"Our heart is old and hard and true still, in spite of surface rot.

(3.5 stars rounded up) The 1941 publication date prompted me to read this memoir*. The outcome of WW2 was unknown. Allingham's American publisher —she was a successful crime novelist � asked her to write about the life in rural Essex from shortly before the declaration of war to the present (1941).

Irène Némirovsky’s Suite Française has the same pull: her novellas published in 2006 were written concurrent the German invasion and occupation of France before her death in Auschwitz in 1942.

Allingham's memoir would be a good pairing with Foyle's War. It captures the emotions of preparing for an invasion, coping with six busloads of evacuees, conflict among villagers, strewn German airplane parts, and the need to go on living. She asks herself how important freedom is: was it better to die than to be enslaved?

Her last sentences are buoyant: What a period! What an age to have been alive in! O, thank God I was born when I was.

Through the marvel of internet, events the author describes in print are available to view on home movies her sister Joyce made. They had a country feast, this annual jollification, that you can see at , including appearances by the author. It is a delightful slice of life that Anglophiles would adore.


* This book found me! I was searching for the right kind of audiobooks to propel me on my daily walk: easy but engaging, not too philosophical, winsome. I searched for Naxos audiobooks. Libby includes zero Naxos audiobooks; Hoopla 872! Hooray for Hoopla!


"