Henrietta's War: News from the Home Front, 1939-1942

The book is an epistolary novel (drool!) composed of letters from the titular Henrietta, a doctor’s wife in a Devonshire village, to her childhood friend Robert, who has gone off to war. These letters, along with Dennys’s illustrations, which also appear in the book, were first published as a regular feature in Sketch magazine during the war.

The humor in this book is slightly on the wicked side with Henrietta making sly fun of the people in her Devonshire village, and even sometimes of the war effort. The humor works partly because Denys also makes Henrietta a figure of comedy, albeit a likeable one, with her penchant for a Day in Bed and her ineffectual interest in the garden. (And I must admit I totally agree with her views on a show more Day in Bed.) The other thing that makes the comedy work is that Henrietta says the things people think but don’t always say. She doesn’t consider the war a sacred cow at all, always to be treated with solemnity.

But Dennys doesn’t just tell silly stories. There are a few surprising moments where the people look out for each other or celebrate together in touching ways. A favorite of mine was when the imperious Mrs Savernack, tears in her eyes, brings a package of horse meat to Henrietta for her little dog Perry. I’m prickly when it comes to this kind of thing, and it doesn’t take much for sentimentality to cross over into soppiness in my mind, but Dennys stays on the right side of the line here. It’s a fun little book, and at only 158 pages, it’s well worth a couple of hours of your time.

See my complete review at Shelf Love. show less

Joyce Dennys was an artist who became frustrated when she married, moved back to England, and encountered strict societal expectations for a mother and doctor's wife. She created the character of Henrietta, her alter ego, and was able to express some of her frustrations through a series of letters that the fictional Henrietta wrote to her cousin, Robert, who was fighting in World War II. These funny, yet telling letters were published as a regular feature in The Sketch, a British illustrated newspaper weekly. The letters and accompanying illustrations were compiled into the book, [Henrietta's War], in 1985.

Henrietta is the wife of the stolid doctor Charles and the mother of two children: Bill, who is waiting for a commission, and show more Linnet, who works as a nurse. Her days are taken up with domestic chores and the society doings expected of a woman of her class. Between the lines of her witty and upbeat letters, Henrietta mocks her class for their well-meant, but slightly ridiculous, efforts on behalf of the Home Front. Small details of life during wartime, such as pasting strips of linen on the windows to prevent them from shattering or maintaining a victory garden, become comic vignettes with a small sting. The line illustrations are hilarious. I can't wait to get the second volume, [Henrietta Sees it Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945]. show less

If you want the ultimate comfort read, to make you feel better about almost anything you're facing, this one is a hot cup of tea, Aunt Midge's cinnamon buns and your fuzzy slippers all rolled up in one. A collection of pieces Dennys wrote during WWII, ostensibly letters to a childhood friend at the front, of the sort to lift his spirits with tales of how well everyone was making do on the home front. Full of humor and that particular sort of British woman who, if lined up on the beach, "each with a large stone in her hand" might have done a lot of damage to an invading force. When Henrietta and her husband, Charles, toasted the New Year with a combination of "remnants" from various depleted bottles, there were real tears in my eyes show more while I laughed out loud.
'Damn Hitler'
'Hear, hear!.. And God bless the King.'
'And the Queen'
'And the Queen, God bless her! And the little Princesses.'
'Absent friends!'
'And the Americans.'
'The Americans...Good luck to them.'
'And the Choles and Pecks.'
'The POLES and CZECHS, and all our other allies'
'I feel better.'
'That was the idea.' show less

On the radio there is talk of invasion but let's not think about that. I am going to tell you instead about Mrs Savernack'
By sally tarbox on 7 Nov. 2012
Format: Paperback
Delightful little book featuring Henrietta, wife of a Devon GP. In letters to a Childhood Friend serving in France, she shows the lighter side of the early years of WW2.
Featuring such wonderful scenes as her daughter's preparations for the expected evacuee: 'Even going so far as to lay a bar of chocolate on the lonely pillow and fish her old teddy-bear out of a box in the attic. At half-past five a youth of sixteen, just under six feet tall, was deposited on our doorstep.'
And 'a most enjoyable rehearsal of an air-raid warning...You would have thought that siren was a show more herald of good tidings instead of possible death and destruction...People in the streets were wreathed in smiles and some were doubled up with laughter...I haven't seen this place so gay since the Coronation'.
Rationing, the black-out, the struggle to procure meat for the pet dog - I thoroughly enjoyed it. show less

