'Dark Quartet' by Lynne Reid Banks

I discovered this in one of my favorite secondhand bookshops which was sadly soon to close down, and it renewed my interest in all things Bronte related. As this date happens to be Emily Bronte's birthday, now is a good time to review and discuss it. 

MY THOUGHTS: 

This biographical novel from 1973 about the brilliant siblings from Haworth is an intense and mind-blowing read. Lynne Reid Banks thoroughly did her homework. Her forays into the inner lives of these four seem (mostly) consistent with what has been confirmed about them from the reams of correspondence they've left behind. Leaving room for poetic license, the book is sensitively written, with threshed out trajectories all round. Its title is well chosen, for their true lives were surely as Gothic and harrowing as anything they ever wrote. 

It's hard to decide where to jump in and discuss something with so broad and deep a canvas, so I'll tackle each of the four main subjects according to birth order.    

 The book delves into Charlotte's intense, private guilt, for feeling more passionate about her own secret world than she does about the conventional Anglican Christianity that is preached all around her. Yet she cannot change a thing, spurred on by the physical excitement she generates inside herself by her characters' elicit passions. (Whoa!) Even the poet laureate, Robert Southey, writes Charlotte a stern warning, to the effect that young ladies shouldn't let their imaginations run away with them. But any resolutions to guard her thoughts are feeble, since the fantasy world she's created is all-consuming. According to her aunt's and father's Calvinistic tinged strictures, Charlotte can't help fearing she must be damned.

Branwell comes across as witty, highly-strung, ever on the verge of breakdown, and in all likelihood a pain in the neck. He's not a fraction as confident as he tries to appear. Rather, he's a tortured soul who fears he'll always be a fall-short, unable to muster what it must take to satisfy the high hopes his family have pinned on him. He's undisciplined and reactive, allowing himself to be tossed about by any wind blowing. His petit mal seizures, commonly known as absence seizures today, alarm his family. (I know other biographers throughout the years conjecture that it was epilepsy.) And he seems to be allergic to actually finishing anything. 

I find Banks' dour dramatic version of Emily hard to like but easy to admire. Blunt and reclusive, she's also a nature mystic, but specifically for one spot; her beloved Yorkshire Moors. This goes hand in hand with a weird astral travel ability. (Did she really experience these out-of-body journeys? I can't find any factual backup.) A great admirer of strength and determination, she scorns herself as a weakling for retreating from Roe Head school with intense homesickness, but directs her self-criticism into shaping her writing to be the finest it possibly can. 

Anne, perhaps the least 'dark' of the quartet, takes upon herself the earnest anxiety of a youngest child to see everyone happy and content around her; an impossible task with her complex siblings and vulnerable father. (I still think she should have quit her position with the Ingham family, rather than gritting her teeth and toughing it out because she had something to prove. Hence she ends up being fired, which I can't help thinking was partly her own fault. See my review of Agnes Grey, her biographical novel.) 

It's all such interesting fodder, including Emily's hero worship of her employer, Miss Elizabeth Patchett, who resembles a favorite heroine Emily has created; and the formally written marriage proposal Charlotte receives from Henry Nussey, which may have influenced that abysmal proposal made by St. John Rivers to Jane Eyre. We meet the sunny natured curate, Willy Weightman, such a contrast to the dark quartet that all four can't help basking under his refreshing influence. There's a plausible reason why Branwell, in a fit of gloom, scrubs himself out of the famous pillar painting. And I love Charlotte's brush with the Catholic priest who tells her, 'Those who suffer as you are suffering often have a vocation to ease the anguish of others.' 

Of course Banks introduces the two married people who Charlotte and Branwell fall for. Monsieur Heger is depicted as a principled and decent (albeit overbearing) guy whose powerful sway over Charlotte occurs despite himself, but Mrs Lydia Robinson is portrayed as a heartless and duplicitous cougar.  

I seem to remember reading somewhere that when Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her 1857 biography of Charlotte, Mrs Robinson attempted to sue her for defamation over claims that she seduced Charlotte's younger brother. However, Dark Quartet was written well into the twentieth century so Banks didn't have the same problem. She paints Branwell's temptress with a thoroughly black brush. I wonder if Mrs Robinson's descendants remember her as the villain who ruined his life, and if so, whether the passage of time has made it more of a cool detail to include in their lineage than a source of shame. 

