Beyond the Vicarage

Series: Vicarage Family - book 3 of 4
Published: 1971
Publisher: Collins London

Synopsis:

Ever since John Galsworthy recommended acceptance of her first manuscript, Noel Streatfeild has shown herself a consummate storyteller, whether she has been writing novels for the young to the old or her autobiography, of which this volume is the culmination. In it she answers all the questions which anyone who has enjoyed a book longs to ask the author, especially if she is celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic.

But fascinating as these glimpses behind the scenes are, the most dramatic episodes concern the author's 'private' life. Throughout the war she served in the W.V.S. and there has probably never been a more vivid account of the terrifying, yet inspiring, days and nights of the Blitz. For four years Noel Streatfeild worked in the rubble of Deptford and whether she is describing a scene as comic as the rescue of a monkey or as tragic as the descent of a V2 rocket on a busy shopping centre, her words strike home and live in the memory.

Furthermore, since she is prepared both to face and tell the truth, the small  incidents are as significant as the great. She writes as poignantly of a garden or a dog, the illness of a close friend, the virtues and shortcomings of her family, old age and death as she does of war.