REVIEW: A Fortunate Term
A Fortunate Term: Angela Brazil, Blackie
I hadn’t read a new Angela Brazil this year, so I had to get this one in. Set in the 1920s, I think, when cars needed help to start and war memorials had been built, it’s the story of two sisters. People almost think of Mavis and Merle Ramsay as twins, although there’s more than a year between them, because Mavis is delicate, prone to bronchitis, and healthier Merle is bigger than her. They live in the North of England, in a dirty mill town where their father is a doctor. Their mother’s tales of a Devonshire upbringing seem like fairy stories to the girls, but it is decided, for Mavis’s health’s sake, to send the sisters to stay down there in the town of Durracombe with their uncle and aunt.
Merle is livelier, rasher and, interestingly, a petrol-head, who, despite being only fourteen, gets to speed down the Devonshire lanes at 30 mph on an errand of mercy! Meanwhile, Mavis is more tactful and in tune with nature. Despite their differences, they balance each other out and get on well. Spring has come early to Devonshire, to their delight, and joining their doctor uncle on his weekly trip to the seaside village of Chagmouth makes their cups of joy run over.
They have to go to school, alas. Having been used to a large high school, they can see the faults in the small The Moorings, run by two old ladies, who understandably coddle the boarders, mainly the daughters of parents in India. But they unfortunately favour their god-daughter and head girl Opal Earnshaw, who does not like the arrival of the Ramsays, as Merle heatedly calls out her ‘fiblets’ and Mavis shows her up more subtly.
Outside of school, the Ramsays come across the Glyn Williamses - snobbish Gwen who always sees them at their worst, and her brother Tudor who looks down at the common rabble. They hear the other side of the story from Bevis, a lad their uncle thinks highly of, with a most romantic story, and you can guess its ending quite quickly and easily.
Brazil waxes rhapsodic of the beauties of nature in balmy Devonshire, of course, but I was more interested in the Celtic influence - it’s not far from Cornwall - and folk traditions like Nicky Nan Night, a sort of mischief night. Apart from Bevis, Opal and Iva, the names are quite tame and normal for her. There is one chapter where the girls get up their own entertainments, which involves reading out two stories the ‘girls’ have written, one melodramatic and one ‘humorous’, and there are quite a few stories told of Devonshire pixies. Inevitably.
If the focus had stayed entirely on the sisters, their adventures, especially at school, and Mavis getting better, it would have been a stronger book. But Brazil’s focus wanders - we get one chapter of the boarders’ doings, and the events at Chagmouth belong to a more old-fashioned and sentimental type of story. But Mavis and Merle are likeable characters, who don’t undergo radical changes, but grow up a little because of what they experience and witness in the story. (I believe that Brazil references at least one other school she’s written about, which is rare, because she isn’t a connective writer like the other members of the Big Four.)
(Lightly edited on 12/8/19.)
I hadn’t read a new Angela Brazil this year, so I had to get this one in. Set in the 1920s, I think, when cars needed help to start and war memorials had been built, it’s the story of two sisters. People almost think of Mavis and Merle Ramsay as twins, although there’s more than a year between them, because Mavis is delicate, prone to bronchitis, and healthier Merle is bigger than her. They live in the North of England, in a dirty mill town where their father is a doctor. Their mother’s tales of a Devonshire upbringing seem like fairy stories to the girls, but it is decided, for Mavis’s health’s sake, to send the sisters to stay down there in the town of Durracombe with their uncle and aunt.
Merle is livelier, rasher and, interestingly, a petrol-head, who, despite being only fourteen, gets to speed down the Devonshire lanes at 30 mph on an errand of mercy! Meanwhile, Mavis is more tactful and in tune with nature. Despite their differences, they balance each other out and get on well. Spring has come early to Devonshire, to their delight, and joining their doctor uncle on his weekly trip to the seaside village of Chagmouth makes their cups of joy run over.
They have to go to school, alas. Having been used to a large high school, they can see the faults in the small The Moorings, run by two old ladies, who understandably coddle the boarders, mainly the daughters of parents in India. But they unfortunately favour their god-daughter and head girl Opal Earnshaw, who does not like the arrival of the Ramsays, as Merle heatedly calls out her ‘fiblets’ and Mavis shows her up more subtly.
Outside of school, the Ramsays come across the Glyn Williamses - snobbish Gwen who always sees them at their worst, and her brother Tudor who looks down at the common rabble. They hear the other side of the story from Bevis, a lad their uncle thinks highly of, with a most romantic story, and you can guess its ending quite quickly and easily.
Brazil waxes rhapsodic of the beauties of nature in balmy Devonshire, of course, but I was more interested in the Celtic influence - it’s not far from Cornwall - and folk traditions like Nicky Nan Night, a sort of mischief night. Apart from Bevis, Opal and Iva, the names are quite tame and normal for her. There is one chapter where the girls get up their own entertainments, which involves reading out two stories the ‘girls’ have written, one melodramatic and one ‘humorous’, and there are quite a few stories told of Devonshire pixies. Inevitably.
If the focus had stayed entirely on the sisters, their adventures, especially at school, and Mavis getting better, it would have been a stronger book. But Brazil’s focus wanders - we get one chapter of the boarders’ doings, and the events at Chagmouth belong to a more old-fashioned and sentimental type of story. But Mavis and Merle are likeable characters, who don’t undergo radical changes, but grow up a little because of what they experience and witness in the story. (I believe that Brazil references at least one other school she’s written about, which is rare, because she isn’t a connective writer like the other members of the Big Four.)
(Lightly edited on 12/8/19.)