Random Jottings

Susan Scarlett aka Noel Streatfield

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.

Dropping by

Just dropping in to say hello and thanks for all the kind messages. Kathryn arrived safely and we are having a lovely time with parties banquets and balls.  I am on my Freeman Wills Croft binge in between all the outings etc but the best thing is just to sit with my daughter and drink coffee and gossip and chat.  We went to the beach last week and here we are enjoying ourselves

I hope you are all having a wonderful summer too!

Summer Visit

Hello everyone

I just thought I would let you know that Random Jottings might be a bit spasmodic this summer. I try to write regularly but sometimes life gets in the way and I do feel guilty when I let it slide a bit.

However, this summer  Random might be neglected somewhat as my daughter, Kathryn, is arriving this weekfrom Australia for three months. She has long service leave which means we all have a chance to have the family together without having to pack visits in.

I have not seen her for three years so you can imagine how I feel at the moment and am so looking forward to greeting her at the airport this week. There will be shriekds. There will be tears. There will be joy.

And I will try and drop in as often as I can as I certainly do not intend to stop reading.

Elaine

 

Golden age of Crime - Freeman Wills Croft

A few years ago I discovered Freeman Wills Croft mainly through the auspices of the Classic Crime series published by the British LIbrary.  I read a huge amount of them and found them totally engrossing. One of the first titles I read was Mystery in the Channel.  The Chichester is making a routine journey across the English channel when the crew notice something amiss. A yacht, bobbing about in the water ahead of them, appears to have been abandoned and, on closer inspection, a dark red stain is spotted on the deck.......

Inspector French is called in to deal with the case and the two bodies discovered on board are soon identified as the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the firm of Moxon Securities, one of the largest financial houses in the country. It is suspected that the two men may be heading for France knowing full well that the firm is on the verge of collapse and they are trying to get away with as much money as possible before the final crash.

The part of the book that I enjoyed the most was the chapter in which French, in consultation with an Ancient Mariner, discusses the tides, the ebbs, the flows and the fact that another yacht was to rendezvous with the fatal vessel (the person on board claiming innocence of the whole affair) and testing his alibi by working out the timeline to test his story.  I do like this kind of detection, it is neat, it is tidy and it is fascinating to see how the author's mind works and I am always lost in admiration at the care taken in getting these details just right.

The same attention to detail is apparent in The 12.30 from Croydon.   Andrew Crowther, a wealthy retired manufacturer, is found dead in his seat on this plane when it arrives in Paris. He was old and in ill health and his death perhaps not unexpected, but it is soon discovered that foul play has taken place. He has been poisoned. But how? He had the same food as everyone else on the flight. Perhaps it is a poison which can be administered some time before it is effective, again how was it given to the victim?

Inspector French, of whom I am rather fond, is once more on the case. But in this book, instead of following his though processes we follow those of the murderer whose identity we know right from the start.  In a position when he, yes it is a he, needs money to save his firm and having applied to his uncle unsuccessfully, he begins to think how wonderful it would be if his uncle died as he knows he is a beneficiary of the Will.

At first dismissing the idea, it gradually gets hold of him and he starts to plan how to do it. And the reader follows him through his plans, how he carries them out and, though I should not say this, by the end I was almost hoping he would get away with it. Well he doesn't.

'One glance at the jury's faces told Charles the truth. He was lost.....they were going to hang him. Nothing he could say could matter...he heard the sentence. It was over. the warders were pointing to the staircase. they were supporting him. Half unconscious he was helped down'

I must admit I felt a chill run up my spine at this final paragraph.

The Hog's Back Mystery.  Dr James Earle and his wife live in comfortable seclusion near the Hog's Back, a ridge in the North Downs in the beautiful Surrey countryside.  Friends of Mrs Earle come to stay and it pretty clear to one of them that the marriage is not a happy one and that she is involved with another man.  A chance encounter espied by the same friend seems to point to the doctor also being involved with someone. Then the doctor, and his friend, who is a nurse, both vanish. The doctor went to sit in his library after dinner one night and is never seen again. He was only wearing his slippers, he has no money, his keys and wallet are not taken, so where has he gone?   Later on one of the house guests also disappears and it all begins to get rather tortuous.

Once again by Inspector French's meticulous approach to the mystery he gradually unravels the solution to the disappearance of these three victims and deduces where their bodies are to be found.  Half way through the story I guessed what was going on, why the doctor had gone to town to meet the nurse, and from then on did manage to work out who the likely murderer was. I felt very pleased with myself as it is seldom I do this.

