The Brontës Went to Woolworths

Synopsis: As growing up in pre-war London looms large in the lives of the Carne sisters, Deirdre, Katrine and young Sheil still share an insatiable appetite for the fantastic. Eldest sister Deirdre is a journalist, Katrine a fledgling actress and young Sheil is still with her governess; together they live a life unchecked by their mother in their bohemian town house. Irrepressibly imaginative, the sisters cannot resist making up stories as they have done since childhood; from their talking nursery toys, Ironface the Doll and Dion Saffyn the pierrot, to their fulsomely-imagined friendship with real high-court Judge Toddington who, since Mrs Carne did jury duty, they affectionately called Toddy. However, when Deirdre meets Toddy's real-life wife at a charity bazaar, the sisters are forced to confront the subject of their imaginings. Will the sisters cast off the fantasies of childhood forever? Will Toddy and his wife, Lady Mildred, accept these charmingly eccentric girls? And when fancy and reality collide, who can tell whether Ironface can really talk, whether Judge Toddington truly wears lavender silk pyjamas or whether the Bronte's did indeed go to Woolworths?

Review: I enjoyed this story even though half of the time I hadn't a clue what was going on and felt often that I wasn't being let in on the joke .. the penny does drop after a while but you haven't the foggiest to begin with who is real and who is not .. and I did keep wishing they would calm down a bit as their spirits were always feverishly high.

It's a story of the three Carne sisters (the book ironically starts with 'How I loathe that kind of novel which is about a lot of sisters. It is usually called "They were Seven" or "Three Not Out", and one spends one's entire time trying to sort them all, and muttering, "Was it Isobel who drank, or Gertie? And which was it who ran away with the gigolo, Amy or Pauline? And which of their separated husbands was Lionel, Isobel or Amy's?") Our narrator for the most part is Deirdre, who is a journalist and very high spirited, next in line is Katrine who is an aspiring actress and then little Sheil who's still in the schoolroom.

The girls have gone in for make believe in rather a large way, giving life to dolls and toys as well as pretending that their lives are inhabited by the real life people they admire. In particular the high-court Judge Toddington (or Toddy as they call him) who, though they've never met him, comes to dinner frequently and telephones them nightly. They make pets of these people and endow them with sayings and character traits of their own imagining. Mother is very much in on all of these fantasies (Father is long since dead) and participates in them every bit as much as the girls do. The one sane point of reference is Sheil's governesses (understandably, they come and go) who have the job of trying to check the fanciful imaginings of the impressionable Sheil. The two we read about here get it entirely wrong. In the first instance Miss Martin thinks the girls are just plain weird and tries to make them see reason, her replacement Miss Ainslee see's it as the joke it is and tries to join in with all the raillery but gets it all wrong. Essentially it's all just harmless fun but when Deirdre is actually introduced to Lady Toddington at a charity bazaar and invited home to tea, she's forced to confront reality.

'How could I tell her that I had lunched with her and helped her dress her stall, yesterday afternoon, and that Toddy had come in after the courts rose and given us both a cocktail? How convey the two years I had spoken to them both every day of my life? How blurt her own life to her, her daily round of dressmaker, telephone, at homes, and tiffs with Toddy. How describe to her her own secret difficulties: that she is privily aware that she is not his mental equal? That in the past there have been days when she would almost have welcomed his tangible infidelity as being a thing she could roundly, capably decide about, and no brains needed? That she has long ceased to love and notice him?'

There's a touch of the supernatural about it too, Father has been known to 'return' and, after a séance on a wet evening in Yorkshire, the Brontës come calling.

The thing, is though it's all frightfully silly and incredibly far fetched, there's an underlying sadness that makes you long for a more rational outcome especially for Sheil who is in danger of living entirely in a make believe world. You want something to anchor them back down to earth.

It's strange, mad, baffling, touching and funny all in equal doses. You will never have read anything quite like it.