Tag molly clavering

A Moffat Mooch

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“Old age really must be creeping upon me at last,” said Susan Armstrong. “I find more and more that what I most enjoy is a quiet evening at home by the fire, with a book.” – Molly Clavering, ’Touch Not The Nettle’

The Scottish Borders has long been, for me, a land to pass through on the way from here to there and back again. At first, by car with my father behind the wheel, then by train and finally again by car, this time driving myself. Going to somewhere and home again, and eventually vice versa. Places I would know only by railway stations and road signs. Ecclefechan, Lockerbie, Beattock, Moffat. Then into the edges of Dumfries and Galloway with Abington, Leadhills and The Mennock Pass, which I think of as less Borders and more edging into Ayrshire and onto the dark, neglected former mining villages with guttural names. Glespin. Muirkirk. Sanquhar. Ardoch. Places where Scots meets Klingon.

Then I read D.E. Stevenson and Molly Clavering, both of whom settled and worked in Moffat during the interwar years and post-WW2, turning out book after book of romantic fiction which were often set in the Borders and, in Stevenson’s case particularly, proved to be enormously popular in their time. Having been, for much of my adult life, so dedicated to crime and detective fiction, I admit that romantic fiction as a genre was one that I always looked upon with no small amount of disdain. Yet in recent years the cracks have appeared in my armour, thanks largely to the beautiful grey covers of the Persephone reissue imprint. Indeed, it was through Persephone that I stumbled on Stevenson with her delicious Miss Buncle books, a trilogy that acted somewhat as the final thrust to demolish my defences. Much of the Persephone catalogue, it must be said, would probably think of itself as being A Cut Above the romantic fiction genre, and that is fair enough. There is nothing pejorative in suggesting that someone may have pretensions, after all. The Furrowed Middlebrow imprint, on the other hand, would more likely raise a glass of sherry (a Harveys Bristol Cream as opposed to a Bodegas Alonso Oloroso) and celebrate its entrenchment in the genre, and Hurrah! for that too. Their sizeable catalogue of Stevenson reissues continues to be a source of great pleasure to me, and, as previously noted, the second two thirds of the Drumberley trilogy in particular make for a tremendous evocation of the Borders landscape.

Which brings us back to Moffat, and an afternoon mooch in early September as I walked the unexpectedly leafy residential streets of the market town in search of the ghosts of Stevenson and Clavering. Stevenson is fairly easy to find, for a simple plaque is affixed to a small garden gatepost that leads to an overgrown path through mature trees. There is not much to see of the house in which Stevenson and her family lived, for the leafy growth of the garden obscures much of the views from the road, which is as one might expect for such a well established and (at least once) Well To Do neighbourhood. Nevertheless, it’s fun though to picture the setting that Stevenson’s friend Molly Clavering captured so well in ‘Mrs Lorimer’s Quiet Summer’, although one wonders how so large a house could possibly have been thought of as being too small. There is a very definite feel of a once prosperous town having fallen on rather harder times in Moffat, particularly within the environs of North Park where Stevenson’s former home sits. Other similarly large Victorian and Edwardian properties look neglected and worn around the edges, some of them turned into nursing homes or split into smaller apartments but most seemingly just about clinging on to their dignity. A spectre of faded glamour hangs in the humid air, a tale of slowly haemorrhaged wealth whispering through the hawthorns. It is, I must admit, rather marvellously appealing.

