No Time for Romance

by Lucilla Andrews

Lucilla Andrews was only eighteen when, as a volunteer nurse at the beginning of the second world war, she experienced the grim realities of wartime . Young, inexperienced and coming from a comfortable and sheltered background, she found herself dealing with survivors from Dunkirk and the victims of the blitz. Seeing these horrors at first hand had a profound and lasting effect upon her, and made her determined to train as a Nurse at St Thomas's Hospital.

No Time For Romance is her story, the powerful and moving account of a young girl in wartime London, learning the hard way about medicine, injuries and death, as well as love and hope. It is a story both of personal courage and of the courage of the British people at war.

Genres: World War II, Nonfiction, Memoir, History, Biography, Biography Memoir

304 pages, Paperback

First published July 14, 1977

About the author

Lucilla Matthew Andrews Crichton
aka
Lucilla Andrews, Diana Gordon, Joanna Marcus.

Lucilla Matthew Andrews was born on 20 November 1919 in Suez, Egypt, the third of four children of William Henry Andrews and Lucilla Quero-Bejar. They met in Gibraltar, and married in 1913. Her mother was daughter of a Spanish doctor and descended from the Spanish nobility. Her British father workerd by the Eastern Telegraph Company (later Cable and Wireless) on African and Mediterranean stations until 1932. At the age of three, she was sent to join her older sister at boarding school in Sussex.

She joined the British Red Cross in 1940 and later trained as a nurse at St Thomas' Hospital, London, during World War II. In 1947, she retired and married Dr James Crichton, and she discovered, that he was addicted to drugs. In 1949, soon after their daugther Veronica was born, he was committed to hospital and she returned to nursing and writing. In 1952, she sold her firt romance novel, published in 1954, the same year that her husband died. She specialised in Doctor-Nurse romances, using her personal experience as inspiration, and wrote over thirty-five novels since 1996. In 1969, she decided moved to Edinburgh.

Her daugther read History at Newnham College, Cambridge, and became a journalist and Labour Party communications adviser, before her death from cancer in 2002. In late 2006, Lucilla Andrews' autobiography No Time for Romance became the focus of a posthumous controversy. It has been alleged that the novelist Ian McEwan plagiarized from this work while writing his highly-acclaimed novel, Atonement. McEwan has protested his innocence. She passed away on 3 October 2006. She was a founder member of the Romantic Novelists' Association, which honoured her shortly before her death with a lifetime achievement award.

Reviews

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to read and love the novels of Lucilla Andrews - back when I was younger. These books were mostly set in London in the second world war years. This memoir gives the reason of why her writing was so real. She was an amazing person, a wonderful example of the British people at this time. I was amazed at the long hours and hard work that she endured. The horrors that she witnessed - although she doesn't go into detail about them. It will be in a mere sentence that she indicates that she was not left unscathed. I only have admiration for her, and gratefulness for the books I read that she wrote.

[Colette! · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough account of one civilian nurse's experience during World War II. Ms. Andrews' life straddled the end of the British Empire into the war that defined her generation. A great look at everyday life and work in the 1940s. She has a fabulous grasp on the human spirit.

Lastly, I'm shocked that Ian McEwan got away with so much plagiarism in Atonement. All of the interesting Briony passages came nearly verbatim from Ms. Andrews' own experiences.

[Pamela Shropshire]

HOW HAVE I NEVER COME ACROSS HER BOOKS BEFORE? Definitely sounds like my catnip. While some of her books are available on Kindle, apparently this one isn't, so no instant gratification for me.

[Hilary Tesh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rereading this book after many years I was struck by three things. 1) The ambiguity of the title. Was there 'no time for romance' in the life of the young woman training to be a nurse in wartime? Or was that period with all its dangers and uncertainties 'no time for romance'? 2) Having read many of Lucilla Andrew's hospital romances years ago when they were still in print - and more I recently reread some of those set in wartime, - it is now clear why they were so vivid. Often real life incidents described in this book were transferred directly into her novels. 3) it is ironic that this lady, dismissed through her lifetime as a writer of hospital romances - and terminally ill when she was due to receive a lifetime achievement award from The Romantic Novelists Association - should have been used as a source (and possibly even plagiarised) by Booker Award winner, Ian McEwan in Atonement. What's certain in, this is a vivid insight into the wartime experiences of the author's life, working first as a VAD and then training as a nurse, with the Second World War raging around her, bookended by accounts of her childhood and post war efforts to become a writer.