Freeman Wills Croft wrote an essay on the Writing of a Detective Novel. His method was first to prepare a synopsis 'of the actual facts that are supposed to have happened' including a chronology, character biographies and sketch maps of the important localities, and then a summary of how these facts became revealed to the detective' He also provides maps of the area.

Now I love maps or illustrations in a detective story. Dame Agatha did it, Ngaio Marsh did it and I love looking at them and murmuring to myself Now the Library is there, the kitchen there, so just how did the murderer get hold of the carving knife and get upstairs without being spotted.....ditto maps. Gosh the murderer must have come round the back of the house by the lane, then cut through the wood and ....well you get my drift. Wonderful.

In the last week or so I have had a lot on my mind and feeling rather anxious so I have returned to this author and re-read some other titles that I have not looked at for a few years.  Though many of his books are available now there are still a few that need tracking down and I have been on second hand book sites to find the ones I am missing. Among these was Crime at Guildford, Inspector French's Greatest Case and the Book Office Murders. Others are on the way.

I have heard from other crime lovers that they find Freeman Wills Croft boring with his stressing of minutiae and intricate details and I can understand that, but I beg to difer. There is one title Death of a Train in which details of flanges, stops, gages, etc etc are vital to the solving of the crime and though I did not understand a word of it, I just found it all fascinating. 

I find them rather soothing to the mind as we know the mystery will be solved and Inspector French will save the day. He always does. 

Lorac, Castillo and Gerritsen - three goodies this week

A good week with three books published by three favourite authors.

The first was Crook O'Lune by E C R Lorac, one of the writers rediscovered and republished by the British Library Crime Classics. Not all of them, interesting thought they are, have been to my liking but this author I do like.  I read one recently These Names have Clues which I found rather tedious so approached this with a little trepidation.  It is set in Lancashire and Inspector MacDonald who has appeared in many previous titles is contemplating retirement and rather fancies buying some farmland. He is visiting his friends, the Hoggetts, who have featured in an earlier book and, needless to say, while he is there is drawn into investigate a case of sheep stealing.   An empty house is set on fire as a distraction while the sheep are stolen, but turns into a case of murder when it turns out the house was not empty after all.

I found this book slow moving, but in the right way. Lorac has obviously visited Lancashire and has a deep love of this country side and it is beautifully written with quite lyrical descriptions of the fields, trees, sky and sunshine.   I really enjoyed it.   Not a riveting smack you in the face kind of mystery, but very satisfying.

Next up Linda Castillo The Hidden One. All her books are set in Amish country and, as with Midsomer Murders in the UK, they seem a murderous lot and this amount of death and destruction might give one pause, but suspension of disbelief is all and I love these books.

It starts with an Amish bishop keeping a rendezvous which he is dreading after he received a letter "I know who you are. I know what you did. I know your secrets. All of them". He knows he is probably going to his death and indeed he is. Eighteen years later a field is being ploughed and his skeleton discovered and suspicion points towards Jonas Bowman who had threatened him when he was younger.   He is arrested and kate Burkholder is asked by elders of the church to come and help him as she knew him when she was a young Amish teenager.

He was her first love and so she returns aware that she might be risking her relationship with her lover Tomasetti.

As always, well written and compulsive reading. I have read all of these books by Castillo and though there is a certain formula to them now, I love them. Long may they continue.

And, finally, Listen to Me by Tess Gerritsen. It has been a couple of years since the last Rizzoli and Isles book, a series to which I am addicted and after I had spent a morning reading Castillo I then spent an afternoon reading this one.

The story is told from the viewpoint of several characters and you have to be patient as each strand will come together. Having read Gerritsen and know the way she leads you up the garden path I was happy to go along for the ride. The main strand that I really found interesting and amusing is the section from the eyes of Angela, Rizzoli's mother who is rather puzzled by the neighbours who have moved in across the street.   The curtains are drawn, the husband and wife stay inside all the time and the woman seems frightened and nervous and never goes out.  Angela gets a little too nosy and puts herself in danger and though I guessed who the neighbours were it did not spoil the story which bowls along beautifully. I could not put it down until I had finished it.

So a good week and up comes a reminder on my Amazon page that there is a new Michael Connelly coming out later this year so that is flagged up straight away,

I am still going through the Miss Silver books but coming to an end though she has written other non Silver books which will keep me going for months, but I may take a break. I have decided to re-read some Freeman Wills Croft and have just started on Fear Comes to Chalfont and am already hooked again.

Miss Silver - Patricia Wentworth

A quick glance down the left hand column of Random will illustrate most clearly that I have been reading the Miss Silver books of Patricia Wentworth.  I discovered these several years ago at a book sale when I found a couple of the new editions lurking in a corner and thought I would give them a go as I love detective novels, particularly those set in the 1930s and 1940s.  I also noted that there were 34 books featuring this character so that if I liked them I would be ok for a while.

