Eleven beautifully written stories from the 1940s.All featuring issues of the war, but indirectly, through people, feelings, relationships. ( )

This book sat on a shelf for such a long time, until a week or so ago, when I realised that it was months since I had read a short story or a Persephone book, and I picked it up.

I had high hopes, because I had stumbled across Elizabeth Berridge’s final novel a few years ago and I had been impressed by it. I suspected that it wasn’t the work of an author at the height of her powers, but I saw things that told me that I had found an author who could write with wonderful insight and clarity, and I found moments that suggested that she was very special indeed.

This collection of stories, published when the author was in her late twenties, lived up to those hopes.

They speak lucidly of human lives and relationships during and just after the war; and of our failure to speak of the things that are really important to us.

The first story – ‘Snowstorm’ – was so striking.

A woman doctor looks on as a group of expectant mothers arrives at a nursing home.

“As she looked the doors of the charabanc opened and the women dropped heavily, one by one, on to the snow-buried gravel. For a moment she was reminded of the blundering honey-bees of summer, over-weighted with pollen. But the moment passed as they clustered together before the house, gazing about, their faces cold, movements distrustful. She counted them.”

It is business as usual; but one of those women is different. Her situation is irregular and she is dignified and undemonstrative; she fails to do the things and to express the feelings expected of her. That disturbs her doctor, and she begins to question her vocation.

The writing was perfectly controlled, and the skill of the author drew me right in and made me think so much of the situation of each woman.

That control, that skill, and an extraordinary clarity made every story fascinating.

It was the clarity that really struck me; I can only compare it to the feeling you have when you have new glasses and you see the world just that little more clearly than you did through the old pair.

The stories sit well together, but they are wonderfully diverse.

‘Lullaby’ is another story of motherhood, and it is so short that it would spoil it to write of any specifics at all; but I must say that shows that the author had a wonderful range, and was able to manage suspense and leave her reader a little shaken.

There are more stories of motherhood, and there are stories that show the differences between the generations.

The most striking of these is ‘Subject for a Sermon’.

A young man who has come home on embarkation leave finds that his mother has no time for him; because she is so caught up in her role as lady of the manor, leading the community in doing everything possible to win the war, that she has failed to understand what the war means for him.

The story illuminates the differing viewpoints of their two generations. She is so very sure of her place in the world, and has no doubt that the war will be won and nothing will change; while he, facing the very real prospect of going to war and fighting, is sure that the future will be very different.

They cannot – will not – find common ground.

There is a touch of social comedy, but there is much more poignancy.

I could say the same for the title story.

Mrs Hatfield, who has returned to her London home to find it ransacked, rehearses how she will tell her story when she returns to the seaside guest house where she and others have lodged in the hope of escaping the impact of the war.

“She had something to tell this time. Here was real news, directly touching her, every person at Belvedere. The war had at last affected them personally; they were no longer grouped outside it, they shared in the general lawlessness. Lack of respect for property. What are we coming to? Police finishing off the whiskey, wouldn’t be surprised if – and so it would grow and, filling more than an evening, filling the days, recreating their lives, and more important, affirming their belief in the past.”

Her story will not play out as she expects.

There are many stories that speak of how we deal with loss.

I was touched by ‘The Prisoner’ the story of a woman who is alone and grieving and who is at first disturbed but later concerned for a group of German POWs working in the area. When one young man is sent to her house on an errand a tentative friendship grows between two lonely souls.

‘The Notebook’ tells a very different story, of a widow who must cope with being alone and with being the guardian of her husband’s legacy. That takes her life in an unexpected direction, and brings her some small comfort. I felt for her when her first instinct was to hide away, and I was pleased to be able to follow her progress.

I could go on writing about specifics, about different aspects of different stories, but it would probably be better to say that you really should read them.

Each one has its own distinctive character. Each one is well written and beautifully judged, with a wonderful awareness of the different aspects of each tale. There are some lovely turns of phrase, there is often a hint of subversion, and there was almost always an unexpected twist or a sting in the tale.

There is also an occasional burst of an entirely justifiable anger.

“What would she do, what would the people like her do, once they realised that their lives were indeed their own? Had she, had they, the courage to take them up and see?”

That such a young author showed such understanding of the people and the world around her, and distilled that into such exquisite and distinctive stories, is quite extraordinary.

There is just one more story that I really must mention.

‘Woman About The House’ tells the story of a man who is a disappointment to his wife and her family, having failed to proved for her as they would have liked and having failed to even find a steady job. He was a disappointment to himself too, but he stirred himself to set out to try to secure a job he had heard about. He got the job, he found lodgings nearby, and he began to build a better life for himself. When he went home his wife was gone, but he didn’t lose heart, he continued to plan for the future.

It’s an odd little story, but it speaks profoundly. It speaks about how poverty can be a trap, about how employment brings self-esteem, and about how just one chance can create the momentum to transform a life.

That story still resonated.

It really should be required reading for people in power. ( )

It really does seem as if Persephone Books publishes exactly the kind of short stories I like. With two more of their collections waiting to be read I am confident this will remain the case. This lovely collection of 1940’s stories by an author I have never read before was an instant five star read, and made me want to go out and get more books by Elizabeth Berridge immediately. I have resisted the call so far – if you could see my shelves you would understand, but I certainly intend to explore her work more fully in the future. The stories which make up Tell it to a Stranger were first published as Selected Stories in 1947, re-issued by Persephone Books with a new title in 2000.

tellittoastranger1There are eleven perfectly crafted stories in this collection, stories concerned primarily with the outsider, family, motherhood and class. The stories are surprisingly sharp, Berridge draws the reader into the world of her characters, her narrative is wonderfully controlled, her writing seems suited perfectly to the obvious constraints of the short story genre – and yet she was also apparently a very accomplished novelist. In the preface to this edition A.N Wilson describes Elizabeth Berridge’s writing as subversive, comparing her very favourably with Chekov. Wilson tells us (quite correctly I think) that Elizabeth Berridge challenges her readers preconceptions of life in the 1940’s, her characters are buffeted cruelly by life, they can be angry and selfish. This is a world of shortages, of homelessness, loss and loneliness, a world Elizabeth Berridge understood perfectly.