I took my time over this book. It wasn't one I could possibly rush through, and it wasn't easy to take all the harsh blows on board, but the effort was well worth it. However, the heavy emotion lingers. The world was robbed of whatever novel Emily was working on at the time of her death, and it might've been astounding, coming on the heels of Wuthering Heights. And I find the rift between Charlotte and Branwell, lasting until the day of his death, is heart-rending. Close to the end, Banks has him say, 'Charlotte, who was once closer to my heart than my own left lung, now withholds herself from me as if she fears to become a drunkard and wastrel herself just by looking at me.'  

And I won't even get started on the early chapters which dealt with the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth. They were almost too much for me at the outset.

My fascination for the Brontes has been well and truly re-ignited by this book. I visited Haworth Parsonage once, aged 20, and I'd swear you really could feel their creative, brooding energy still caught between those walls. 

I guess I'd better warn you to expect more Bronte posts down the track.

🌟🌟🌟🌟½

Agatha Christie - An Autobiography

When I bought this from the bargain table of a secondhand bookshop, the lady behind the counter predicted that I'd really enjoy it. She was spot on, although I initially balked at the size, thinking, 'This had better be good, Agatha!' It exceeded my expectations by far, and I know it'll be high among my ten best reads of the year. It's brimming with humor, and wise philosophical observations which come from living a long and interesting life.

MY THOUGHTS:

As far as I see, Agatha Christie's tips for living a good life amount to four key attitudes 

1) Try anything once.

2) Be flexible.

3) Set your mind on stubborn enjoyment. (If she were taking a gift to a child at a christening, Agatha would choose a naturally happy frame of mind.)

4) A sense of humour is vital.

On a personal note, I was instantly riveted because Agatha's early family dynamic was an exact replica of mine. She was the baby of the family, with a far older sister and brother, which meant she was frequently thrown on her own resources, and had to invent her own private style of fun from scratch. Perhaps being the late addition to any family unit helps us dig deep to craft our own personal inner world. I once considered it a drawback of my own life, but now, with the help of this book, see it as a formative benefit. And Agatha exited this world in the same decade I was just beginning it, the 1970s.  

 The autobiography begins with Agatha's early childhood during the late Victorian era with her parents, older siblings, and a household of servants in their beloved and blessed home named Ashfield. Agatha remembers the servants being happily appreciated for doing excellent, expert work. In her memory, they often loom as tyrants rather than menials. 

Her reflections about this stage of her life have convinced me that no modern person can possibly even begin to imagine the standard of fun enjoyed by Victorian and Edwardian kids from well-off families. 

Interestingly, Agatha doesn't recall her early world being remotely patriarchal, the way we've come to understand the word. The old matriarchs ruled the social fabric with rods of iron. 

She says:

'We women have behaved like mugs. We have clamoured to be allowed to work as men work. Men, not being fools, have taken kindly to the idea. Why support a wife? What's wrong with a wife supporting herself? She wants to do it. By golly, she can go on doing it.'

This girl took everything in her stride, including a teenage ambition to become a concert pianist, hard, gruelling VAD work nursing during her twenties in WW1, and later in the hospital dispensary, where she learned a lot about poisons and different substances that benefited her mystery writing in the years ahead. And she always manages to piece out fascinating, hilarious incidents from the mundane.

She describes her marriage to Archibald Christie, the first great love of her life, the birth of their daughter, Rosalind, and the aftermath in which Archie breaks their marriage and Agatha's heart when he leaves her for another woman. This book has softened my opinion of Archie, although I expected the opposite. For Agatha herself paints a great picture of him, and a bit of googling reveals that Rosalind remained on good terms with her father, and that far from being a general two-timer and cheat, he stuck with his second wife, Nancy, until the end of his days. 

The latter part of the book covers Agatha's second marriage to the archaeologist, Max Mallowan, who was fourteen years Agatha's junior. It includes heaps of travel to exotic and daunting locations, their lifestyle on his excavation sites in the middle east, and their survival during the second great war of that terrible 20th century.  

Her musings about progress, and what might be in store for us next, are rather ironic. ('I would like to be able to look into the future and see the next steps: one feels they will follow quickly on one another now, with a snowballing effect.') What would Agatha think if she knew the future would contain an AI version of herself teaching a virtual creative writing class, for that fact has been popping up on my newsfeed recently. From the tone of this book, I imagine it might be shock. 

