Scan barcode
A review by chrissie57
The Provincial Lady in Wartime by E.M. Delafield
4.0
"Am struck by paradoxical thought that youth is by no means the happiest time of life, but that most of the rest of life is tinged by regret for its passing, and wonder what old age will feel like, in this respect"
I think this is my favourite of the Provincial Lady books. It is actually set not in wartime proper but in the phoney war when nothing very much happened. Obviously Delafield herself lived through this and I presume the way things were proceeding is an accurate depiction of how things were before April 1940 when the war started in ernest (the diary ends in November 1939); you get the impression that London, and presumably most of the country, was holding its breath. The lady goes to stay in London, hoping desperately for some role to play but at this point there are far more people volunteering than there are jobs and she ends up working in a canteen. Robert is left at home and the children at school but I thing this was given added poignancy by knowing that her son Robin is now 18 and will be called up probably within the year. I also found it interesting that she keeps thinking back to the Great War, when she was young and there was a part for her to play (the quote at the start relates to this).
I think this is my favourite of the Provincial Lady books. It is actually set not in wartime proper but in the phoney war when nothing very much happened. Obviously Delafield herself lived through this and I presume the way things were proceeding is an accurate depiction of how things were before April 1940 when the war started in ernest (the diary ends in November 1939); you get the impression that London, and presumably most of the country, was holding its breath. The lady goes to stay in London, hoping desperately for some role to play but at this point there are far more people volunteering than there are jobs and she ends up working in a canteen. Robert is left at home and the children at school but I thing this was given added poignancy by knowing that her son Robin is now 18 and will be called up probably within the year. I also found it interesting that she keeps thinking back to the Great War, when she was young and there was a part for her to play (the quote at the start relates to this).