[Seamus Mcduff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating true life account of nursing in the second world war. You can't help liking Lucilla as a young nurse, coping with the demands of senior Sisters and the threats of falling bombs.

I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the period, the London Blitz, Battle of Britain, life on the home front, etc. during WWII.

Also interesting to read the bits lifted by Ian McEwan for his book Atonement. (I didn't even mention the world Plagiarism)

[Natasha Bullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book, it had the air of a novel rather than an autobiography and, aside from Atonement by Ian McEwan, gave me my first taste of wartime hospitals and the magnitude to which England and its people suffered during WWII. This book has raised my interest in wartime England and I'm eager to read some of Lucilla Andrews' novels.

[Judith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book - written (partly) from notes made at the time & so had a very 'immediate' feel about it..... come highly recommended from me at any rate.....

[Cicely Havely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding writing about nursing in a crisis - a text for our times. Although it's the battlefield casualties and giving birth in the blitz that have previously been the most compelling episodes, Andrews's account of being treated for TB may strike more of a chord now. Gets a bit clunky towards the end, but you're reading for its testimony, not its art.

[Rosamund · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir struck a chord because Lucilla Andrews was a contemporary of my mother at the Nightingale nursing school during WWII. I appreciated the insight into her life.

[Susan Daly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lucilla Andrews has written an excellent memoir of her time as first a VAD, then a nursing student at St. Thomas's in wartime London, taking us from the days just prior to the outbreak of war to the VE Day celebrations in London (when the lights literally came on in the streets) and beyond, to her years of being a sole-support parent of her young daughter in a time when single parents were pretty much treated as vermin, ending with the sale of her first romance novel.

No Time for Romance takes the reader right into the wards filled with civilian and military patients, nurses worked to exhaustion with endless hours and weeks of duty, while coping with the reality of bombing raids, then V1s and V2s. The immediacy of her writing comes from her having kept a diary throughout the war, always with the view of becoming a writer the moment the war was finished.

After the War, her first novel, dealing with wartime nursing, was endlessly rejected, because "no one wanted to know about yesterday." The war was too fresh, and people just wanted to move on, so she made a living with lighter fare, nurse romances.

In 1990, however, she published the compelling Frontline 1940, based partly on her St. Thomas's experiences. A new generation was ready to read about the war at last.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lucilla Andrews is best known for her hospital romances. I've never read any of those. I read this because it's an autobiography of a WWII nurse. She served with the army, then went to nursing school, learning her nursing the hard way, in the midst of London bombings.

She's a good writer and does a good job of portraying both the difficulties and heartache of working in hospitals in wartime London, but also the humor and spririt present amongst the staff, educators and patients; particularly the patients.

Its a different perspective from the 'Brothers in Arms' type of WWII novels and memoirs.

Its worth a read if you've an interest in WWII or recent British history.

[Melinda M · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is an autobiography of Lucilla Andrews life until she finally makes writing a full time job. I am a historic and try to read all about the time of WWI thru the end of WWII. She makes the early to mid part of the 2oth century come alive . She does so with humor and an honest approach using her notes that she wrote at the time. A different approach but one that shows how war changes things and the trouble it can cause. I also appreciate how she brings out the differences and changes in the medical field. A good addition to anyone's shelf for a look at the early to middle part of the 20th century.

[CLM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was not familiar with British author Andrews but this (her own autobiography of her nursing during WWII) and her fiction titles were recommended to me about 10 years ago when I was researching nurses in fiction.

[Ginna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book listed as a credit in Atonement. I like this book much better. It is a true account of a WWII nurse in England.

[Kazimiera pendrey]

i justdid not enjoy this at all in the end i just gave up