The only slight warning I'll offer is that Agatha, swept along by nostalgia, gets a bit plot-spoilerish about some of her earliest titles. So if you haven't read them yet, keep this in mind.

So as not to inflate this review unduly, I'll add another blog post down the track specifically dealing with Agatha Christie's reflections about writing. For now, I'll finish off with a great quote from the autobiography. 

'It is astonishing how much you can enjoy almost everything. There are few things more desirable than to be an acceptor and an enjoyer. You can like and enjoy almost any kind of food or way of life. You can enjoy country life, dogs, muddy walks, towns, noise, people, chatter. In the one there is repose, ease for nerves, time for reading, knitting, embroidery, and the pleasure of growing things. In the other, theatres, art galleries, good concerts, seeing friends you would otherwise seldom see. I am happy to say that I can enjoy almost everything.'

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

'Ash Road' by Ivan Southall

I've chosen this for the Bushfire category of my 2025 Aussie Reading Challenge. I seemed to remember a few different fire themed novels around the place, including one called, 'You Name it, It's Burning.' I couldn't put my hands on that one, but luckily Ash Road was in a pile of recent acquisitions from a goodwill shop.  

MY THOUGHTS:

This was first published in 1966, and won the Australian Children's Book of the Year Award for Older Readers in 1966. It is one of those stories that just covers one single day.

Three fifteen-year-olds, Harry, Graham, and Wallace, are delighted to be camping unattended in the Aussie bush. They're a bit annoyed when they're forbidden to light campfires, since they'd been looking forward to their own cooking, but the north wind is hot and hard, and the scrub as dry as tinder. The locals know that a tiny flame may quickly become a monster. During the early hours of the morning, the boys accidentally start a raging blaze anyway, when Graham knocks over their bottle of methylated spirits near their faulty heater.

Consequences are catastrophic. Many properties are burned to the ground, livestock and wildlife are lost, and human lives seriously endangered. As well as the culpable trio, the story focuses on several residents who live along Ash Road and mistakenly assume their location will remain well out of the raging fire's path. While able-bodied adults head off to assist with relief efforts, the children and elderly folk left to hold down the fort are terrified to find the fire closing in on them. 

Five-year-old Julie Buckingham unwittingly overflows the bathtub and depletes the family's rainwater stores; Grandpa Tanner remembers an identical blaze around 1913, Peter Fairhall feels frustrated by his grandparents' protective initiative to send him away, and the George family are trying to protect their perishing raspberry crop. The day doesn't unfold the way anyone expects. 

It was a contemporary tale of its time, but Australia was on the brink of a total change. Currency is still pounds sterling, temperature is measured in Fahrenheit, and distance in miles. Only fairly senior citizens would remember this now. (Not me! I wasn't born yet.) Therefore it's an interesting snapshot from the not-so-distant past. I once updated all my technology details for the second printing of a contemporary novel, but this example suggests it may be more interesting to let novels age like fine wine. I would never change things again.

Under Southall's skillful pen, the fire becomes the main antagonist it deserves to be. 

'The smoke cloud was a pale brown overcast with billows of white and curious areas of mahogany and streaks of sulphurous-looking yellow. The sun shone through like a white plate in a bowl full of dye... There was ash on the road too, unnumbered flakes of it lying in the gravel and in the grass at the edges and caught up like black flowers in twigs and foliage... It was like a black and white photograph of enormous proportions, in the midst of which candles burned mysteriously.'

And how about this excellent description of the vile temper of the day itself.

'It was an angry day; not just wild or rough but savage in itself, actively angry against every living thing. It hated plants and trees and birds and animals, and they wilted from its hatred or withered up and died or panted in distress in shady places.'  

In spite of his evocative descriptions (which I believe helped win him that award), I find the fleeting time span covered doesn't really do justice to the extensive cast of characters. The plot has unpredictable moments when it draws complete strangers together, but it is ultimately one day in their lives. An extremely traumatic day, I grant you that, but I prefer longer time spans in stories to really get to know people. And the untimely death of one character who couldn't ever win a trick saddens me enough to knock off a couple of stars. 

Still, if part of Southall's goal was to warn people about the potential terror of bushfires, and subsequent need to take extreme caution, he surely succeeded.