Joyce Dennys wrote a series of articles during World War II for Sketch Magazine. These articles, based on her own life, were in the form of letters written to her childhood friend, Robert. Through her character of Henrietta, she voiced the daily affairs, frustrations and trials of keeping a doctor’s house running though the changes that war inevitably brought.. With humor, verve and grace, Henrietta and her friends spring to life and everything from tea parties to their fears of Nazi invasion are covered. Many of these “letters” are accompanied by black and white line drawings that add to the overall amusement.

Henrietta lives in a small coastal village in Devon. Her articles are peopled with quirky, endearing characters and show more actually give one a fairly accurate picture of upper middle class life in Britain during the war.
From worrying about her children, one a soldier and the other working as a nurse to worrying about what to put on the dinner table, Henrietta appears to be a rather mild woman but nothing much gets past her, and she has plenty to say about her friends and neighbours, painting a vivid picture of village life.

Extremely clever, optimistic and, at times laugh-out-loud funny, Henrietta’s War was a fun read. This book covered the years 1939 to 1941, and there is a sequel called Henrietta Sees It Through that covers the remaining war years. show less

The word quaint, unfortunately, often carries a negative connotation of cutesy. When I call this book quaint, put that connotation far from your mind and stick to the more strict definition of having an old-fashioned charm or attractiveness. Charming and attractive describe this book perfectly...well, that and extremely funny.

If you're unfamiliar, Henrietta's War is a compilation of Dennys' articles for Sketch magazine during World War II, which took the form of short letters from her alter ego, Henrietta, to a childhood friend, Robert, who was fighting in France. In them, she satisfies Robert's request for news of the little Devonshire village that is home, letting him know how they are coping with the war's tribulations.

There is none show more of the slickness that so often accompanies modern humorous writing. Dennys' writing is simple and direct; she simply tells the village stories. And, yet, her observations are so keen and her wit so sharp that you can't help but laugh as she dryly skewers a bit of silliness (including herself). What emerges from the affectionate, ordinary stories is something that has just a hint of the extraordinary about it. show less

Henrietta’s War is a novel told in epistolary format. Henrietta is the wife of a doctor in Devon, living in a “Safe Area” during World War II. Her never-reciprocated letters are to an old childhood friend, “Robert” on the war front, to whom she narrates the minutiae of her life at home. Her letters are full of tales of her neighbors: Faith, a flirty young woman who enjoys showing off her legs; Lady B, who writes letters to Hitler (As Henrietta says, "She says it has never failed to give her a good night's sleep. I think her great-grandchildren will enjoy those letters, don't you?"); Mrs. Savernack the village's local Committee Woman; and others, including Charles, Henrietta’s sensible husband, who puts up with his wife’s show more sarcastic sense of humor with an incredible amount of patience.

This is a short novel; it only covers the first half of the war, from 1939 to the end of 1941 (a copy of the second volume of Henrietta’s letters, also reprinted by the Bloomsbury Group, is sitting on my TBR shelf). Henrietta’s letters are warm, witty, and funny. There’s something about the tone of this book that’s very English and patriotic; and our middle-aged heroine regales us with tales of sitting on sewing bee committees, dealing with the people from London who invade every summer (and say things like, “you people down here don’t understand how the war really is”), gardening with lumbago while wearing a hot water bottle on her back, and going to court for showing a light during a blackout.

All of the people in the village jump off the page, and are a delight to read about; even Henrietta’s dog, Perry, is a vibrant character in the book! The war itself isn’t a major part of this book, but it deals more with how average English people deal with the war, even in a place like Devonshire. In many ways, it reminds me a lot of Good Evening Mrs. Craven, by Mollie Panter-Downes, a collection of short stories about average Britons during the war. Henrietta’s War is a book that’s just as enjoyable, and highly recommended; I found myself laughing out loud in many places. I read it in one sitting, and I’m eager to read the further adventures of Henrietta in the follow-up, Henrietta Sees it Through. show less