Also rather appealing are two of Clavering’s novels from the 1930s, ‘Susan Settles Down’ (1936) and ‘Touch Not The Nettle’ (1939), both of which are also very much a celebration of the Borders landscape. Published as part of a small run of novels where Clavering (and/or her publishers) experimented with the pen name of B. Mollet, the two books form a diptych, although it’s fair to say that the latter struggles a little to meet the charm of the former, which is a light hearted melodramatic romp in which Everything Turns Out As Expected In The End, but not before we have been taken on some detours through misunderstandings, miscommunications and maddening masculine attitudes. Of all the romantic fiction I’ve encountered thus far (and I appreciate that I have barely smudged the powder on the nose of the genre) these books of Clavering’s feel the most likely to bring feminist blood to the boil, for they are certainly fired deeply in the fires of tiresome tropes of women’s subservience to men and, more pertinently, women apparently enjoying being in such a position. ‘Nettle’ in particular has some moments that feel despicably uncomfortable, although there are some awkward encounters in ‘Susan Settles Down’ too. The characters involved (most specifically the male ones) are, from a 21st Century perspective, obviously emotionally damaged, but it feels like Clavering rather falls into the trap of allowing this damage to excuse rather than merely explain their appalling behaviours towards women. It would be easy to dismiss the books out of hand because of this, and I have no truck with anyone who would follow this line, yet to do so, it seems to me, would also be to miss out on a lot of pleasure. Primarily it would be miss Clavering’s obvious love for the landscape and for the nature that inhabits it. The books are threaded with evocative descriptions of the hills through the seasons and of the colour and scents of the trees and flowers experienced by the characters as they move through the narrative. There is too, despite the books being reflective of the still rigid class structure in place in 1930s Britain, an obvious warmth shown to the workers of the rural environment, perhaps because, as Clavering has a character observe, “the country people, so strongly individual in character that they were not yet all cast in one mould like their town-dwelling contemporaries, had a sturdy independent pride in their ‘place’ and would not, from self-respect, have forgotten it”. Again, this kind of attitude does rub awkwardly up against 21st Century progressive political ideology, but I for one would rather be made to feel uncomfortable in order to experience attitudes from outside my own echo chamber, and besides, that warmth towards The Working Class does filter through Clavering’s words, even if they might seem a little condescending to our contemporary eye. There is a love too of the Borders dialect, and both of these books are filled with dialogue that one suspects many modern readers might find impenetrable. Now I admit that I found Irvine Welsh’s use of written Scots dialect to be a frustrating affectation when I attempted to read ‘Trainspotting’ in the mid 1990s, yet Clavering’s liberal use of it some sixty years earlier feels as refreshing as a morning mist drifting down from the Lammermuir Hills (are these the hills that Renton and his mates visit in their nature break in the film/book? It would be funny if they were). Another case of context being everything, perhaps.

Speaking of context, it ought to be said that whilst there is much in the general patina of these two books to place them within the historical period in which they were written, only a reference to the 1937 Castelcary snowstorm train disaster in ‘Touch Not The Nettle’ gives any real connection to the age. There is no hint whatsoever, certainly, of the impending disaster waiting not so quietly in the wings, as it were. If this feels like an opportunity missed then it is perhaps entirely understandable given the fantasy escapist nature of the genre. In her post-war novels there is certainly more of a sense of Clavering acknowledging contemporary political and social change, but even here there is a distinct conservatism (and, it might be argued, Conservatism) in her work that does, it must be said, prickle rather. Personally, I’m quite happy with that for, as previously mentioned, I should hate to surround myself solely with voices that echo my own particular views.

There are several more Furrowed Middlebrow reissues of Clavering novels sitting on the shelves waiting to be read, alongside many more Stevenson’s, although given that reading both authors amounts to much the same experience as gorging on candyfloss, I might just divert my attention back to some murder mysteries for a time. There is too, a 1953 non-fiction book by Clavering called ‘From The Border Hills’ in which, I believe, she recounts something of the wanders through the landscape which must surely have informed her fiction. If I can find a cheap second hand copy of that I expect it will work its way to the top of the ‘to be read’ pile rather quickly, where no doubt it will accompany much delving into the archive of OS maps and marking of Places To See on my next Moffat mooch. Something to look forward to in the Autumn, perhaps.

Why would anyone need a map or a compass?

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If Mollie Panter-Downes and Barbara Euphan Todd pulled me out of the existential ennui brought on by too much Georges Simenon with their marvellous WW2 and post-war writings, then Molly Clavering has just pinched and patted my cheek and sent me on my way with a spring in my step and song in my heart. You certainly must read her books. You will love them.

