Doreen

by Barbara Noble

A 1946 novel about a child who is evacuated to the country during the war. Her mother regrets it; the family that takes her in wants to keep her.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, World War II, War, Historical, Family

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Barbara Noble (1907–2001) was an English publisher and novelist. She wrote 6 novels of her own, and as head of the London office of Doubleday was instrumental in the publication of thousands of others.

Reviews

[Emily May · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very sad story about family and social class, set during the Blitz.

During the Second World War and the mass air attacks on major British cities, about 3.5 million children were evacuated to the countryside. Sent away from everyone and everything they had ever known, forced into the homes of strangers. While many lives were saved by this programme, it also opened the door for many horror stories of abuse and trauma. But, on occasion, these children got lucky and found themselves in the homes of loving, caring families. Like Doreen.

Doreen is the daughter of poor, hardworking single mother, Mrs Rawlings. When the bombs move closer and closer to their home, Mrs Rawlings reluctantly agrees to send Doreen away to the country for her safety. There, Doreen is taken in by the kindly upper middle class Mr and Mrs Osbourne who adore and dote on her.

Doreen's eyes are opened to a world she never knew existed-- the beauty of the countryside, the luxury of her own bedroom, and two sophisticated and educated parental figures. When Mrs Rawlings comes for Christmas, she sees her daughter slipping away from her, getting ideas "above her station."

I found this book deeply upsetting from every point of view. I felt sorry for the Osbournes, who come to love Doreen like their own child. I felt sorry for Mrs Rawlings, knowing another family can give her daughter more than she can and being desperately afraid of losing her. I felt sorry for Doreen, who was destined to lose something essential no matter how this story ended.

A really moving story that is both specific to the time and a universal tale of parental love and fear.

[Tania · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set during the Blitz, this opens as another bad raid has taken place. Mrs Rawlings hadn't evacuated her daughter Doreen, but is now thinking that It's time she did. Helen, a woman who works in an office she cleans, knows just the people to take her in; her brother and sister-in-law are childless and have a house in the country that is too far out of town for the other evacuees to wish to stay and so arrangements are made for Doreen to go to them. Francie and Geoffrey are delighted with her, as she is with having her own room and a garden to play in, a far cry from the two attic rooms she lives in with her mum.

Eventually, things become complicated, when the nice, middle-class Osbournes are treating Doreen as they would their own child, and people begin to realise the potential problems when she has to go back to her working-class life.

In other hands I feel this novel could have become melodramatic and overly sentimental, but here it is compelling without those traits, and told with compassion. The author doesn't take sides.

[JimZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another one of those books I would never have heard of if it had not been for a GR friend… Another one of those books in which when I started I had no intention of it being a ‘reading-in-one-sitting’ book. Ha!

I am so impressed with what I read, and enjoyed the book so much, I am going to root around and intend to read more of Ms. Noble’s works (her bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara... ). I enthusiastically recommend this book! 😊 🙃😊 🙃

After reading this book I said to myself “This would be a perfect book for Persephone Books to publish! Why isn’t it in their collection? Tomorrow I will write them and urge them to do so!” And then of course I found out it was already in their collection. I should have known. 😊

9-year-old Doreen is sent by her mother, Mrs. Rawlings, to the countryside outside of London during the Blitz in WWII. Her caretakers or foster parents are Francie and Geoffrey Osbourne, a childless couple who are fairly well-off. Doreen and her mother lived in a two-bedroom attic area of a home in which they had to share a common kitchen and bathroom. Doreen is scared at first with her new situation but quickly adapts in part because the Osbornes take to her like ducks to water.

The book is more than that though – it’s a clash (at times, not always) of social strata….upper class (the Obsournes) as opposed to lower class (Doreen and her mother). Actually a review by The London Spectator and the preface of the book of the Persephone edition (I filched the preface from the Persephone website) put it quite nicely as do the reviews:
• “ ‘Doreen’ is a most moving novel, completely convincing, which the unexacting will read with pleasure because it is a good human story, the exacting because it is told without sentimentality and with acute perception of the nuances of class-consciousness and class distinctions.” (The London Spectator)
• Barbara Noble writes with great insight about the mind of a child torn between her mother, whom she leaves behind in London during the Blitz, and the couple who take her in. Everyone wants only the best for Doreen yet, in the end, what is being explored is a clash of values: those looking after her will eventually realize that Doreen will go back ‘to a world where most of the things you’ve taught her will be drawbacks rather than advantages. … This is a deeply involving book, fascinating for the portrayal of the child torn between mother and temporary mother, and for its understanding of the tyrannies of the English class system. ‘The manner of telling this poignant, subtle tragedy is beyond admiration, restrained, penetrating, deeply moving,’ wrote Dorothy Canfield Fisher; and the Spectator reviewer described ‘a gentle, serious story in which…the author’s argument is scrupulously fair; she is observant, sensitive and intelligent.’