🌟🌟🌟   

'Meditations for Mortals' by Oliver Burkeman

Summary: Meditations for Mortals takes us on a liberating journey towards a more meaningful life – one that begins not with fantasies of the ideal existence, but with the reality in which we actually find ourselves.

MY THOUGHTS:

Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks was among my top reads of 2022, which inclines me to pick up anything else he writes.  

He suggests the uplifting benefit of the 'Done' list, as opposed to the guilt-inducing 'To Do.' For, 'it implicitly invites you to compare your output to the hypothetical situation in which you stayed in bed and did nothing at all.'

He addresses how to tackle reading lists in our culture of TMI, for as he says, it's evident in the 21st century that we're no longer hunting for needles in haystacks but facing towering mountains of needles. Treating our TBR piles as rivers instead of bottomless buckets is key here. We can dip in to pick a few choices here and there, without feeling guilty for letting others simply float past, even those deemed special or important by others. We should resist the urge to stockpile knowledge in our reading, and simply trust that each good book is subtly changing us into better people. Oh, and it's quite okay to read just for fun.

Regarding self-esteem, Burkeman suggests that too many of us tether it to the most crazy-making standard of all, which is 'realizing our potential.' This is a recipe for staying ever restless, for how can we ever know there is not more potential left to realize?

Then there's the TMI of daily living in our world of western media and digital technology. The horror and injustice of the whole world is flashed before us daily, with the implicit demand that we react with heartache and empathy every single time. Burkeman breaks the news that social media platforms invite us to care about more human suffering than the greatest saints in history would have encountered in their entire lives. No wonder compassion burn-out hits some of us so hard. His advice is not to retreat into our shells, overcome by the sheer hopelessness of it all, but simply to focus on one single battle we're willing to get involved with. 

He echoes advice I always seem to need hearing. Worrying is trying to figure out ways to cross bridges we may never even come to! (It's similar to Mark Twain's wisdom about refusing paying debts we may never owe, Jesus' teaching that every day has trouble enough of its own, or perhaps the old proverb, 'Don't trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.') To all this, Burkeman would add, 'Don't let the future destroy the present!' This has been a major stumbling block of my life, so I always appreciate having it reinforced.

Very interestingly, he's isolated the optimal number of hours required to chip away at our passion projects or professional goals, before our brains turn to mush and diminishing returns set in. It is just 3 - 4 hours! Therefore we'd do well to set non-negotiable rings around this time block, and let the rest of the day fritter itself away in the inevitable paperwork, errands, walks and socializing, or what Burkeman calls the 'usual fragmentary chaos of life.' Yet without being too rigid, we ought to make this goal 'daily-ish' for things have a way of happening. 

One thing I have trouble agreeing with is Burkeman's notion of 'scruffy hospitality.' This is allowing ourselves to be 'real' when we invite people over, and not putting it off until everything is perfect. Although I always feel refreshed as the recipient of scruffy hospitality, I fear I'll never be able to embrace this one. It goes too much against my upbringing, and as my in-laws are also pretty perfectionistic, it's a double whammy. Besides, there is always a fear lurking that my 'pristine' is a match for other people's 'scruffy' anyway. So nope, I think I'll always be running around with dusters and vacuum cleaners to create the illusion that I've got my act together. 

But the theory is good. 

I'll finish off with his comment about 'what premodern people knew.' It is simply that since life is so inherently confusing and precarious, then joy, if it's ever to be found at all, is going to have to be found now, in the midst of confusion and precariousness.

🌟🌟🌟🌟    

'Spiderweb for Two' by Elizabeth Enright

Summary: It's the fourth and final instalment of the Melendy Quartet. Left alone when Rush and Mona go away to boarding school, Randy and Oliver are lonely and bored until a mysterious letter brings the first of many clues to a mystery that takes all winter to solve.

MY THOUGHTS:

For years it seems Then There Were Five was meant to be the last book in the Melendy series. While the first three were all published between 1941 and 1944, this final novel didn't appear until 1954; ten years from the starting point with a seven year gap. That struck me as a red flag at the outset. (When Mary Norton did a similar thing with The Borrowers Avenged, it was a facepalm.) 

Then the story concept fueled my misgivings. While Mona, Rush, and Mark are all away at boarding school, Randy and Oliver are at loose ends with nothing to do but mope around Four-Story Mistake by themselves. One day they receive an anonymous letter that sparks an intriguing scavenger hunt to occupy them all season while the others are away. I hated the idea of the older siblings being written out of most of the action, but being a Melendy book, I read it anyway. 