I binged on them but then I took a break from reading all the Miss Silver books but I have now returned as I still have about 20 to go. She has also written some 34 other books so these will be logged for future reading.

The first book featuring this ex-governess turned private detective was published in 1928, The Grey Mask and the final story, The Girl in the Cellar in 1961, the year of Patricia Wentworth's death.  It is a shame that the last in the series was so poor and very loosely plotted and even when I read the last page I had no idea of what or why or how.   However, the author was 83 when she died and this should be borne in mind by me when judging and I well remember Agatha Christie's later books being incredibly rambling and disjointed.

Anyway, back to Miss Silver who really is a simply delightful character.  She is timeless and changeless. She has to be as the books are written over a 33 year period and as she is obviously in her 60s when the books start she must be close to 90 near the end.  I remember Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh being interviewed about their two detectives, Poirot and Alleyn and Dame A working out that Hercule P with his little grey cells must have been over 100 by the time she finished with him with Alleyn not far behind. Still suspension of disbelief is all.

There is always a description of Miss Silver in each book and it is always the same which is most reassuring to us, the reader, and to whomever consults her:

"With her neat curled fringe, her dated dress - olive green cashmere - the bog oak brooch in the shape of a rose with a pearl at its heart, the black thread stockings and the glace shoes, too small for the modern foot, she might have stepped out of any old fashioned photograph album"

She also manages to express displeasure or disapproval in the most subtle way:

"Mrs Smith said with energy 'I wouldn't want it to go about that I'd been seeing a detective'.  There seemed suddenly to be a considerable distance between herself and Miss Silver.  Without word or movement, this small governessy looking person seemed to have receded.....the astonishing thing is that Mrs Smith discovered that she didn't want her to go. Before she knew what she was going to do she found that she way saying 'Oh well of course, I know that anything I tell you would be in confidence and perfectly safe"

Miss Silver is hugely admired by Detective Inspector Frank Abbot who calls her his revered preceptress, also by Randall March, the Chief Constable of Ledbury, who she taught as a young boy and while Chief Inspector Lamb is not so keen, even he admits:

"The fact is people don't like talking to the police.  This is where Miss Silver comes in. The only thing that stops people talking is being afraid.  Well, no one's afraid of Miss Silver....sits there with her knitting and makes herself pleasant and mind you it isn't put on either... she likes people and takes an interest in them and they fairly tumble over themselves to tell her things"

These are hugely enjoyable detective stories.  They do fall into a pattern and the drawback of reading them all one after the other is that this is noticeable.  The young lovers are always totally innocent. If a couple fall in love you can knock them off the list of suspects straight away (mark you the same can be said of Ngaio Marsh - a handsome young man and a pretty young woman attracted to each other are incapable of murder it seems; Agatha Christie is much more hard hearted, I can think of a couple of books where the young lovers are nor exempt.

I have found in detective novels of this period that there is always a second murder and, again, it is usually the death of somebody who has witnessed the ghastly deed or who knows something about the first killing and tries a spot of blackmail instead of telling the police.  Inevitably, they end up as a corpse.  This ploy is used in nearly every single one of Patricia Wentworth's books and is the one aspect of them that I can criticise as it became pretty predictable after a while.  But, as I said this is probably because I did my usual binge read, if I had spaced them out a bit I would not have noticed it so much.

You cannot read these books without thinking of Miss Marple with whom of course Miss Silver has great similarity.  Both unmarried, elderly ladies, both very sharp and wise, both have a way with maids and what is designated as 'the lower classes' in the books featuring these two Misses, both with nieces and nephews and both happy to sit in a corner and knit, but between each plain and purl stitch they are watching and weighing evidence.  It is a pity that Miss Marple has rather cornered the market in the TV and film stakes; Miss Silver seems to be largely unheard of nowadays, I certainly knew nothing of her until my discovery at a book sale last year, and it is highly unlikely that any TV studio would make a series as the similarity to Miss Marple is too marked.

A shame as Miss Silver got there first.  The Grey Mask was published in 1928 and Miss Marple made her first appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.  I wonder if Dame Agatha was influenced by a reading of a Patricia Wentworth story?  Makes you wonder.

A quick glance down the left hand column of Random will illustrate most clearly that I have been reading the Miss Silver books of Patricia Wentworth.  I discovered these several years ago at a book sale when I found a couple of the new editions lurking in a corner and thought I would give them a go as I love detective novels, particularly those set in the 1930s and 1940s.  I also noted that there were 34 books featuring this character so that if I liked them I would be ok for a while.

