ALL OUR TOMORROWS - Book review

Ted Allbeury’s 1982 novel All Our Tomorrows is another addition to the long list of alternate future histories. This one is about a take-over of Britain by the USSR in the latter part of the 1980s. It’s a time when the EU was the more benign EEC and Woolworths were still on the high streets. And of course the all-pervasive Internet and social media had not yet taken hold.

It’s not his usual spy story, but rather an angry assessment of the state of the nation at that time, beginning with a quotation from Lenin: ‘British Communism should... learn to support the Labour Party leaders by their votes “as the rope supports the hanged man”.’ (p6)

Britain is talking about pulling out of the EEC (the debilitating tentacles of the EU had not been foreseen then). The situation in the country was dire: ‘We let things drift. We let criminals get away with it... Rioting, looting, hooliganism, were excused as being caused by racialism... We are scared of being labelled Fascists or reactionaries. It’s nice to be soft. And liked. And in the end it could get you votes’ (p18).

‘It was obvious, even to the public, that the law of the land could no longer be enforced’ (p96). The country was becoming ungovernable. A State of Emergency was declared, ostensibly due to mounting inflation and high unemployment. Strikes were illegal. Freedoms were constrained – and this was accepted...

French President Becque sees the situation and approaches Soviet President Orlov, suggesting that without Britain as an ally and a base, the US could never supply NATO in a war. If the British government asked the Soviet Union for help and in return became neutral territory... The Russian advisers could bring Britain full employment and law and order would be restored... Cooper, the British PM is faced with a dilemma, posed by the Soviets: ‘A choice to avoid a war you can’t win. You haven’t got the arms, the men or the planes. And you haven’t got the will to fight’ (p93).

So, aware that his country’s problems seem insurmountable; the PM signs a treaty of neutrality, inviting the Soviet Union to assist in bringing law and order to Britain – ‘bring back stability’ (p97).

Stability meant the country would be subject to Soviet law.

Change. ‘Let me tell you of some of those changes... Politicians have not served this country well. They have been divisive not constructive, seeking privileges for themselves and their sponsors. Therefore there will be no political parties in this country for the next five years’ (p109).

Before the take-over, the royal family was spirited away to Canada. The Queen made a broadcast which could only offer hope despite ‘men of evil intent exploited our traditional tolerance and freedom for their own ends... Old friends deserted us, some went so far as to hasten our downfall...’ (p139) [She didn’t mention the French!] The text of her speech reads as if it actually had been her speaking.

It seems that as the Soviet yolk pressed down upon the people, they became accepting of the new conditions: ‘We daren’t say what we think; nobody can criticise the system and survive’ (p198).

However, there was resistance. SAS Colonel Harry Andrews and his men Joe Langley and Jamie Boyle have built up a veritable army of spies, activists, saboteurs and fighters throughout the country. Harry’s plea to the populace, subject to harsh and brutal reprisals from the occupying troops, was clear: ‘Be strong. Not just for today but tomorrow and all our tomorrows’ (p267).

And, as it happens, the US hasn’t given up on occupied Britain. President Wheeler has the ear of Colonel Andrews also.  The struggle can bear fruit... though perhaps nothing would ever be the same again.

A thought-provoking book with surprising relevance to the situation today. 

THE SCARLET NIGHTINGALE - Book review

 

The Scarlet Nightingale (published 2018) is another excellent novel from the talented Alan Titchmarsh. His output is varied, to say the least. This outing begins along similar lines to Shute’s Requiem for a Wren – in other words, the female protagonist Rosamund is dead. The post-war Rosamund was a successful novelist and she had left behind a buff folder: ‘souvenirs and accretions of a life that had mostly had its share of romance... but which had also put a young woman in danger. Rosamund might have come from a privileged background, but it was something that she had been quite prepared to sacrifice in the name of love and duty. This is her story’ (p3).

The narrative is mostly in the third person, however interspersed are small insertions from Rosamund’s notes in first person (a good writer’s ploy which brings the character to life at a deeper level).

As ever, Titchmarsh reveals his gift for short telling character descriptions: Dr Armstrong ‘wore a wing collar and his eyebrows were long and upturned, giving him the look of a rather frightening owl’ (p31). Rosamund’s French governess Celine has to break the sad news to her charge: the girl had become an orphan and was to stay with her aunt Venetia in London (in 1938).

Venetia, the sister of Rosamund’s father, had married well and was now Lady Reeves and lived in Eaton Square. When war came, her aunt was loath to hide in the nearby air-raid shelter, preferring the basement in her house. Quite a character: ‘her aunt, in a floral Hartnell creation, half reclined on a sofa so generously furnished with brocade-covered cushions that she seemed in serious danger of suffocation’ (p125). ‘She might give the impression of being unworldly and ethereal, but the razor-sharp mind was clearly in no need of a whetstone’ (p125).

Venetia’s cook, Mrs Heffer, had a helpful brother who did odd jobs: ‘He was not exactly a liveried footman, but he did wear his three-piece Sunday suit and employed a liberal amount of brilliantine to tame his unruly thatch, which, on a bad day resembled an exploded Brillo pad’ (p220).

Rosamund meets and falls in love with Harry Napier who seems to be involved in secret war work. Before long, like many socialites of the period, Rosamund joins the SOE and is dubbed the Scarlet Nightingale; she is landed in France with others to sabotage a factory...

There are details about her training and the actual mission. Naturally, the reader is aware that she will survive, even if captured, because she died at the ripe old age of ninety-three (p1); however, there is still plenty of tension concerning the other operatives involved.

Titchmarsh has a gift for creating sympathetic characters. As Aunt Venetia says, ‘If we do not approach life positively, if we succumb to the naysayers and the defeatists, then we might just as well throw in the towel now, because such negativity becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... I cannot and will not be bowed down by a bunch of thugs who want to rule the world by bully-boy tactics. The only way to beat bullies is to stand up to them, and that – as you have discovered – is often painful and can have tragic consequences’ (p317). [That applies to any period, even today... – Ed]

A bitter-sweet tale, well told.