'An Episode of Sparrows' by Rumer Godden

A much-loved English novel reminiscent of The Secret Garden

Someone has dug up the private garden in the square and taken buckets of dirt, and Miss Angela Chesney of the Garden Committee is sure that a gang of boys from run-down Catford Street must be to blame. But Angela's sister Olivia isn't so sure. Olivia wonders why the neighborhood children—the “sparrows” she sometimes watches from the window of her house —have to be locked out of the garden. Don't they have a right to enjoy the place, too? But neither Angela nor Olivia has any idea what sent the neighborhood waif Lovejoy Mason and her few friends in search of “good, garden earth.” Still less do they imagine where their investigation of the incident will lead them—to a struggling restaurant, a bombed-out church, and at the heart of it all, a hidden garden.

MY THOUGHTS: 

Rumer Godden is an author who always gives us more to ponder under the surface than is evident in her often simple stories. If we're willing to dig, there'll always be something mystical, or some spiritual application or observation.

This one begins in the early 1950s, soon enough after the war that there is still plenty of evident street damage, including demolished buildings. The setting is Catford Street, an area of London which is one step up from a slum. It's full of desperate people struggling to make ends meet and barely succeeding. 

The 'sparrows' of the title are not actual birds but children aged between 5 and 15. This age demographic are neglected, semi-waifs, generally as unheeded as the little grey birds, and left mostly to their own devices to pop up again as young adults expected to do a hard day's work. They're only noticed when they intrude on adults' attention by making nuisances of themselves, in which case they're treated like pests.

The main character is a thorny and shameless little street thief named Lovejoy Mason, who's been dumped by her mother on the family they were boarding with. Lovejoy pilfers a packet of what turns out to be flower seeds. Disgruntled at first, she decides to poke them in some earth to see what will happen. Thus begins Lovejoy's unexpected passion for horticulture and her decision to plant surreptitious flower gardens in old bomb sites left by the war. She's fascinated by what seems to her the miraculous alchemy of the earth. But finding more seeds and more suitable plots is her greatest challenge, and she'll even stoop to stealing money from a church!  

The story becomes quite a micro-war of its own, as Lovejoy gains and loses ground. Some boy gangs have their eye on the same plots of ground for hang-outs, and she finds an unexpected ally in Tip Malone, a 13-year-old gang leader whose softer side is unexpectedly stirred by her plight. Their friendship is super cute, as Lovejoy assumes more and more from Tip, making us wonder how far she can stretch his good nature until it snaps. 

Lovejoy's reluctant guardians provide a great secondary plot, as the proud Mr Vincent Combie (whose real name is George) is a chef who establishes his pride and joy, a classy restaurant, slap bang in the middle of Catford Street, where he lives. He struggles to accept the fact that his ideal clientele probably won't go near such a forlorn district. In this way, Vincent's restaurant is perhaps a grown-up equivalent of Lovejoy's flower garden. The question is how far can such dreamers make any headway in their grim reality? 

One of my highlights is Miss Olivia Chesney, a middle-aged nonentity who knows how to sympathise with the plights of underdogs. She realises there's a fine line between total blarney and a kind of faith in what they hope and believe is going to happen. 

The other highlight is the prickling of Lovejoy's hardened conscience, especially when she sets out to rob the local Catholic Church and develops a fascination with a Madonna and Child statue. Godden puts it this way. 'The statue seemed to find something in Lovejoy that matched it.' This is so often the case with the arts; including books, music and visual art of all types that touch our hearts. Readers, viewers and listeners each bring something of their own to click into place with what their creators intended. Or else they have that germ activated by whatever they read, perceive or hear. 

Just as Lovejoy experiences this phenomenon with the statue, perhaps a similar thing occurred in my spirit prompted by this book itself along with many others. I trust it will be the same for many other readers too.  

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