I binged on them but then I took a break from reading all the Miss Silver books but I have now returned as I still have about 20 to go. She has also written some 34 other books so these will be logged for future reading.

The first book featuring this ex-governess turned private detective was published in 1928, The Grey Mask and the final story, The Girl in the Cellar in 1961, the year of Patricia Wentworth's death.  It is a shame that the last in the series was so poor and very loosely plotted and even when I read the last page I had no idea of what or why or how.   However, the author was 83 when she died and this should be borne in mind by me when judging and I well remember Agatha Christie's later books being incredibly rambling and disjointed.

Anyway, back to Miss Silver who really is a simply delightful character.  She is timeless and changeless. She has to be as the books are written over a 33 year period and as she is obviously in her 60s when the books start she must be close to 90 near the end.  I remember Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh being interviewed about their two detectives, Poirot and Alleyn and Dame A working out that Hercule P with his little grey cells must have been over 100 by the time she finished with him with Alleyn not far behind. Still suspension of disbelief is all.

There is always a description of Miss Silver in each book and it is always the same which is most reassuring to us, the reader, and to whomever consults her:

"With her neat curled fringe, her dated dress - olive green cashmere - the bog oak brooch in the shape of a rose with a pearl at its heart, the black thread stockings and the glace shoes, too small for the modern foot, she might have stepped out of any old fashioned photograph album"

She also manages to express displeasure or disapproval in the most subtle way:

"Mrs Smith said with energy 'I wouldn't want it to go about that I'd been seeing a detective'.  There seemed suddenly to be a considerable distance between herself and Miss Silver.  Without word or movement, this small governessy looking person seemed to have receded.....the astonishing thing is that Mrs Smith discovered that she didn't want her to go. Before she knew what she was going to do she found that she way saying 'Oh well of course, I know that anything I tell you would be in confidence and perfectly safe"

Miss Silver is hugely admired by Detective Inspector Frank Abbot who calls her his revered preceptress, also by Randall March, the Chief Constable of Ledbury, who she taught as a young boy and while Chief Inspector Lamb is not so keen, even he admits:

"The fact is people don't like talking to the police.  This is where Miss Silver comes in. The only thing that stops people talking is being afraid.  Well, no one's afraid of Miss Silver....sits there with her knitting and makes herself pleasant and mind you it isn't put on either... she likes people and takes an interest in them and they fairly tumble over themselves to tell her things"

These are hugely enjoyable detective stories.  They do fall into a pattern and the drawback of reading them all one after the other is that this is noticeable.  The young lovers are always totally innocent. If a couple fall in love you can knock them off the list of suspects straight away (mark you the same can be said of Ngaio Marsh - a handsome young man and a pretty young woman attracted to each other are incapable of murder it seems; Agatha Christie is much more hard hearted, I can think of a couple of books where the young lovers are nor exempt.

I have found in detective novels of this period that there is always a second murder and, again, it is usually the death of somebody who has witnessed the ghastly deed or who knows something about the first killing and tries a spot of blackmail instead of telling the police.  Inevitably, they end up as a corpse.  This ploy is used in nearly every single one of Patricia Wentworth's books and is the one aspect of them that I can criticise as it became pretty predictable after a while.  But, as I said this is probably because I did my usual binge read, if I had spaced them out a bit I would not have noticed it so much.

You cannot read these books without thinking of Miss Marple with whom of course Miss Silver has great similarity.  Both unmarried, elderly ladies, both very sharp and wise, both have a way with maids and what is designated as 'the lower classes' in the books featuring these two Misses, both with nieces and nephews and both happy to sit in a corner and knit, but between each plain and purl stitch they are watching and weighing evidence.  It is a pity that Miss Marple has rather cornered the market in the TV and film stakes; Miss Silver seems to be largely unheard of nowadays, I certainly knew nothing of her until my discovery at a book sale last year, and it is highly unlikely that any TV studio would make a series as the similarity to Miss Marple is too marked.

A shame as Miss Silver got there first.  The Grey Mask was published in 1928 and Miss Marple made her first appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.  I wonder if Dame Agatha was influenced by a reading of a Patricia Wentworth story?  Makes you wonder.

A quick glance down the left hand column of Random will illustrate most clearly that I have been reading the Miss Silver books of Patricia Wentworth.  I discovered these several years ago at a book sale when I found a couple of the new editions lurking in a corner and thought I would give them a go as I love detective novels, particularly those set in the 1930s and 1940s.  I also noted that there were 34 books featuring this character so that if I liked them I would be ok for a while.

I binged on them but then I took a break from reading all the Miss Silver books but I have now returned as I still have about 20 to go. She has also written some 34 other books so these will be logged for future reading.

