For the #1940 Club: The English Air by DE Stevenson

 

'It was the spring of 1938 and the tennis season had just begun.'

And so, by the second page of The English Air, we know (i) that the characters in this book do not know what we know about forthcoming world events, and (ii) that we are entering a level of society in which the year is marked out by 'seasons', and those seasons are not just summer and winter.

'The Braithwaites were a comfortable family'

by which DE Stevenson apparently means that Sophie Braithwaite (widow), her daughter Wynne, son Roy and Dane Worthington (half brother of Philip, the late Mr B), are all nice to one another, with 

'no sharp corners or complexes of any kind.'

But they are also very comfortably off. They have a big house in the countryside, servants, a Daimler, and an account at Harrods (most useful for Roy's socks...)  Suave and slightly mysterious (and, naturally, possessor of a private income) Dane has moved (with his loyal manservant, obviously...) into his own wing of the house, as Sophie is too vague to manage her own affairs. We seem to be expected to think that this makes Sophie charming, but while she is indeed amenable and even-tempered, I'm afraid I found her irritating and silly. 

I can deal with wealthy families, I really can. I love Nancy Mitford's Radletts. But Mitford's Linda, Fanny and even Aunt Sadie have some backbone; Sophie just seems unable to manage anything much more than the teapot, and to be honest Wynne isn't a whole lot better. There is a horrible little scene in which Wynne, in her position as leader of the Guides, visits a sick child and bosses/patronises her caricature of a mother into agreeing to the operation her daughter needs. 

Into the Braithwaites' ordered lives come Franz, son of Sophie's late cousin Elsie and her German husband Otto. Franz's father is a Nazi, and has sent Franz to England to find out what the natives think about Germany and, in particular, Hitler. Franz has been brought up to believe that the Fuhrer is his country's salvation. He is of course very polite and good looking, and enters into Wynne's social life - a constant round of tennis, beach trips and parties - with pleasure, although he is initially confused by her friends' behaviour, and especially their constant use of irony and sarcasm.

Franz begins to appreciate the 'English way of life' and apparently concludes that;

'Britain hates nobody for she is too great, too secure, too busy with her own affairs...she has strength and power and racial pride, she has money, she has her Dominions and Colonies...'

Of course I am not for one minute suggesting that Otto has the right idea or that Nazi Germany was a good place, but Stevenson really does push the 'superiority' of England to its limits. Of course Franz finds England 'peaceful, secure and happy' when he bases his entire impression on life in a very privileged family. Meanwhile, vast swathes of the country were suffering economic depression and mass unemployment. Many people were far from 'poor but happy', and even those that were (see, for example, Eve Garnett's wonderful The Family From One End Street trilogy, the first of which was written in 1937) lived a very different life from the Braithwaites'.

As the months pass and war with Germany becomes inevitable, Franz - renamed Frank - realises that he has been wrong about his homeland's current regime. He also realises that he is in love with Wynne, but Dane refuses (as her guardian) to sanction any engagement, on the basis that things did not work out well for Elsie in her marriage to Otto, especially during the First World War, when she was ostracised. 

Frank returns to Germany and joins an underground resistance league. He stays with his Tant' Anna, one of the best characters in the book, who does give us insight into the terrible conditions that ordinary Germans were facing at that time. Meanwhile Wynne volunteers at the local hospital, Roy's ship sees active service, Dane disappears on secret missions, and Sophie knits a few socks (she's not up to attending the local First Aid classes, much too difficult...) and writes a lot of letters. 

Needless to say, after a few adventures everything works out in the end and they all live happily ever after. 

The English Air is, like all of Stevenson's novels, well written and easy to read. I enjoyed the story, and tried to remind myself that it was written in 1940, not 2023 - on that basis I could cope with Wynne and her friends, but I'm afraid spineless Sophie was a bridge too far for me.

I once attended a Persephone Books' event at which Stevenson's lovely granddaughter spoke of her childhood visits to her rather scary grandmother, who would recline on a chaise longue, smoking a cigarette in an exotic holder while dictating her books to a secretary. I somehow think the author had a lot more gumption than the pathetic Mrs Braithwaite, and would have made a much more interesting character in somebody's novel. 

DE Stevenson