REVIEW: Christmas at Nettleford
Jan. 1st, 2018 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllChristmas at Nettleford: Malcolm Saville Armada 1970
This was better than I hoped for. I have another Nettleford/Owlers book but I don’t remember much about it. I think the attraction of ‘Christmas at Nettleford’ is that it’s more character-driven, the adventures are much more low key than usual with Saville and, most of all, it’s the story of one Christmas in a small English town in the 1950s. I read it between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
The main character is Elizabeth Ann Langton, who is thirteen and a half. She’s a little bit lazy, wanting to stay in bed on the last morning of term, when the other girls want to visit the other dorms, and a slack correspondent to the home people. Yet, as a vicar’s daughter, she can’t be too lazy. Her parents have sacrificed to send their oldest two children to boarding school – Elizabeth is sandwiched in age between older brother Charles (a recurring name with Saville) and five-year-old Hugh. Her best friend at home is Sally Richardson, whose father runs the Wise Owl Bookshop in Nettleford. From it, Sally got the name for the secret society comprising the girls, Sally’s younger brother Peter and the ironmonger’s son, Jimmy.
Adventure comes in the form of the League of the Red Hand, another gang that makes a ‘declaration of war’ against the Owlers. Elizabeth is almost old enough to see how silly this is, but her admirable loyalty to her friends means that she’s in, and doesn’t lose out on a spectacular snowball fight. They all become friends afterwards anyway.
There are mysteries too – who is stealing everyone’s chickens? Where has the music box that was meant to raise a handsome sum at the Christmas Market gone?
All the while, there is the build-up to Christmas, although what struck me was how late they all left it! Was that truly the way of things in the 1950s, or is it because a man wrote the story? In my experience, women do ask each other if they’ve started preparing for Christmas in the autumn. Especially the ones who have started. They don’t put up decorations until Christmas Eve! I put them up around the first Sunday of December, although some of my neighbours start at the end of November.
The fact that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ is central to the book. Even if the people of Nettleford don’t turn to the Vicar for spiritual advice, he has impressed upon them that their annual retelling of the Christmas story, involving all sorts of people of all ages, is an act of worship. This is sincerely told, as is Elizabeth’s reaction to carols and the way the various characters we have read about celebrate Christmas Day.
There is some humour in the way that the younger children try out long words and don’t get them quite right, and how all the children bring each other down a peg or two. With no criminal mastermind orchestrating a ring of wrong-doers, the way that the children entertain themselves, often by helping others out as the weather turns, entertained me too.
Happy New Year! I wanted to post this before doing a 2017 round-up post.
[Lightly edited 4/8/18.]
This was better than I hoped for. I have another Nettleford/Owlers book but I don’t remember much about it. I think the attraction of ‘Christmas at Nettleford’ is that it’s more character-driven, the adventures are much more low key than usual with Saville and, most of all, it’s the story of one Christmas in a small English town in the 1950s. I read it between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
The main character is Elizabeth Ann Langton, who is thirteen and a half. She’s a little bit lazy, wanting to stay in bed on the last morning of term, when the other girls want to visit the other dorms, and a slack correspondent to the home people. Yet, as a vicar’s daughter, she can’t be too lazy. Her parents have sacrificed to send their oldest two children to boarding school – Elizabeth is sandwiched in age between older brother Charles (a recurring name with Saville) and five-year-old Hugh. Her best friend at home is Sally Richardson, whose father runs the Wise Owl Bookshop in Nettleford. From it, Sally got the name for the secret society comprising the girls, Sally’s younger brother Peter and the ironmonger’s son, Jimmy.
Adventure comes in the form of the League of the Red Hand, another gang that makes a ‘declaration of war’ against the Owlers. Elizabeth is almost old enough to see how silly this is, but her admirable loyalty to her friends means that she’s in, and doesn’t lose out on a spectacular snowball fight. They all become friends afterwards anyway.
There are mysteries too – who is stealing everyone’s chickens? Where has the music box that was meant to raise a handsome sum at the Christmas Market gone?
All the while, there is the build-up to Christmas, although what struck me was how late they all left it! Was that truly the way of things in the 1950s, or is it because a man wrote the story? In my experience, women do ask each other if they’ve started preparing for Christmas in the autumn. Especially the ones who have started. They don’t put up decorations until Christmas Eve! I put them up around the first Sunday of December, although some of my neighbours start at the end of November.
The fact that Christmas is about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ is central to the book. Even if the people of Nettleford don’t turn to the Vicar for spiritual advice, he has impressed upon them that their annual retelling of the Christmas story, involving all sorts of people of all ages, is an act of worship. This is sincerely told, as is Elizabeth’s reaction to carols and the way the various characters we have read about celebrate Christmas Day.
There is some humour in the way that the younger children try out long words and don’t get them quite right, and how all the children bring each other down a peg or two. With no criminal mastermind orchestrating a ring of wrong-doers, the way that the children entertain themselves, often by helping others out as the weather turns, entertained me too.
Happy New Year! I wanted to post this before doing a 2017 round-up post.
[Lightly edited 4/8/18.]