The first book featuring this ex-governess turned private detective was published in 1928, The Grey Mask and the final story, The Girl in the Cellar in 1961, the year of Patricia Wentworth's death.  It is a shame that the last in the series was so poor and very loosely plotted and even when I read the last page I had no idea of what or why or how.   However, the author was 83 when she died and this should be borne in mind by me when judging and I well remember Agatha Christie's later books being incredibly rambling and disjointed.

Anyway, back to Miss Silver who really is a simply delightful character.  She is timeless and changeless. She has to be as the books are written over a 33 year period and as she is obviously in her 60s when the books start she must be close to 90 near the end.  I remember Agatha Christie and Ngaio Marsh being interviewed about their two detectives, Poirot and Alleyn and Dame A working out that Hercule P with his little grey cells must have been over 100 by the time she finished with him with Alleyn not far behind. Still suspension of disbelief is all.

There is always a description of Miss Silver in each book and it is always the same which is most reassuring to us, the reader, and to whomever consults her:

"With her neat curled fringe, her dated dress - olive green cashmere - the bog oak brooch in the shape of a rose with a pearl at its heart, the black thread stockings and the glace shoes, too small for the modern foot, she might have stepped out of any old fashioned photograph album"

She also manages to express displeasure or disapproval in the most subtle way:

"Mrs Smith said with energy 'I wouldn't want it to go about that I'd been seeing a detective'.  There seemed suddenly to be a considerable distance between herself and Miss Silver.  Without word or movement, this small governessy looking person seemed to have receded.....the astonishing thing is that Mrs Smith discovered that she didn't want her to go. Before she knew what she was going to do she found that she way saying 'Oh well of course, I know that anything I tell you would be in confidence and perfectly safe"

Miss Silver is hugely admired by Detective Inspector Frank Abbot who calls her his revered preceptress, also by Randall March, the Chief Constable of Ledbury, who she taught as a young boy and while Chief Inspector Lamb is not so keen, even he admits:

"The fact is people don't like talking to the police.  This is where Miss Silver comes in. The only thing that stops people talking is being afraid.  Well, no one's afraid of Miss Silver....sits there with her knitting and makes herself pleasant and mind you it isn't put on either... she likes people and takes an interest in them and they fairly tumble over themselves to tell her things"

These are hugely enjoyable detective stories.  They do fall into a pattern and the drawback of reading them all one after the other is that this is noticeable.  The young lovers are always totally innocent. If a couple fall in love you can knock them off the list of suspects straight away (mark you the same can be said of Ngaio Marsh - a handsome young man and a pretty young woman attracted to each other are incapable of murder it seems; Agatha Christie is much more hard hearted, I can think of a couple of books where the young lovers are nor exempt.

I have found in detective novels of this period that there is always a second murder and, again, it is usually the death of somebody who has witnessed the ghastly deed or who knows something about the first killing and tries a spot of blackmail instead of telling the police.  Inevitably, they end up as a corpse.  This ploy is used in nearly every single one of Patricia Wentworth's books and is the one aspect of them that I can criticise as it became pretty predictable after a while.  But, as I said this is probably because I did my usual binge read, if I had spaced them out a bit I would not have noticed it so much.

You cannot read these books without thinking of Miss Marple with whom of course Miss Silver has great similarity.  Both unmarried, elderly ladies, both very sharp and wise, both have a way with maids and what is designated as 'the lower classes' in the books featuring these two Misses, both with nieces and nephews and both happy to sit in a corner and knit, but between each plain and purl stitch they are watching and weighing evidence.  It is a pity that Miss Marple has rather cornered the market in the TV and film stakes; Miss Silver seems to be largely unheard of nowadays, I certainly knew nothing of her until my discovery at a book sale last year, and it is highly unlikely that any TV studio would make a series as the similarity to Miss Marple is too marked.

A shame as Miss Silver got there first.  The Grey Mask was published in 1928 and Miss Marple made her first appearance in The Murder at the Vicarage in 1930.  I wonder if Dame Agatha was influenced by a reading of a Patricia Wentworth story?  Makes you wonder.

Queens Tennis - a pre Wimbledon Rant

At this time of the year the grass court season starts in the UK and it is a sign for the die hard tennis fans to come out of hibernation (I am one such) and also the Hooray it is the Season for drifting around the courts drinking Pimms and eating strawberries kind.

