Chequer-Board

by Sybil Marshall

This is a collection of short stories by Sybil Marshall.

Paperback

First published March 28, 1996

About the author

Born Sybil Mary Edwards, she was educated at Ramsey Heights Elementary School, 1919-1923, Ramsey Grammar School
1924-1932, Exhall Grange Emergency Training College, Coventry, 1948-1949 and New Hall, University of Cambridge, 1960-1962. At Cambridge she gained English Hons. Class 2:1 (Tripos completed in 2 years).

She became a teacher and lecturer in primary education and wrote a variety of books on education as well as a collection of fiction and memoirs.

Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Serendipity - the word means fortuitous discovery - is a word I always associate with book buying. The Chequer-Board by Sybil Marshall was a serendipitous discovery; a book I chose to fill a gap in a box sale, because it was thin enough. I had never heard of the author before: but it was a book of stories, set in the English countryside, and lover of traditional literature in me felt it was a worth the chance to try it.

I am glad I did. Sybil Marshall is no literary giant, but she writes enjoyable prose about ordinary men and women who inhabit the fens of East Anglia, the area she was born and grew up in. In the author bio, it says that Ms. Marshall started writing fiction after she turned eighty - and it shows. She writes of a vanished time and place with nostalgia, as well as with the detachment of a person looking back at the vanishing scenery through the rear window of a speeding car.

The stories are of varying length. A couple could be described as novellas. The longest one, 'Twin Halves", is quite easily my favourite. The tale of two men born on the same day, separated by geography and social position, battling it out across a clipped yew hedge is fascinating. Apart from the day of their birth (and one more coincidental event), eccentric navy-man Beresford Blake and gardener and odd-jobber Fred Wood have nothing in common. When Fred's gardening efforts at Roger and Jill Spencer's house disturbs Blake's privacy, he responds with voodoo which seems strangely effective, driving Fred mad with fury. Things come to a head in minor disaster, which ultimately proves to be an ill wind that blows no good, as fate with its strange vagaries decides to take a hand. A beautifully structured tale with subtle nuances, this one is an absolute pleasure to read.

Fate also plays a hand in my second most favourite story in the collection, "Nightingale Ode". Alys, a girl practically rejected by her parents and shunted off to a boarding school, takes revenge on her disciplinarian schoolmistress and the world in general by pretending madness. In this, Keats's 'Ode to a Nightingale' is her mantra of strength. This story of childhood rebellion has got strong feminist undertones.

Two other stories - "The Helmet of Salvation" and "A Question of Sex" - are definitely feminist. But in both these tales, it is the matronly ladies of the house who prove to be the biggest stumbling blocks in a girl's quest for self-realisation. In the first, the Biblical maxim "hope is the helmet of salvation" helps keep Cora permanently on the lookout for "Mr. Right", as her priggish mother and aunt keep potential suitors at bay. Even after their demise, Cora carries her shield along with her into spinsterhood. In the second story, the same mother figure (internalised as "Motherdear") inculcates in Lavinia an adulation of all the males in her family and a congenital dislike of women. The description of this matriarch (Lavinia's mother) is worth quoting:

Her object in life was to turn her boys into men according to the public-school, far-flung-empire-maker model that then prevailed in top circles. She could not afford, however hard she scraped and saved, to send them to public schools, so they attended private establishments that aped the great ones, and she supplemented their education herself, especially where physical courage and 'manliness' were concerned. She positively encouraged them to use their fists, on each other, on their peers who needed teaching a lesson, and on any 'cads' whom they found contravening the code of gentlemanly conduct she had instilled into them. This code's first clause was that women existed mainly to give men something to protect.

Such scathing satire on chivalry! Yet the same author looks back with nostalgia on a bygone era's social norms in "Long Journey", where a retired nonagenarian engine-driver looks after the crippled female narrator on a train journey like a true gentleman, as he reminisces on the vanished glory of the railways. That the train is filled with chattering, insensitive backpackers adds to the poignancy of the vanished world of the protagonists. Incidentally, this is the only story told in the first person.

The second largest story, "Half Measure', is about a village idiot (who is not idiotic at all) and his obnoxious, acquisitive wife. It is one of quiet domestic cruelty which is rather distressing - however, I felt the ending was a bit contrived and a let-down. Similarly, the opening story, "Felo de Se", about cancerous remorse eating into the conscience of apparently sane men and ultimately leading to suicide, also seemed contrived though well-structured.

There are a couple of ghost stories in this volume. "Stained Moonlight" is standard fare about a haunted church and is the weakest offering in the book - you can see the punch coming from a mile away. "Death by Misadventure" is more interesting, because it is rather like one of those The Twilight Zone episodes in its ambiguity. And its portrayal of a dysfunctional marriage in a terrifying car ride is masterly.

On the whole, a thoroughly enjoyable collection. I will be reading more of Sybil Marshall!

[beyond_blue_reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

A random phonebox library find. Short stories set in the Fens, written in the 90s by an 80 year old woman (and it shows - make what you will of that).

Has a kind of reassuring Sunday TV feel - pastoral, well-developed plots, quirky characters, sometimes a bit convoluted. My favourite was about a girl who pretends to have a breakdown in a boarding school, and I also enjoyed the cranky man who uses voodoo and clootie trees to take revenge on his neighbour for cutting down a tree (though the plot twist was a bit weird).

Been reading about Sybil Marshall and she was a folklorist and a campaigner for creativity in schools. She started writing very late in life (as in 80+) which is quite cool - and was obviously super sharp.

I don't think I'd intentionally seek out any more of her works but glad to have found out about her, and it felt like an interesting little segue from my usual choice.

[Sandra]

hardback copy, signed Ely 1995. I bought it from a book dealer at local market that year.