It isn't half bad. The clever, poetic clues are a challenge for us readers as well as the two kids. The masterminds behind the challenge really intend for them to work hard for it, and it is great when we discover their identities. Not in the least surprising, given the extreme inside knowledge they evidently possess, but very satisfying. 

The whole boarding school thread is a bugbear of mine. What a shame to break up such a close-knit family who all love their home. When Randy and Oliver suggest homeschooling their own kids, I'm right on board with them. Still, having said that, I understand Father Melendy's reasoning in this instance. Given their ages and exceptional talents, it is inevitable that Mona, Rush, and Mark require far more specialized training in their fields than Carthage Public School is able to offer. 

Just the same, I can't help taking off a star for their absence anyway. Don't get me wrong, Randy and Oliver are both delightful. I love her endearing, whimsical nature and his self-contained nerdiness. But I feel we need more of the others to make any plot really shine. It lacks a certain spice without Mona's performative ways, and Rush's mischievous, spot-on sense of humor. Even though we never get to physically hear Rush's excellent piano playing through the pages, this final book is still a bar short of a symphony without him in it more. We need all four siblings as the corners of a whole package, the Melendy Quartet.

As a point of interest, I'm positive Randy is one of those rare, highly creative souls with synesthesia, that condition when one or more of the five senses crosses paths with awesome results. We're not told outright, but when she describes her perception of different days of the week as different colored, her unusual piquancy all through the series all makes sense. (She shares this attribute with The Story Girl, created by Lucy Maud Montgomery.)

Needless to say, my favorite chapters are the ones when they're all reunited, for Christmas and summer breaks from school. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟  

Start with The Saturdays, then The Four-Story Mistake, followed by Then There Were Five.

(And for a treat when the Melendys grow up, click here.)

The weirdness of Life (A mid-year update)

Here's a pause in my usual book review content to bring a mid-year update. Although the first half of 2025 seems to have sped past on wings, it has been eventful in a few ways. Above you'll see an AI generated image of a Mother's Day photo with my three kids that looks very true to life. From left to right is Logan, myself, Blake, and Emma. Now for what's been happening.   

My Decision to Quit Masters

Having done very well in my Graduate Diploma, I was quite gung-ho at the start. I expected it to be another cool goal to tick off and add to the inventory of things I've done, that I never expected to. And I was convinced that my idea deserved it. Fan fiction is an unmined treasure trove and my recently finished 92000 word effort had broken a decade-long drought of writing no fiction. The restoration of my mojo made 2024 phenomenal for me. 

But the academic pressure instantly got ahold of me. I have plenty of cool insights about the awesomeness of fanfic zipping around in my head like the flying keys in Harry Potter. Yet I couldn't fool myself that I had a chance of catching hold of them all in the time frame required to create any sort of cohesive exegesis. To make the attempt would be to fall short of my vision and not do them justice. 

Secondly, I sensed that my story wouldn't bear the weight of what I was hoping to load it with. The academic expectations would be far too heavy, like trying to wrap a courtly robe around the shoulders of a lovely paper doll. My addition to the Little Women universe is pure fun. It is popular fiction, padding out tantalizing, 'What ifs'.  I was just daydreaming, getting carried away on the waves of possibilities, filling in gaps left by Louisa May Alcott. To turn it into a major project for a Master of Creative Writing would require the sort of serious thinking I was so happy to shake off during its conception. This isn't literary fiction, folk. Whatever I came up with would've felt like wearing somebody else's coat. 

The upshot was, I froze. Then time became an issue. With all of the above playing on my mind, I made a quick decision to withdraw from the course before the census date to avoid adding the fee to my already hefty student debt. There were three days left, so I went with my heart. I couldn't help feeling like a ding-a-ling, and that I'd let people down and lost face. It was an unfortunate way to begin 2025. I think I've learned something about myself but at quite a cost. (My kids actually called me a duffer to my face.)

The new development the same day

I popped into the Goodwood secondhand bookshop on the heels of making that shamefaced decision, to cheer myself up. I went straight to the adolescent fiction section. Vintage YA novels are pretty reliable pick-me-ups. There I took a chance on The Saturdays, by Elizabeth Enright, which I started reading on the train on the way home. That way I could distract myself from the sadness I'd just generated. 

