the idea of characters becoming lost in a fairy netherworld of water filled caverns and flower lined bowers, eventually to (hardly a spoiler alert, but still…) emerge more pleasant and rounded individuals in a Happy Ever After world of optimism makes you shudder then ‘Henrietta’s House’ may not be for you. Or then again, it may be just what you need. It certainly cheered me up, and I admit that I am looking forward to catching up with the ‘sequel’, the Christmas themed ‘Sister of the Angels’ (actually published in 1939, which perhaps makes the idea of it being a sequel a trifle confusing) at the appropriate time of year. As for the other two ‘Cathedral trilogy’ books (‘Towers In The Mist’ and ‘The Dean’s Watch’), well these are certainly on my ‘to be read’ shelves and I look forward to getting to them with eager anticipation.

Treasure Hunting

unpopularuk 1 Comment

There can be a lot of unpleasantness on The Social Media these days and I understand why many sensibly minded folks are leaving it behind. I have done so with much of it, but do occasionally find some pleasures in the Facebook universe. The other month one of those ‘recommended’ pages cropped up, this time for ‘Old Torbay’ or suchlike. This particular post showed a ‘then and now’ split photograph of a garage site sitting, as they often did in their infancy, in the corner of a road junction. At the time I only vaguely noted that the garage in question was on the approach to the village of Marldon and that a pub called ‘Ye Olde Smokey House’ was pictured in the middle distance along one of the lanes. So far so unremarkable. However, in some kind of strange reversal of 21st Century normality, in which one’s experiences in the ‘real’ world become mirrored almost immediately with advertisements and ‘suggestions’ in the online one (evidence suggests that it is not paranoia to think that devices are literally listening to us and feeding the algorithms) a few weeks later I found myself reading a children’s book where both the village of Marldon and its pub took centre stage. Elizabeth Goudge’s ‘Smoky House’ was originally published in 1940 but has found itself reissued by the delightful Girls Gone By publishing venture and is a thoroughly charming read. Set in the early 19th Century, ‘Smoky House’ blends historical fiction with mild fantasy, and if the inclusion of fairy folks (‘The Good People’) might test the patience of our more cynical ages then I imagine it being remarkably appealing to youngsters reading it at the onset of WW2. The historical fiction elements involve the free-trading community (don’t call ‘em smugglers) of the fictional village of Faraway in Devon, and the action revolves around the village inn and the Treguddick family. At the time of her writing the book Goudge had recently moved to Marldon, and so the village and its surrounding landscape are as much the stars of the book as anything else. I believe that the inn in question (‘Ye Olde Smokey House’) was an inspiration at least in terms of name, but it was certainly not always called this, a map from the late 19th Century showing it as ‘The Ship Inn’. Perhaps too Goudge, whilst lifting the name from ‘Ye Olde Smokey House’, envisioned her fictional inn as being more like the Church House Inn at the centre of the old Marldon village. It is fun to play these games of reference, and whilst we have been recently enjoying watching Ben Robinson exploring ‘Villages By The Sea’ on the telly, it would be even more fun to see him make a series where he looks at the architectural and cultural history of inns, hotels and pubs around the country. The show might be called ‘Time At The Bar’, and the inns of Marldon would be a good place to start.

Goudge’s story then is certainly in part about the locale of Marldon and is certainly too about the historical context of the free-trading culture of the early 19th Century. As much as these, however, the story is one of values and identity, of the weird wobbly liminal space between childhood and young adulthood where questions of faith and belief are tested. It is an exciting and enormously pleasurable story with a charming innocence that is nevertheless still infused with just enough harsh reality to make the fun fairy presence acceptable. The magical fantasy element is just about at the limit of what I can stomach, but nevertheless I am intrigued by Elizabeth Goudge and there are many more of her books (both children’s and adults) that I would like to explore at some point.