Went to Queens for the first time in a couple of years and nothing changes with the audience. The total inability of British tennis fans to sit and watch more than two games without having to charge out and tank up on wine/Pimms and champagne never fails to amaze me.  This year Felicity AKA the Other Grandma and I were sitting in slightly different seats from our last visit and it was not long before we realised they were not the right choice. We had a gangway in front of us for the aforementioned fans to exit in pursuit of liquid refreshment so every change of ends the hordes descended...and ascended.   There was a huge log jam and I find it slightly worrying as the seating is built for the week and then dismantled. While I am certain it is safe, having a jam up three flights of stairs surrounded by scaffolding and you can see the ground thirty feet below is not a reassuring feeling.

I spoke to the stewards who are always young students and always polite and helpful and they spent the rest of the day acting like traffic cops and directing people.

But it was so wearing. One woman was standing in front of me blocking my view and I asked her to move. She got very snarky so I told her that, oddly enough, I was here to see tennis and all I could see at present was her backside. She moved.   This went on all day - one match Berretini was playing and was serving for the match, final game, and half the audience left.  Three people sitting across the gangway from us came in, watched two games, disappeared, came back with bottles and food, sat and stuffed their faces and then left. Now those seats are at least £100 each. Very expensive picnic.

We managed to enjoy it though and had some lovey peeps sitting near us - real tennis fans who did not move for hours and we chatted and gossiped with them and so it was not all bad.

Tennis in the UK is still mired in Poshness.  I have always refuted this in the past but now I have changed my mind. You see the crowds at Queens, Eastbourne and Wimbledon and most of them are there to be seen.   The question is often asked why we rarely produce as many tennis players as, say, those from Bulgaria, Rumania, Croatia etc and the answer is they have had it hard and being good at tennis and working at it brings results. Many of our young players are soft.   Having said that Jack Draper and Cameron Norrie are doing well and this week we had one of those wonderful moments when an unheard of Brit put out the top seed and managed to survive three rounds.  He had a great time and the crowd did too.

I have pulled up a post which I wrote about three years ago at one of my visits to Queens and it illustrates perfectly that nothing has changed:

So a great time but, once again, the attendees amaze me. There are a hard core of tennis fans who go there for the game but there are a huge amount of people who come tarted up to the nines in the latest designer stuff and swan in and out clutching a glass of Champers or Pimms. They never watch more than a game or two.  Felicity and I, apart from the odd loo and tea break, sat and watched nine hours of tennis and loved every minute.

One couple behind us, he such a Hooray Henry with a Panama hat and she in floating skinny dress totally unsuited to the elements drifted in an out all afternoon and the amount of alcohol they consumed would have floored me. They were possessed of these loud braying voices that only the Brits have and in the afternoon vanished and did not appear for four hours. By this time, we thought they had left and spotting a bag and a jacket on the floor, called a steward and told him this had been left behind. He got onto his walkie talkie and five minutes later a burly man in a high vis jacket appeared with a sniffer dog!! At first we all thought this was overkill but then I realised I was sitting in front of this bag so greeted him with joy. Dog had a sniff all ok and the stuff was carted off to Lost Property.

An hour letter the couple swayed in and the following conversation ensued:

She: OOh my god where is my bag and jacket

Me: they were reported as we thought you had gone home and left them behind

He: (clutching a glass of champers) Oh but we were only having a drink

Me: that was four hours ago and we all thought you had left. the sniffer dog was called out

Her: OMG why?

Me: it was being treated as a suspicious object

He (swaying) well honestly really I mean..bit over the top what? (At this point the image of Wooster floated through my mind. I wonder why)

Me: well as the bag was behind my seat I was quite glad to have it cleared up

He: well ok but what a pain. Where has it gorn (and yes he did say gorn)

Me: they said the coat and bag would be taken to lost property

He: well where on earth is that?

Me: (getting tired of it all) I have not the faintest idea

She (sarkily): well you seem to know everything..

Me:(going into full Lady Bracknell mode) I probably do but in this instance I have no idea where Lost Property is but if you ask a steward they will tell you. In the meantime I would like to watch the tennis so could you please move (what I really wanted to say was piss off you stupid woman and let me watch the f*****g game but I refrained)

Still, it was fun.

I think.

Recent Reading

Well the Jubilee weekend is now over and it was all huge fun and also rather wonderful. Highlight for me was the video of the Queen having tea with Paddington Bear which ranks alongside her James Bond skit at the Olympics in 2012.

So back to normal and I managed to get some reading done. 

I was in a charity shop a week or so ago and picked up a book Murder at the Brightwell by Ashley Weaver.  It had a delightful and stylish cover and I read the first page and thought oh this sounds fun.

"It is an impossibly great trial to be married to a man one loves and hates in equal proportions. It was late June and I was dining alone in the breakfast room when Milo blew in from the south.

'Hello darling' he said brushing a light kiss across my cheek. He dropped into the seat beside me and begain buttering a piece of toast as though it had been two hours since I had last seen him last rather than two months.