The song, incidentally, might be something by Bothwell’s finest Friends Again, for there is something in Clavering’s writing that conjures a similar lightness of touch, an earthy delirium that speaks of late summer morning dews and early autumnal crackling wood fires. There is a parallel too perhaps in their relationships with other, more storied contemporaries. For whilst the Friends Again gang were reportedly deemed too uncool (and a little late) for the Postcard party, so too did Clavering suffer perhaps a little next to the successes of her great friend D.E. Stevenson. So whilst Stevenson’s books sold in terrific numbers, Clavering’s, apparently, whilst hardly bombing, nevertheless sold significantly less. Perhaps then it’s more akin to comparing Friends Again to, say, Haircut 100, with whom they shared a similar chunky knitwear aesthetic but failed to break the charts (or youngsters’ hearts) in quite the same manner. Certainly the band members might have borrowed their look from the dashing young men who feature in Clavering’s books. All shaved back and sides, floppy fringes, plus the sturdy leather boots and Aran sweaters of Naval Officers. I am basing this entirely on the evidence of two books, you understand, but apparently the whole Naval Officer character is a recurring theme in Clavering’s novels. She clearly had A Thing, then. Whether she enjoyed the look or sound of Haircut 100 or Friends Again is unknown, however. She would have been in her 80s when they were making records, so the chances are she would have been unimpressed, but you never know.

My first Clavering, then, was the utterly delightful ‘Mrs Lorimer’s Quiet Summer’. First published in 1953, this is another of those post-WW2 novels that prickles lightly with post-war austerity and the sense of Life Returning To Normal, where Normal is something altogether New. There is less of the sense of that new age being as discomfiting for the Middle Classes (as the characters in the book assuredly are) as there might be in other post-war novels, but there are slight nods of acknowledgement. If there is a criticism of the book it is just that those nods are so slight, particularly in the case of one of Mrs Lorimer’s daughters who spent the war flying aircraft from one place in the UK to another and now appears to struggle to return to earth, as it were. The daughter in question seems hardly to exist in the novel, being mildly ignored by Clavering and the rest of the extended Lorimer family; not exactly Cast Out, but certainly existing on the edges, as if no-one (Clavering included) seems to know quite how to figure her. She would make a fine jumping off point for a historical novel. This is picking hairs, however, for ‘Mrs Lorimer’s Quiet Summer’ is hardly positioned as a novel that intends to make Serious Points about society, people or anything else. Rather, it is an unashamedly light hearted book that giggles and glistens in the sunlight, unafraid to unravel its threads into occasional trip hazards in its relentless and joyous pursuit of pleasure.

The novel is, I believe, to a degree autobiographical. Mrs Lorimer appears to be a thinly disguised D.E. Stevenson, with her dear friend Grace Maxwell as Clavering. The portraits of both women are warm and quietly admiring, and if one might arch an eyebrow and suggest that Clavering has been particularly kind to herself then by all accounts the depiction appears to be accurate, for contemporary descriptions of Clavering describe her as a figure with an marvellously positive outlook and a cheery disposition. Notable dissenters to this opinion at the time of the book’s publication were Stevenson’s children, all of whom necessarily are given at least one prickly character trait that Clavering teases at and weaves her narrative around. By all accounts the irritation did not last long however, and that is no real surprise, for all the little nuances are really just genre-related literary devices and rather obviously so. Still, it’s perfectly understandable to see how they might have irked, particularly in the rather highly strung character of Phillis who is a bit of a spoilt and hysterical adult-child. Whilst we do get glimpses into how the pre-war family experiences might have moulded these characters, this is perhaps not as deeply explored as it might have been in a more, ah, ‘highbrow’ novel. If that kind of interminable raking over of The Past is the kind of thing you enjoy then I dare say that ‘Mrs Lorimer’s Quiet Summer’ would be sniffed at in distaste and left untouched on the shelf. Whilst understandable (we each of us have our Points Of Interest and Areas Of Pointed Ignorance, after all) I cannot help but suggest such an attitude would be a shame, for ‘Mrs Lorimer’ is one of those wonderfully undemanding novels that romps along with a deceptively easy step, every so often dropping a line or two that, whilst not exactly shatteringly insightful into the nature of existence, nevertheless causes one to nod sagely. The more so, I expect, if one has reached the same sort of age that Clavering was when writing (53, since you ask). There are, in particular, some lovely observations on the process of maturing, or not, and when Lorimer/Stevenson reflects on “…what a silly little fool one was at twenty-three” and Douglas/Clavering responds with “Most of us were. Some of us still are. It’s a safeguard to realise it…” one rather hopes that anyone of a similar age or older will recognise a universal truth lightly proclaimed. I know I do.

