REVIEW: Rachel Tandy
Mar. 17th, 2013 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllRachel Tandy: Mabel Esther Allan. Hutchinson 1958
This is a rather charming book that I enjoyed reading – it did have echoes of other Allan books, of which I’ve read many. It’s told from the first person POV of our heroine. Rachel is eighteen, a Londoner who left school a little early to train to be a secretary, but the first job that she gets, partly due to her parents getting the chance to travel to Australia, is as a paid companion of sorts for the youngest children of Angela Anthony, a famous children’s writer. Richenda and Reuben are somewhat delicate and have been ordered to stay away from school, but are too young to be sensible and need someone to keep an eye on them. They live at Summer End out in the country in the Chilterns. Rachel grows to love both the countryside and the brimful-of-personality family, which includes older siblings and step-siblings, but it’s quite a journey to get to that point, with Rachel having to learn confidence and grow in experience to fill quite a tricky role.
Allan conveys Rachel’s insecurities realistically as she takes on her unusual first job. Apart from getting the children’s trust and trying to stop them from getting into dangerous scrapes, quite a job when it comes to adventurous Reuben, there’s her tense relationship with Mrs Anthony’s secretary and her even tenser relationship with Mrs Anthony’s eldest son, Marius, who makes Rachel feel awkward and prickly and most unlike herself. (One pities the other boy-friend she makes with whom she...feels comfortable. However, despite references to several early marriages, Rachel’s romances are treated lightly.)
What lifts the book, as ever with Allan, is the sense of place and the real love for the place that Rachel grows to have. She grows to see the beauty of nature (although what an ugly name for a flower ‘scabious’ is) and of the landscape and learns some of the history of the place. The place names are attractive too.
Furthermore, by having her heroine observe a successful children’s author in action, Allan is also offering some commentary on her career, surely. I’m always fascinated when writers write about writer characters – the Jos, Mary-Dorothy and so forth. Rachel grew up reading Angela (surely the name’s a tribute to Brazil) Anthony’s most famous series – the Chiltern Twins, based loosely on her stepchildren, Colin and Candy, who are now grown up and living away. Indeed, Rachel starts plotting a story for them, although she finds that what she is writing doesn’t achieve Armstrong’s atmosphere or come to life. But Armstrong, when she finds it, is pleased rather than not and asks to use the plot, for she has been blocked on writing more in this particular series, despite her publishers’ pressures. Thus Rachel gets paid for it and a dedication. One wonder if Allan was pleading with her fans to help her with a series of hers?
Armstrong is not idealised, although she’s a very successful writer and a Personality, often called away to give talks or open things. She always insists on signing autographs for her children readers, but her own children find the expectations of them a bit of a strain and profess not to read her books. As the person in charge of Ritchie and Reuben, although not ultimately, Rachel is able to observe these tensions and pressures from a more objective perspective. Certainly this added a fascinating aspect to the book, with one wondering how much of this was commentary on Allan’s own experiences and perceptions, or even hopes – for instance, one of the Chiltern Twins’ series is televised and it is presented as a mostly positive thing.
However, even without that extra interest, I found this a readable book, which is its own thing, not trying to sell a career to girls, but insightful and honest about growing up and first jobs and finding out a little more about yourself in a new environment.
This is a rather charming book that I enjoyed reading – it did have echoes of other Allan books, of which I’ve read many. It’s told from the first person POV of our heroine. Rachel is eighteen, a Londoner who left school a little early to train to be a secretary, but the first job that she gets, partly due to her parents getting the chance to travel to Australia, is as a paid companion of sorts for the youngest children of Angela Anthony, a famous children’s writer. Richenda and Reuben are somewhat delicate and have been ordered to stay away from school, but are too young to be sensible and need someone to keep an eye on them. They live at Summer End out in the country in the Chilterns. Rachel grows to love both the countryside and the brimful-of-personality family, which includes older siblings and step-siblings, but it’s quite a journey to get to that point, with Rachel having to learn confidence and grow in experience to fill quite a tricky role.
Allan conveys Rachel’s insecurities realistically as she takes on her unusual first job. Apart from getting the children’s trust and trying to stop them from getting into dangerous scrapes, quite a job when it comes to adventurous Reuben, there’s her tense relationship with Mrs Anthony’s secretary and her even tenser relationship with Mrs Anthony’s eldest son, Marius, who makes Rachel feel awkward and prickly and most unlike herself. (One pities the other boy-friend she makes with whom she...feels comfortable. However, despite references to several early marriages, Rachel’s romances are treated lightly.)
What lifts the book, as ever with Allan, is the sense of place and the real love for the place that Rachel grows to have. She grows to see the beauty of nature (although what an ugly name for a flower ‘scabious’ is) and of the landscape and learns some of the history of the place. The place names are attractive too.
Furthermore, by having her heroine observe a successful children’s author in action, Allan is also offering some commentary on her career, surely. I’m always fascinated when writers write about writer characters – the Jos, Mary-Dorothy and so forth. Rachel grew up reading Angela (surely the name’s a tribute to Brazil) Anthony’s most famous series – the Chiltern Twins, based loosely on her stepchildren, Colin and Candy, who are now grown up and living away. Indeed, Rachel starts plotting a story for them, although she finds that what she is writing doesn’t achieve Armstrong’s atmosphere or come to life. But Armstrong, when she finds it, is pleased rather than not and asks to use the plot, for she has been blocked on writing more in this particular series, despite her publishers’ pressures. Thus Rachel gets paid for it and a dedication. One wonder if Allan was pleading with her fans to help her with a series of hers?
Armstrong is not idealised, although she’s a very successful writer and a Personality, often called away to give talks or open things. She always insists on signing autographs for her children readers, but her own children find the expectations of them a bit of a strain and profess not to read her books. As the person in charge of Ritchie and Reuben, although not ultimately, Rachel is able to observe these tensions and pressures from a more objective perspective. Certainly this added a fascinating aspect to the book, with one wondering how much of this was commentary on Allan’s own experiences and perceptions, or even hopes – for instance, one of the Chiltern Twins’ series is televised and it is presented as a mostly positive thing.
However, even without that extra interest, I found this a readable book, which is its own thing, not trying to sell a career to girls, but insightful and honest about growing up and first jobs and finding out a little more about yourself in a new environment.