I took a sip of coffee. 'Hello Milo. How good of you to drop in'"

The setting is Kent, England and it is 1932.  I really enjoyed this book. Witty and amusing and though there are rather too many descriptions of clothes and jewellery, it is all great fun. Amery is married to Milo who seems to do what he likes and spends a great deal of time on the Riviera.  When Amory's ex fiance turns up asking for her help regarding his sister who is contemplating marriage to a rather unsatisfactory character, she decides to go to the Brightwell Hotel where they are all staying and help him out.   Naturally, the rather unpleasant fiance turns up dead at the bottom of a cliff and Amory finds herself at the heart of the mystery.   She manages to solve the mystery and it is all light and silly and written in great style.

This book had cost me the princely sum of £1 and I then went on line and discovered there were six others in the series.  Needless to say, I downloaded them all and read them one after the other and derived great pleasure from them.

I then received an alert that a pre-order had been sent to my Kindle, the latest in the Bruno series by Martin Walker. I read these all last year when I initially discovered them and enjoyed them, but I have now rather changed my mind as they are becoming increasingly tedious.

To Kill a Troubadour deals with a terrorist threat to a free concert featuring a local group Les Troubadours who will be performing their latest hit 'A Song for Catalonia'. The song goes viral when the Spanish government ban its performance on the grounds that it is encouraging the Catalonian bid for independence.

Now this is all very exciting and the scene is set but then we go off piste to an alarming extent. It becomes clear that there is a sniper in the area following a car crash and the discovery of a bullet.   We are treated to at least four pages of a lecture on the history of military rifles from Bruno (who is an expert).  Later on we have pages on Catalonia and the Arabic influence on medieval culture.  While the security services are involved and the big cheeses arrive from Paris, Bruno manages to play tennis, cook meals for everyone with copious descriptions of his recipes and methods including the preparation of a wild boar and then at the end of course he saves the day.

And, as I assume the author is an ex-pat, we get the predictable dig at Brexit.

I found myself skipping great chunks of this book. I reckon 30% of the book was germane to the plot, the rest was padding. I doubt I will waste my money on purchasing any more in this series.

I will wait and see if they turn up in a charity shop instead.

Jubilee Ramble

I have spent the morning watching the Trooping of the Colour which marks the start of the Jubilee Celebrations this weekend. It is always a wonderful spectacle and this year, for which thank heaven fasting, the BBC gave us a red button option which means the whole thing could be watched with NO COMMENTARY. Total bliss.   I gather from comments already abounding on Twitter that the Beeb spent a lot of time to so called Slebs instead of concentrating on the actual event.  I gave up watching BBC cover big events some time ago as they have really lost their way - once they were the only ones who were considered capable enough for this kind of thing, but no more.  

Everyone was having a wonderful time and just look a these crowds..

What with one thing and another I have been a bit  busy this week - nothing exciting, domestic stuff etc and have also been glued to the TV watching the French Open tennis from Paris.  I watch as much tennis as I can and over the years have found the crowd who attend in New York pretty ghastly, but am now coming to the conclusion that the Paris lot are the worst ever. Partisan, one can understand this and I have no problem with that at all, but apparently being abusive and vile to some players when they go to get their towel or get near the front row, cheering double faults and mistakes of the poor sod they have taken agin for some unknown reason and the other night booing Djokovic as he came on court. I am no lover of Djokovic but he is a great champion and to behave like that is appalling. McEnroe was in the commentary box and he was furious.

(It goes without saying that most of the Brits exited stage right in a couple of days)

So what else have I been doing? You will be delighted to hear dear Reader that I had a Man come in to Clean my Carpets. Such excietment.  They were looking grubby and stained and flat and horrid and so decided to do something.   In came Chris from a company called Powerdean, who had done a brilliant job on my armchair last year, and he came in and got cracking and left the carpets looking pristine and spotless  (I saw the water being poured down the loo and could not believe the colour. Mud I think would describe the shade) . Also they feel almost new as the pile had been brought up.  I keep looking at my lovely clean floors and beaming.   He also helped me put furniture back. 

Mem: noticed on his business card that he also cleans ovens.   What ho!

I have, believe it or not done a bit of reading. Yes I have but don't get excited, it was nothing toweringly intellectual. After wading through Wuthering Heights my mind needed something a little less fraught. I re-read a couple of Agatha Christies, always a pleasure and then a book The Queen: 70 years of Majestic Style by Bethan Holt which charted her clothes throughout the years.   I had forgotten just how stunning she was when young. She looks wonderful now of course, but if you look at early photos of her she looks amazing.