There is something too, I think, of Clavering in the character of the elderly Miss Balfour in the 1956 novel ‘Near Neighbours’. I understand that this is an unusual entry in Clavering’s catalogue in that it is set largely in an urban (Edinburgh) rather than rural setting. The fact that I have a lifetime ambivalence about Edinburgh no doubt informs my thoughts that the place hardly matters in this context, but unlike in ‘Mrs Lorimer…’ where the lightly fictionalised landscapes around the Scottish border town of Moffat are evidently fired through with knowledge and love, Edinburgh in itself hardly seems to figure beyond some tourist brochure references to the castle and Princes Street (though oddly no mention of the one-o-clock gun going off…). Instead the setting of ‘Kirkaldy Terrace’ (somewhere in the West End?) is little more than a vehicle for placing the characters next door to each other, winding them up and then sitting back to watch them race around bumping into each other. If that sounds harsh, then it is not meant to be so, although it must be said that, as in ‘Mrs Lorimer’, there is enough additional evidence in ‘Near Neighbours’ to suggest that Clavering is just a little clunky in her writing. As I say, that’s not necessarily a criticism, more an observation. There are rough edges. Pieces don’t quite fit together. There are little cracks in the plaster work and some splodgy paint work on the window sills; the gloss not quite so carefully applied as it might be. Yet it is a charming awkwardness rather than an irritating lack of skill. To pull in another obscure musical reference, Clavering reads rather like Marine Girls sounded. The appeal of breathless wonder and purposeful naïveté should never be underestimated, after all.

It is difficult to say anything in detail about ‘Near Neighbours’ without throwing in spoilers, but suffice to say that the novels oscillates mildly between the aforementioned Miss Balfour (in her late 60s and recently come into sole ownership of her large terrace home after the death of a domineering elder sister) and the Lennox family who live next door. It’s the Lennox daughters (all named after trees) and, to a lesser extent the son (not named after a tree, but rather a mint…) who largely dominate the book as each in their own way navigates the post-war landscape of youth and young adulthood. Romance inevitably dominates (it’s Romantic Fiction at heart, after all!) and inevitably too there are numerous roadblocks and diversions on the route to True Love And Happiness for all of them. What raises the novel above the level of Workaday Romance, however, is the figure of Miss Balfour as a kind of unifying element. She acts almost as a peculiar fairy godmother, an angelic figure spreading peace and goodwill. There is, indeed, a lovely line which suggests that “What she did not know and would not have believed was that the people who knew her could not help living up to her belief in their good qualities, or that their virtues were sometimes no more than the reflection of her own shining honesty and kindliness.”, whilst the novel’s closing lines delicately suggest a surprised saintly figure beatifically providing the light by which the other characters travel into this and that.

So whilst there is perhaps something of the character of Clavering herself in Miss Balfour, it’s also unlikely, given the small amount of research I have carried out, to suggest that Molly Clavering would have the nerve to suggest herself as anything approaching saintliness. And yet, perhaps too there is something of a knowing smile behind it all. A twinkling of the eye as the soloing Clavering who, like so many of her generation Never Married, perhaps cast her sight forward to the woman she might (have) be(en). A deliciously soft self-aggrandisement shot through with a wicked barb of deflationary wit as when we are told that “one is usually apt to dislike the unfortunate person whose praises one hears sung too often…. like the books people say you must read because you’ll be certain to love them.” Touché.