To my surprise, the characters really took off in my head. I bought the rest of this series on kindle, and discovered a few comments here and there that its fanbase would really love to know what becomes of these siblings when they grow up. Some people even stated outright that this series deserves some quality fan fiction.  

So that's sparked off another of my passion projects. Now, along with my Alcott stuff, I've started writing fanfic about the Melendy quartet, a bunch of young brothers and sisters whose existence I wasn't even aware of when this year commenced! It's going to be pretty low profile, because all these comments were written in blog posts and reviews from many years ago. I doubt they're on many people's radars anymore. But there will be well threshed out stories available for the rare soul who discovers them in future and wonders whatever happened as they move into adulthood.  

I've found this is so much the way life is. One impressive looking door might close (even if you slam it shut yourself) and then a more modest, but very appealing crack might slip open, which you weren't even looking for.  

My volunteer work with Meals on Wheels

Here is another new facet of my life. I've joined this great organization as a volunteer. Twice a week, since January, I've been delivering lunches to folk in the community. I'd estimate that I've knocked on more doors in the last five months than I'd done for the previous ten years. And I'm enjoying it too. Something about hopping into a car laden with three course meals, seeing more of the local district (some behind closed doors), exchanging greetings and smiles with householders, and patting dogs and cats, makes these days good ones. I've been into both palatial seaside homes, and tiny holes in walls. Now that winter is setting in, I can also state that I've delivered in heatwaves and rainstorms.

I'm making the experiment to quit bookstagram, at for the time being, and then reassess my presence on that platform at the end of the year. You can read more about it here. 

Okay, back with my normal agenda next week in July. If you follow along with this blog, I hope you're well and flourishing.     

'Pennies for Hitler' by Jackie French

I'm including this book for the migration category of my 2025 Aussie Book Challenge. What a desperate and reactive migration story it turns out to be. I discovered this one in a local Little Free Book Library, long after I'd set my categories for this year's challenge. I'm loving and appreciating the serendipitous nature in which perfect books tend to gravitate into my hands. 

MY THOUGHTS:

The story begins in 1939 when young Georg's happy, sheltered life is abruptly shattered. Right before his eyes, his poetry-loving, academic father is killed at a graduation ceremony that becomes a frenzied riot. That same night, the ten-year-old is smuggled out of Germany in a suitcase to avoid being murdered for supposedly being the spawn of a Jewish menace, an accusation that takes him entirely by surprise.

Georg takes refuge for a while in London, but when bombs begin raining on the city, his Aunt Miriam sends him on an evacuation ship to Australia, where he's assigned to live with the Peaslake family of Bellagong, whose son, Alan, is fighting in the army. Australia, which Georg first regards as a 'strange, untidy country where every color looks slightly wrong' becomes his refuge and oasis. It contains total strangers who he grows to love with all his heart. 

What a terrific novel, cramming such a lot of introspection into the four or so years it spans. This traumatised kid surely needs counselling, but living in survival mode makes mental health care a luxury. Georg, now known to everyone as George, must be his own counsellor. 

First he deals with some pretty major cognitive dissonance. All the propaganda he'd ever taken on board at school had been the cruelest lie all along. Nothing quite like having to be sneaked across your country's border in carry luggage to destroy your illusions about your country's leader. Georg must adjust to a whole new culture and master a foreign language to save himself, right on the heels of the most traumatic blow of his life. Then in Australia, imposter syndrome is added to the mix. He has no way of knowing how his new caregivers might feel about unwittingly sheltering a German boy beneath their roof, so makes his own quiet conclusions. 

When circumstances take him off guard yet again, and he's about 14 at this stage, he finds out for sure. 

This book's finer details about living in the WW2 era adds great colour and authenticity to the story. (In Georg's London life, treasured paintings and exhibits were evacuated from museums, and an edict was given for household pets to be euthanized, as part of the war effort. In his rural Aussie life when the threat of Japanese invaders loomed, road signs and station names vanished so the enemy couldn't possibly figure out exactly where they were.) I appreciated the depth of research on Jackie French's part. 

Such a great tale, taking the concept of an unsung hero to a whole new level, for Georg's extreme heroism must be a complete secret for his continued survival. Or so he thinks. It passed my 'tears test' with flying colours, and deserves full marks. 

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