I have been reading the books of Mick Herron which I may have mentioned earlier featuring the Slow Horses, rejects from MI6 who have cocked up in some way and banished to Slough House to moulder away. There has recently been a TV series based on the first novel with Gary Oldman, which was brilliant, and this set me off on my usual binge read and devoured them all in a month.   Luckily, a new one was due, Bad Actors. Again, brilliant. But now I have to wait for the next one...

D S Butler - What she Said. A series recommended to me by Amazon so I thought I would give it a go, featuring Detective Karen Hart.  Enjoyable and well written, nothing spectacular but pacey and enjoyable. Once more, read the lot in a week or two and this was the latest.  So now I have to wait for the next one.......

However, the book I have most enjoyed in the last week is an old favourite - Diary of a Provincial Lady which never fails to bring me huge enjoyment.  I will be posting at length in due course.

Last week my granddaughter, Florence, played Meditation from Thais at a farewell concert for her granddad (my ex) who is retiring from conducting as his eyesight is failing.  The entire family turned out and it was lovely to see everyone and, without exception, we were all reduced to blubbing wrecks.   Words are difficult to find to describe how I felt on listening to her. She has also won a place for weekend tutoring at the Guildhall School of Music. My daughter is due soon from Australia and so a lot to look forward to.

Back soon.

Wuthering Heights - a re-read

You may recall I was trying to reread Wuthering Heights a few weeks ago when I was laid low with a bad reaction to my Covid jab and a brain fog descended. So the fog has now lifted but then I was stricken with severe back pain and have been staggering around like Quasimodo.  As I lay prone I decided I would return to WH and finish it.

Now I am making a solemn promise and it is one I will be able to keep with no problem. I am NEVER going to read this book again. NEVER.

Way back in my teens I discovered the Brontes, ok well it was Jane Eyre, but that fascinated me and set me off on an interest that has never waned. Over the years I have read practically every biog, crit or article I could find re this family. I have visited Haworth several times, I have walked on the moors and the love of all things Bronte has never left me.

But there is an exception and this exception is called Emily.   Charlotte seemed to hold her in awe and admiration and reverence and I could never understand why.  This sister seemed to dominate and hold a position in the family that was all encompassing. She and Anne seemed to be very close (but bear in mind that against all opposition Anne went out to work and stayed at work for years, more than any of the others managed to do. Getting away? Just a thought).  It always struck me that the sisters were afraid of her and after reading Wuthering I can understand why.

Pretty sure that other scholars with finer minds than mine (not hard) have come to the conclusion that Catherine Earnshaw is Emily.  She has all the characteristics: wanting her own way in everything, seemingly terrorising weaker characters than herself, selfish, yes selfish, and caring for nobody.   This sister has been portrayed as this wonderfully strong character, the heart of the family who stayed at home looking after her father and sistsers. My feeling is that this is precisely what she always wanted. Safe and powerful in her own domain. She ventured forth to Brussels with Charlotte where she disliked and was disliked and soon came home again.  In the school run by the Hegers she was relatively unimportant. 

People have queried where did Wuthering Heights come from? A spinster virgin living in a remote Yorkshire village.  If, as I do, you view Catherine as Emily as I have already mentioned above, then it seems she is consumed all the time by anger and fury and wishes to hurt as many people as she can. And boy does she do it in spades in WH.  Heathcliff may arrive as a surly boy but the reason he grows into this brutal vicious man is down to the way he is treated, not just by Hindley but by Catherine who rejects him "it would degrade me to marry Heathcliff".  The heart of all the troubles and anger and brutality emanates from Catherine and trying to fathom out just how and why she does it remains an eternal mystery.

My first reading of this was when I was a teenager and probably did not understand it and so I re-read it some years later. I still found it repulsive. So I left it for a long long time and then tried again, feeling perhaps I could bring a more mature focus to a work that is regarded as a masterpiece.  No well I still loathe it.  Every single character is venal, brutal (sorry to keep using this word cannot think of another) weak, stupid and deeply unpleasant.

And yet there are those who view Wuthering Heights as a towering love story.  Why? The film with Olivier and Merle Oberon is of its time and Olivier speaking incredibly posh English is clearly totally wrong, but this vision of the running across moors calling "Cathy" "Heathcliff" seems to have given their love a charm that is singularly lacking.

I went online to find out what others thought of WH and was quite astonished at the various comments but the one that made me laugh and with which I totally agree came from the author Anne Tyler in an interview with the Guardian:

"I somehow made it to adulthood without reading Wuthering Heights but then I found out that several of my women friends considered Heathcliff their all time favourite romantic hero. So I read about three quarters of it as a grown-up and immediately developed some serious concerns about the mental health of my friends"

I could not have put it better.

And I didn't...