Similarly republished by the Girls Gone By imprint is Mabel Esther Allan’s 1956 young adult novel ‘The Amber House’. Of course no-one used the term ‘Young Adult Fiction’ in 1956 so Allan’s book would have certainly been shelved in the Children’s Fiction section of the local library and bookshop. Like ‘Smoky House’, ‘The Amber House’ is as much about place as anything else, in this case the small town of Rye in Sussex. Anyone who has ever visited must surely have been charmed by its narrow streets and pleasing architecture and it is likely too that a certain number of those visitors would be unable to think of the place without also remembering E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia characters. Benson, as many of you will know, resided in Lamb House whilst writing his stories and the house is Mapp’s ‘Mallards’ to Tilling’s Rye, complete with Garden Room of course. Prior to Benson, Lamb House was perhaps most famous as the dwelling place of Henry James, and it is certainly his association which is celebrated most by the National Trust which now looks after the property. Incidentally, as a slight aside, if you have been watching the recent BBC adaptation ‘Miss Austen’ you might have spotted Rye rather preposterously masquerading as Sidmouth, Jane and Cassandra Austen walking with their parents and Henry Hobday down West St and past Lamb House after attending church. These literary connections (with the exception of the Austen/Sidmouth deceit) are mentioned, along with a great deal more, in Samantha Littles’ introduction to the 2024 reissue of ‘The Amber House’ and her additional contextualisation of Rye’s free-trading past helps set the scene for Mabel Esther Allan’s marvellous piece of fiction.

The story revolves around Helen Brierley, a young woman just about to embark on a career in education (as a secretary, of course) but who is rather suddenly diverted into a job supporting her great aunt. This formidable lady (what great aunts in fiction are not formidable?) is writing a book about her home, the historic (and titular) Amber House. Situated on Mermaid Street in Rye, Amber House is modelled on what was once the Neptune Inn. This black and white timber framed building sits opposite the similarly styled Mermaid Inn, and much is made of the free-traders’ tunnels and hideyholes (existing and conjectured) within the architecture. Indeed it is arguably the architecture that is the real star of the book, for as nicely drawn characters as Helen, her great Aunt, the young, adventurous Derry Brown and the romantic interest of Peter Glynde are, it is the little towns of Rye, Winchelsea and the Amber House itself that steal the show. It must certainly have been a grand advertisement for the area in 1956 and I imagine a generation of youngsters must have grown up yearning to visit after reading ‘The Amber House’, no doubt dreaming of treasure hunts and hidden tunnels. That it still casts such a pull on this rather older reader in the 21st century is certainly testament to Mabel Esther Allan’s skills and I’m keen to try more of her books in the future.

