I am very busy the next couple of weeks and will also be in France but I have loved these books so much I am posting this so I can urge you to get your mitts on them ASAP.
Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield was published in 1936 and over fifty years later is still in print. I doubt there were many children in the forties and fifties who did not read this book. I did and I loved it. The three Fossil children Pauline, Petrova and Posy – who did not want to be one of them? I always viewed them as three of the Alcott Little Women. Pauline was Meg, not madly exciting but sensible and loving and nurturing, Petrova who loved mucking about with cars and engines and disliked the usual feminine hobbies was obviously Jo and the obnoxious Posy who I loathed and thought selfish and precocious, was Amy.
I read all of Streatfield’s output for children and it was not until Persephone books published Saplings that I realised she had written adult novels. It came as quite a shock to read about the possessive wife in this title who adored her husband and did not want her children getting in the way of their obviously passionate relationship.
Tracking down more of Noel’s adult titles proved somewhat tricky as second-hand copies were hard to come by and expensive. So for some years I rather put her to one side.
And now along comes Dean Street Press to whom I am devoted. I avoid looking at their website because every time I do I find that I wish to own every single title bar none and I have to keep reminding myself that life is expensive enough as it is and that I should not be spending money on books.
However, I soon forget…
By the time Susan Scarlett arrived Noel Streatfield has already published six novels for adults and three for children. Under her own name she continued publishing for another forty years and she discarded the titles she wrote under this nom de plume. She probably thought they were too slight and facile. In the introduction to these books it seems they were regarded as ‘definitely unreal, delightful impossible’ and were rather snobbily categorised as perfect reading for ‘the lady of the house’.
Well this lady of the house, or rather flat, has just read two of the twelve titles and my thanks to Dean Street Press for the review copies. These are Sally-Ann and Clothes Pegs. I simply Loved Them. There are characters that are recognisably Streatfield, the thrifty and sensible mother, the ‘good’ daughter, the frivolous envious daughter and the cheeky younger brother. The father in both is wary of anything that would take his girl away from them and is extremely irritating. My feeling is that these portraits are based on her own father who, as a vicar, made her life rather restrictive.
Ann Lake is an assistant cosmetician at an elegant upmarket establishment. She has to fill in for an ill colleague and asked to go to Sussex Castle to do the make up of a bride, Lady Mona. A bridesmaid falls ill and Ann is asked to impersonate Sally who is over on a visit from South Africa and who nobody knows. It goes without saying that Ann just happens to be the right size…
Sally-Ann makes a considerable impression on the best man, Sir Timothy Munster, but as with Cinderella on the stroke of midnight, she disappears leaving him desperate to find her. Up pops the society beauty Cora Bolt, a scheming equivalent of an Ugly Sister, who wants Timothy for herself and she determines to find out just who Sally-Ann is.
Well you do not need me to tell you the outcome as I am sure you can guess the happy ending.
A similar case arises in Clothes Pegs. Annabel Brown works in the sewing room of a high end dressmaker and, when one of the mannequins quits, she is called in to take her place much to the chagrin of Freda and Elizabeth who are jealous and vindictive. She is, however, befriended by the third mannequin, Bernadette who, it transpires, is leading a mystery life and keeping a secret.
There is, of course, a charming upper class young man, Lord David de Brett and another scheming vamp, this time Octavia Glaye who is determined to marry him as she needs a wealthy husband.
And, once again, you can guess the ending.
I am a great lover of romantic novels and have read them all my life. Most of the time I kept this quiet as I used to receive sarky comments about my love of this genre. An ex one said to me he could not understand how I could read the Brontes or Jane Austen and then read tripe. He became an ex very quickly. I dislike snobbery in reading immensely and when I sit on a beach or a terrace on holiday and see what people are reading which they ostentatiously display, I always have a quiet smirk as I know full well that the Tolstoy or the Proust they are waving about is purely for show and they have a Dan Brown lurking.
It is clear from these books that Noel Streatfield had a great sense of style and loved clothes. She was an actress for some ten years and filled in time by being a mannequin herself. As she pointed out tall, thin actresses were much in demand in the 1920s. The clothes sound wonderful
“there was a navy blue frock, coat and hat, the frock trimmed with buttons make like ladybirds. There was a leaf green evening dress. It had a little tight bodice held in with a great flaring bow. There was a tomato read wool frock which would go with the coat and hat of the navy outfit. There was a brocaded evening coat; almost military in cut with squared shoulders and a little tailored collar, very tailored at the waist where it went to flare out to the floor”
Susan Scarlett’s books were advertised by her publisher as ‘light, bright, brilliant present-day romances’
And they are. I have the rest on order and urge you to read as many of these as you can get your hands on. I loved them.
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