Yet again, the
ever-reliable Persephone Books delivers a cracking good book that should never
have been left gathering dust in a drawer somewhere.
Regular Persephone
readers will know Mollie Panter-Downes from her books Good Evening, Mrs Craven and Minnie’s
Room, which the publisher has previously republished to huge acclaim. In London War Notes Mollie’s attention
turns, as the title suggests, to World War Two, during which she was a London
correspondent for The New Yorker
magazine.
Over almost six years,
Mollie submitted 153 columns about the reality of London life during the war
for the New York readership. But there is no sign of a woe-is-me attitude,
instead the British stiff upper lip and resilient sense of humour shines through
in Mollie’s glorious letters.
Eschewing the grander, more publicised wartime
events that hit the headlines, Mollie focused on the day-to-day realities of
war life for Londoners: the excitement of receiving a bag of gumdrops, the uproar and criticism of the threatened milk cuts, and the bizarre anecdotes of
trying to travel anywhere after the government painted over all the road signs
(and presumably hoped the enemy would have “left its maps on the mantelpiece”).
Much of this was due to what Mollie refers to as “the clampdown on genuine
news” since there was so much censorship over what was broadcast during the war
years.
Her phrases and
personality are what make the letters so compelling and vivid, even to a reader
almost 100 years after the events. Much of what we know now of the war years is
what has been recreated for us in Hollywood films and BBC TV series – which, of
course, have also largely been produced by people who also never lived through
the war (for which we are, of course, all unendingly grateful). To read something so real from someone who was writing in the middle of the field is truly refreshing.
In his introduction, historian
David Kynaston reveals that Mollie was not in fact The New Yorker’s first choice for the column – that honour went to American
journalist Janet Flanner, who was already a correspondent for the title but was
stranded on the “wrong side of the Atlantic” during the war. Mollie was known
as a bestselling author and having recently written a piece for New Yorker
editor Harold Ross he decided to take a chance and offer her the column
instead. A risk that paid dividends. In the post-war years, Mollie continued to
write for The New Yorker on a regular
basis on all manner of subjects.
