She Landed by Moonlight, by Carole Seymour-Jones

 

This is the story of Pearl (Marie / Pauline) Witherington who was a British agent working with the French Resistance during the Second World War. She was parachuted into Occupied France on 22^nd September 1943, and lived by her wits till she returned to London at the end of the war on 20^th October 1945.

Pearl grew up in Paris, and had not only an innate understanding of the French people and language, but also through having to cope with very dysfunctional parents had learnt valuable survival skills which prepared her for her role as a secret agent.  She had also fallen in love with her neighbour, Henri Cornioley, and was motivated to return to France under any pretext to fight beside him against the Occupation.

As it turned out Pearl did more that – she was made circuit commander of one of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) networks with more than 500 maquisards (Resistance fighters) under her command. The appointment of a ‘foreigner’ and a woman raised a lot of eye-brows amongst the locals, but Pearl was tall, pretty and got things done. Henri became her lieutenant, though he almost uncovered the whole operation by foolishly blowing their cover when a German patrol, keen to arrest Pearl, appeared at the chateau they were using for their operations. Henri fired a shot hoping to find out if the approaching men were Germans or maquisards! Despite his shortcomings, Pearl did marry her childhood sweetheart and they were able to bring up their daughter, Claire, in more peaceful circumstances.

According to the details of this account of Pearl’s war efforts there is no question that her work was heroic and courageous, as she succeeded in baffling the enemy and commanding a divided group of maquisards, in particular in the support of the D-Day invasion. As recognition, Pearl was awarded a civil MBE, as opposed a Military Cross, which she refused to accept. She quite rightly claimed that there was nothing civil about what she did: ‘I was personally responsible for the training and organisation of 3000 men for sabotage and guerrilla warfare.’ She continued to dispute the discrimination against women at the time not to be recognised for military achievements, and was awarded a CBE in 2004. Finally, her proudest moment was to be presented with her parachute wings, by which time she was living in a retirement home, reminiscing her brave maquisards and the battles of 1944.

Despite the beautifully romantic title of this book, the actual story is rather drawn out and verging on the tedious in some parts. It is constantly morphing from a thrilling narrative to an indiscriminate detailed historical account, bombarding the reader with information that is often superfluous to the main story. An excellent eye-opener to the lives, events and day-to-day concerns of those living through the Occupation, but it could have been half the length and twice as gripping.

Under Milkwood - Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas' most famous work. We listened to Richard Burton read on a rather fuzzy CD player but the spirit of the play was not lost and we all enjoyed it, many of us following the text. The play is as relevant now as it was when first written. Its story is at times sad and funny and sometimes even mundane.
  My copy for some reason refers the it as a fairy tale of gnomes - we didn't get that. Though the Welsh are often small - they aren't that small. It also printed the name of the place with one G instead of the two in the manuscript. Those who had Kindles found other discrepancies as the words were sometimes changed for some sort of puritanical reason - not sure why editors think that they can change words written by an author to pander to the sensibilities of some readers. We did discuss the fact that Thomas in so short a book was able to paint such a wonderful picture of life compared to some modern authors who need to write hundreds of additional unnecessary pages - we have mentioned this many times.
  The play tells the story of one village, Llareggub. We enter into the dreams of the inhabitants and rise with them as dawn breaks. We learn of their foibles, their desires and their secrets. As the day passes the villagers go about their business, the postman opens letters, sweets are sold, a husband reads pretends he is reading about the saints when in fact he is reading how to poison his nagging wife. There is unrequited love, there is bigamy - though very amicable - there is laughter and fun in a long marriage and there is the sorrow of lost loves.
  As day ends and nightfall approaches so the village returns to its bed and dreams.
  The format of the play is particular to Thomas. Instead of one narrator he uses a number who interject and tell us who is speaking so for example
Sinbad
Oh, Mr Waldo
First Voice
sighs Sinbad Sailors

which reminds us that this was a radio play though now played many times on stage as I first saw it but in fact found it difficult to follow.

Dylan Thomas was foremost a poet and there are a number of poems in the play which I actually found less convincing while the play itself is so beautifully written that it seems like one long poem - can you make sense of that! His rolled together words, his use of nouns and adjectives as verbs, his metaphors and similes are an English teacher's gift. They are much easier to understand than Ulysses. What about these:
bread-pudding bed
unmelting ice maiden daughter veiled for ever from the hungry hug of his eyes
voice of the vacuum cleaner

we read and we know exactly what he means - that is a rare talent indeed.