Carrie's War

I was annoyed that it started thirty years on from Carrie’s childhood story; but it ended being relevant. It was a whole lot sadder than The Peppermint Pig, which I look forward to re-visiting. But on the whole, it was extremely satisfying. Bawden draws wonderfully complicated and real characters. Hepzibah Green was the anchor to the story, but even Mr. Evans finds himself redeemed.

Guilt is a terrible thing. And when it's brought about by such a tenuous belief as sympathetic magic, the sense of culpability can overwhelm---even when there may be no actual cause-and-effect involved between an act and what happens subsequently. Such is the case with Carrie when, as an adult, she revisits the South Wales mining community where she was evacuated during the Second World War and where she has to confront fears engendered thirty years before.

As with many child evacuees Carrie and her younger brother Nick are separated from her widowed mother, sent to the Valleys while their mother relocates to Scotland for the war's duration. They stay with the odious Mr Evans and his anxious sister Aunty Lou in a bleak mining village show more (based on Blaengarw, north of Bridgend, which is where the author was herself evacuated to). Nothing they do seems to ingratiate themselves with the self-righteous bullying Mr Evans, who rules his little domain with spite and parsimony.

Luckily there are altogether more friendly people to leaven their existence: Albert Sandwich, another evacuee who lodges with Norfolk-born Hepzibah Green and the child-like Mister Johnny, whom Nick instantly befriends. These all live outside the village at an old farmhouse called Druid's Bottom, just within sight of the railway line; it's the home of the now widowed Mrs Gotobed, estranged sister of Mr Evans.

And so the scene is set for the inevitable misunderstandings, conflicts and possible tragedy, as seen through the eyes of the twelve-year-old, and as remembered by her adult self.

Carrie's War is every bit as brilliant as its reputation suggests. It is a poignant reminder of how childhood can be blighted by the inconsiderate and incomprehensible actions of adults, and even more so in an age where children were suffered to be seen but not heard. When delights come her way -- a welcoming kitchen, a cuddle, an unexpected picnic -- she grabs and relishes them while she can, but the contrast between these and the treading-on-eggshells consequent on Mr Evans' constant negativity is sharp and terrible. Druid's Bottom, and the earby Druid's Grove, also hold contrary emotions for her -- sometimes comfort, other times fear -- for along with the motherly Hepzibah and innocent Mister Johnny is a woman very much like Miss Havisham, one with secrets of her own, plus an ancient relic which may or may not be cursed.

Carrie's instinct is to look for the best in human nature, to try and give people the benefit of the doubt (an instinct her brother refuses to yield to in the face of Mr Evans' hypocrisy), which all renders the unfolding drama so heartbreaking. When Carrie does commit an act of desperation, the subsequent disaster -- which she believes is her fault -- brings her to a nadir in her young life. Which makes the final denouement even more powerful, one that I have to confess resulted in the shedding a tear or two.

The war that is Carrie's is only partly related her experience of those terrible years when the outside world went mad; mostly it describes the conflict that she encounters in that valley. It's a fitting coincidence that the Blaengarw that Nina Bawden herself knew was where the words of the famous Welsh hymn Calon Lân were composed by Daniel James, for Calon Lân translates as 'a pure heart'. Love is the idée fixe that runs through this novel: love given, love taken away, love lost and love regained. show less

An interesting story about 12-year-old Carrie and her younger brother, Nick, who are evacuated from the bombings in London and sent to live in rural Wales with a brother and sister. Louise, the sister, is kind but totally under her brother's thumb and he's an angry, difficult man. Carrie and Nick feel much more comfortable with neighbours Hepzibah, Mister Johnny and their evacuee, Albert.

It was a good story with the characters well rounded out for a children's book. It really showed how children lack understanding of adult motivations and emotions. And on the impact of guilt, even misplaced, on someone's lifel

I read this in bits and chunks when I was at school (when you go to school in Wales, it's a book that's very difficult to escape) but didn't really have much of a coherent memory of it in my head. It's been a loose end in my reading history, one I've meant to go back and tie for a while.

Now I have and... well, I wish I'd paid a bit more attention at the time. I was surprised how clear my memories were of big chunks of the book, particularly the early parts, but often I was remembering the effect of them at the time, rather than feeling it anew.

Little things like Nick's strop about getting a Bible for his birthday rather than one of the knives Mr Evans knew he wanted felt much closer then than they do as an adult; now, it's behaviour I show more recognise in children but it isn't something I recognise in me.

The plot also feels a lot less substantial. It's interesting how much longer books seem as a child – I guess because your reading is so much slower – but I'm always surprised to go back and find books I remember spending weeks on were only a couple of hundred pages long.

I think Carrie's War suffers from that foreshortening; the name itself suggests a story covering years, but it's hard to sink into the world and lives of the characters when you can rattle through them in a few hours. That's not necessarily a problem of the book, just evidence I'm not the target audience.

Some books you can catch up with years after you first (or should have) read them. Others will remain in the past. Given the story it tells, maybe it's fitting that Carrie's War is the latter. show less

Albert, Carrie and young Nick are war-time evacuees whose lives get so tangled up with the people they've come to live among that the war and their real families seem to belong to another world. Carrie and Nick are billeted in Wales with old Mr Evans, who is so mean and cold, and his timid mouse of a sister, Lou, who suddenly starts having secrets.
Their friend Albert is luckier, living in Druid's Bottom with warm-hearted Hepzibah Green and the strange Mister Johnny, who can talk to animals but not to human beings. Carrie and Nick visit him there whenever they can for Hepzibah makes life exciting and enticing with her stories and delicious cooking. Gradually they begin to feel more at ease in their war-time home, but then, in trying to show more heal the rift between Mr Evans and his estranged sister, and save Druid's Bottom, Carrie does a terrible thing which is to haunt her for years to come. show less

This children's book was published in the 1970s and adapted by the BBC into a serial at around the same time, one I remember with affection watching as a 7/8 year old. At base, it is the story of a sister and brother evacuated to the south Wales valleys during the Blitz, and how they relate to the family they stay with. The characters are well rounded and distinct, with some particularly colourful ones in Mr Johnny and the dying Mrs Gotobed, dressing in her ball gowns, a slightly macabre image that I distinctly remember from the TV series. There is also a skull that supposedly carries a curse, though this is not primarily a fantasy or mystery novel. Good to renew my acquaintance with this story.

Carrie's War by Nina Bawden is the story of Carrie and her little brother Nick during World War II. The children were sent to live in the country, away from the bombings in London, for their own safety. I'd bet you $55 million dollars you could not show me a children's story with characters more real and more human. The children are placed with an absurdly cheap shopkeeper and his mousy sister for the war's duration, and they are very unhappy there, suffering from the shopkeeper's frugality and the sister's inability to stand up to her brother. Nevertheless, Carrie and Nick gradually form a relationship with the two, and come to see the underlying reasons for the miserly ways of the shopkeeper and the fearfulness of the sister, as they show more grow to know the household of an estranged sibling of the two. Very complex characters, and that's the great strength of this story. A 1001 CBYMRBYGU. show less