Of course Rye and its environs was a favourite too of Malcolm Saville. Born just along the coast in Hastings, Saville used the area in several of his Lone Pine Club adventure stories, including 1964’s ‘Treasure at Amorys’ and 1969’s ‘Rye Royal’. As noted last year when I was writing about Enid Blyton and Saville, it is possible that Blyton was at least inspired by conversations with Saville when writing ‘Five Go To Smugglers Top’, for that book was published almost simultaneously with Saville’s ‘The Gay Dolphin Adventure’. The third instalment of the Lone Pine Club series, this remains one of my favourites, as does the 1951 outing ‘The Elusive Grasshopper’ which also features what is perhaps my favourite of many marvellous covers to Saville’s books. It is tempting to suggest that one reason the Rye instalments in the Lone Pine Club series are my favourites is to do with the descriptions of the town and surrounding landscape but I suspect too that a bigger reason for the enjoyment is that the terrible (in more ways that one) Morton twins tend to be less prominent in these stories. In ‘Treasure at Amorys’ and ‘Rye Royal’ they are, thankfully, a minor annoyance, and Saville instead focuses more on the development of the relationship between cousins Jon and Penny Warrander. This exploration of blooming romance, including the ones between the other ‘couples’ in the Lone Pine Club does eventually rather pull the later Lone Pine stories down, but in ‘Rye Royal’ it just about works. That said, it is perhaps the first obvious moment where Saville struggles to square contemporary youth cultural trends with his rather more traditional notions. There is a struggle too, I think, with simply resolving the entire thirty five year lifespan of the series, in which the characters age just a few years. In retrospect I wonder if Saville might have been better simply ‘doing a Blyton’ and ignoring the tiresome effects of time’s passing both in terms of the age of his characters and the time period of his books’ setting. Of course he rather digs a hole for himself from the off in this latter respect by pulling in references to the war and soldiers in the series’ 1943 debut ‘Mystery At Witchend’, and utilising the Blytonesque trick of setting everything in a kind of idealised and non-specific era might well have jarred with a desire to use very specific places as his settings. Regardless, the Lone Pine Club series does seem to stagger somewhat resignedly into the 1970s and there does feel like something of a rushed necessity to tie up all of the romantic threads that were so delightfully suggested in the earlier books. It is this desire for some kind of resolution that, to my mind, makes the final few books so relatively disappointing. There are still some moments of excitement and Saville’s flair for capturing place (as opposed to period) remains in place. Yet by acknowledging the aging process and the development of, ahem, ‘feelings’ these books lose some of the charm that made the majority of the preceding instalments so appealing. As in ‘The Smoky House’ and ‘The Amber House’ this appeal was to a large extent to do with conjuring that peculiar liminal space between childhood and adulthood, that fleeting period of delicious uncertainty. So whilst it is all very pleasant to see Jon and Penny, Tom and Jenny and, finally, AT LAST, David and Petronella cementing their devotion to each other as couples it is also peculiarly disappointing. One cannot help but wish they could have stayed in that space of thrilling uncertainty forever. Anticipation is so much better, after all.

This explains perhaps why, on current reflection, I have a preference for Saville’s six book series featuring the Jillion family over the Lone Pine Club books. Published in a six year period between 1948 and 1953, the compact time period sees none of the characters grow up/older, allowing the tremor of romantic suggestion between Mandy Jillion and Guy Standing to stay at just the right level of will they/won’t they throughout. Only the third book, 1950’s ‘The Sign Of The Alpine Rose’ is a minor disappointment, given that Guy and Mark Standing do not appear and that Saville allows a degree of tiresome English exceptionalism to creep into the otherwise exciting Eric Ambler style thriller. The other five books in the series are pretty much all equally enjoyable, although the 1948 season opener ‘Redshank’s Warning’ and the following year’s ‘Strangers at Snowfell’ just edge ahead as favourites. ‘Strangers at Snowfell’ is notable for its excellent depictions of railways and trains as well as its typically evocative capturing of place, in this case the landscape around Shap summit in Westmorland. The snowbound train and the trek cross-country to a farmhouse in the book recall J.Jefferson Farjeon’s 1937 creepy detective novel ‘Mystery In White’ and I wonder if Saville had it in mind when he was writing? Similarly, I wonder if Ian Samson was thinking about either or both these books when writing his tremendous ‘Westmorland Alone’ from 2016? One rather hopes so.

‘Redshank’s Warning’ really must be the pick of the crop, however, not least for its utterly charming cover illustration showing a windswept Mandy Jillion on a blustery Norfolk shore. Once again, watchers of Ben Robinson’s tremendous ‘Villages By The Sea’ show will have seen this landscape during the episode focusing on Cley-next-the-sea, for ‘Redshank’s Warning’ is set in nearby Blakeney, its church’s beacon tower playing a prominent role in the story’s climax. This is another fine example of Malcolm Saville at arguably the peak of his powers and it is no surprise that in a poll of Malcolm Saville Society members it ranked as the third favourite of all his books, with only ‘The Gay Dolphin Adventure’ and ‘Mystery At Witchend’ being rated higher. All six of the ‘Jillies’ books have been reissued by the Girls Gone By imprint, although even now the first three of these are almost as hard (and expensive!) to come by as the first edition hardbacks. All, needless to say, are pieces of treasure more than worth hunting down.