In the opening story Snowstorm a group of expectant mothers arrive at a nursing home to await the birth of their babies. As she watches the group arrive the woman doctor in charge, is immediately unnerved by one of her patients, a woman who stands apart from the other women, who says strange cold things about her child.

“Turning from the window she caught a glimpse of a scarlet coat. Startled by the colour, she looked closer. She saw a girl standing apart, as if in denial, and something about the arrogant head with its swathes of rich hair disturbed her. The others would be no trouble, but – with a definite feeling of unrest the doctor drew back into the room as Sister Matthews stepped out from the porch to welcome them”

(From: Snowstorm)

More stories concerned with motherhood are Firstborn, Lullaby, and Subject for a Sermon. Firstborn where a young mother struggles with the responsibilities placed upon her, and the interference of others, their view of her as a mother press down on her. Lullaby is a very short story – and quite horrific – I shall say no more – to do so could spoil it for others, but it is rather shocking. Subject for a Sermon is a story I read in another collection, and it is very memorable, but definitely worth re-reading. The mother here is a kind of awful Lady Bountiful working tirelessly for others – she revels in her own goodness, relishes the esteem she is held in by others. While her son home briefly on embarkation leave – is left feeling neglected and unloved. One of the themes that is explored in Subject for Sermon is the different view of the war by the older generation, a woman of the upper classes – very sure of her place in the world, her son, about to go and fight takes a wholly different view, certain that the days are numbered for women like his mother, that their world is coming to an end. In The Bare Tree, Berridge explores further the different viewpoints of the war, with a story of family disharmony. The older generation who lived through WW1 taking a rather different view than their children.

The title story; Tell it to a Stranger, along with To Tea with the Colonel and Chance Callers – really show the different and often difficult experiences of people living with the reality of bombing, facing homelessness, and loneliness. To Tea with the Colonel was one of my favourites, I won’t say too much, but in it, Elizabeth Berridge certainly shows her slightly subversive side, and her ability to surprise her readers. Tell it to a Stranger, another pretty short story, is beautifully poignant, a perfect exploration of loneliness. Mrs Hatfield has been living in a guest house by the sea since the bombing started, but now and then returns home to check on her house. When she finds her house has been ransacked, she relishes the idea of telling the story to her fellow guests, and races back to the Belvedere by train.

“She had something to tell this time. Here was real news, directly touching her, every person at Belvedere. The war had at last affected them personally; they were no longer grouped outside it, they shared in the general lawlessness. Lack of respect for property. What are we coming to? Police finishing off the whiskey, wouldn’t be surprised if – and so it would grow and, filling more than an evening, filling the days, recreating their lives, and more important, affirming their belief in the past.”

(From: Tell it to a Stranger)

Chance Callers recounts the bitterness of those left homeless by the war, but for these characters there is a surprising remedy to their plight, following a spontaneous house call.
Woman about the House is an odd little story about a man who is left by his wife. His life having been affected by unemployment, he eventually finds a job, and moves into a pub closer than home to his new job, when he eventually misses the comforts of home, he returns only to find his wife has already left. The Notebooks explores bereavement with a woman who having suddenly lost her writer husband struggling to move on with her life. When the director from the museum calls offering to buy her husband’s notebooks she is at first outraged and stricken at the very thought.

Another of my favourite stories – and one that will definitely stay with me was The Prisoner. A woman, still mourning the loss of her brother, with whom she had lived, and to whose care she had dedicated her life, is at first disturbed by the group of German POWs who come to dig drainage ditches near her cottage. As the days move closer to Christmas however, she is drawn into the world of one young man in particular, who comes to her cottage to exchange tea for coffee. Erich is sent on subsequent errands and so starts a tentative friendship between two lonely people.

Judging by this lovely collection of stories, I would say that Elizabeth Berridge deserves to be better known than I suspect that she is. It is purely thanks to Persephone Books that I came across her at all, and I am very glad that I did. In her afterword, written in 2000, Elizabeth Berridge describes how she became a writer, met her husband and explains how she came later to write some of these stories. It provides a perfect ending to her collection of stories. ( )

Tell It to a Stranger is a collection of short stories hat Elizabeth Berridge wrote during and after WWII. All the stories deal with the war in some way, but they focus more specifically on the relationships between people and the way they deal with the war. The stories reflect many of the emotions that people experienced during the war, as many people in England were displaced. Some of these stories are sad, some happy, but they are all moving in their own way.

Elizabeth Berridge wrote the Afterword to this collection, and she shares with the reader some of her own personal stories about the war, some of them serendipitous. And some of the stories in this book are based on real things that happened to Elizabeth Berridge—like the character in the first story, “Snowstorm,” she was billeted out for a time while she was pregnant and the raids were going on in London. Elizabeth Berridge’s husband was apparently convinced that writers had a major part to play in the war: “Do we ever really know…the precise nature of what we have gone through until our writers recreate it for us?” Which Berridge does exceptionally well in this collection. ( )