Reviews:
• https://fleurinherworld.com/2009/02/2...
• https://karensbooksandchocolate.blogs...
• http://agirlwalksintoabookstore.blogs...
• http://pageafterpage-kim.blogspot.com...
• https://piningforthewest.co.uk/2019/1...

[Antoinette · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolutely perfect book!

World War II- London is being blitzed. Many of the children have already been sent out of the city to keep them safe. Mrs. Rawlings had kept Doreen with her, as she did not want to be separated from her. But now, the bombings are getting worse, so she makes the decision to send her away.

Doreen has grown up in lower class London. Her mother works hard to keep them afloat. What happens to a child when all of a sudden she is introduced to a world of plenty. The couple who take her in, Geoffrey and Francis Osborne, live very comfortably in the country. Francie does not work. Doreen has her own room, a garden to roam in and lots of attention.

“ It was not only for her own pleasure that Francie wanted Doreen’s love. She believed sincerely that to love was to be happy; or perhaps, more exactly, she believed that it was impossible to be happy if one did not love.”

This book looks at the social classes in Britain during this 1940’s time frame. What’s best for Doreen- her mother’s love or the love of these new people who can offer her so much?

“She felt different herself, self-conscious and even shy, as if there were two Doreen’s, one who lived at home with Mum and another who lived in the country with Mr and Mrs Osborne, and only embarrassment and misunderstanding could result from their temporary fusion.”

This is the second book I have read by Barbara Noble and I have loved them both. She has a beautiful, straight forward writing style. I loved the way she was able to capture everyone’s viewpoint, but especially Doreen’s. She portrayed this nine year old child perfectly.
The ending was perfect, but yet I wanted more....
I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend it.

Published: 1946

[CanadianReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Set during the Blitz, Noble’s quiet but absorbing novel focuses on a cleaning woman’s decision to finally evacuate her nine-year-old daughter, Doreen— the centre of her existence—to the countryside. The novel opens with Mrs. Rawlings weeping at work the morning after a particularly frightening enemy attack. She laments having selfishly kept the girl at home in their heavily bombed-out working-class section of London when so many others wisely sent their children away to safety. Doreen’s life has been put in danger as a result. Coming into work early that same morning and finding the usually dour Mrs. Rawlings in a state of acute distress, a young secretary, Helen Osborne, offers a solution: Her childless brother and sister-in-law, Geoffrey and Francie Osborne, may well be willing to take the girl in. Helen contacts them, soon learning that Francie is particularly eager to have the child in their comfortable middle-class home for the duration of the war. Her lawyer husband agrees. His goal, above all else, is to see his gentle wife happy.

The novel follows Doreen’s move and adjustment to rural life, which offers her beauty, safety, material comfort, privacy, and love. The girl, who understands that her real father is dead, finds in Geoffrey the father figure she’s never had. Surprising events will reveal that Mr. Rawlings is still very much alive, even if dysfunctionally so. The backstory of his marriage and its dissolution are also sketched in for the reader.

When Mrs. Rawlings arrives in the country to spend Christmas with Doreen and the Osbornes, she recognizes that the arrangement may be spoiling the girl for the working class life she was born to. More than that: it may also be unraveling the tight bond between mother and daughter. She must take decisive action.

Noble’s novel considers the psychological impact of evacuation on a young girl, her birth parent(s), and the couple who host her. The book also explores the deep class divide that characterized the period. For example, before Mrs. Rawlings makes her Christmas journey to the Osborne home, Geoffrey and Francie earnestly discuss where the woman should take her meals: with them in the dining room or with the cook in the kitchen.

This is an accessible, sensitively written domestic novel, which I very much enjoyed reading.

[Trisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful Persephone Press book (worth spending the extra money to have it shipped from London) and another one that’s set in England during WWII. This one centered on the evacuation of children from the city to the countryside in order to keep them safe during the years London was being devastated by German bombs. Barbara Noble tells her story simply and straightforwardly: Nine-year-old Doreen is the beloved daughter of a single mother who struggles to make ends meet by cleaning London offices. When she is given the chance to send Doreen to stay in a tiny little village with an affluent, upper class family, she reluctantly agrees. What the book is really about has less to do with Doreen’s story and more with unsettling questions for the reader to ponder: was it really such a good idea for children to be taken from their families and exposed to a life of privilege and affluence – a life they could not possibly hope to continue once the war was over and they returned to homes they no longer wished to live in because they had discovered what wealth (and the lack of it) means. On the other hand, given the reality of war, wasn’t it better to confront the possibility of what could have happened to children who remained behind in London during the bombing raids? In the forward to the book, Jessica Mann, herself an evacuee, answers that question by stating,” The separation of parent and child is a cruel fate but not as cruel as the risk of death.” Peresphone Press books always feature endpapers taken from textile patterns that were popular at the time the book was set. These were taken from a yellow silk scarf, entitled “London Alert” featuring whimsical sketches of air-raid captains, fire bomb fighters and people scurrying back and forth to bomb shelters.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doreen's mother is torn. In World War 2 London, the blitz has begun. Almost all of Doreen's classmates have already been sent to safety in the country, but Mrs. Rawlings doesn't believe in separating children from their parents, even in wartime. But the bombings are growing progressively worse.

"Things weren't getting any better, they were getting worse. Even her faith in the shelter, which up till now had had an almost fanatic quality, was shaken after last night. The shelter had rocked and her faith had rocked with it. Bombs had fallen and buildings had collapsed, and with them had collapsed Mrs. Rawlings' obstinate, angry confidence in her own invincible rightness of opinion. But for her pride, she could have wept. Life was hard enough without losing Doreen."

Barbara Noble has gotten inside the heart of wartime England, inside the hearts of a mother and child, and that of a childless couple who (you guessed it), ultimately take Doreen in to live in their home in the country. Her novel simply titled "Doreen" will have the reader on the edge of their seat, wondering what will happen as Doreen, a timid, shy schoolgirl of nine, transitions from her city apartment to life among the upperclass in a country village.

"Mrs. Rawlings turned away abruptly and surveyed the room. It reminded her of one in a house where she had been in service before her marriage; everything good, but worn a little shabby. The chairs needed new covers and there was the mark of a burn on the hearth-rug. Still, there was obviously plenty of money about, by her standards, anyhow. The reflection gave her a sour satisfaction. Doreen was getting something here that she herself would probably never be able to give her. Let her make the most of it. It made a nice change from two rooms in the attic and a kitchen on the landing."

As complications arise in the form and persona of Doreen's soldier dad who decides, even though he has been missing from his family's life for several years, that it is better for his daughter to be in the city 'among her own folk', we are swept along with Doreen's plight wondering who, if anyone, will win in this insightful novel of winners and losers, the strong and the weak, class systems and psychological trauma. The author raises questions that are still problematic for today; who is best served by selflessness? what is in the best interest of a child? can one by blinded by one's own personal needs, to rationalise decisions that affect others? and, is a stable home life within the comfort of one's own family sufficient for inner well-being in later life when the physical safety of a child is at risk?

The author is so good at engaging sympathy for the characters in this book! I read "Doreen" within two days (and could have read it faster had it not been at a particularly busy time in my life), just not wanting to put it down.

The preface to this book explains that "Operation Pied Piper" was put into effect on September 1, 1939, and "nearly one and a half million children left London in two days; on September 3rd war was declared and several days after that parents received postcards saying where and with whom their families were living."

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

During World War II in Britain, thousands of city children were temporarily relocated to the countryside to avoid aerial bombing. Young Doreen’s struggling but proud single mother reluctantly decides to let her go to the country to stay with a middle class couple. They become fond of Doreen and she of them, while her mother worries that Doreen is getting ideas above “her place in life”. This is the story of a short intersection of four lives, beautifully observed and written

[Rosemary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nine-year-old Doreen lives in cramped conditions with her working-class mother in wartime London. As the air raids worsen, Mrs Rawlings begins to think that she should have allowed Doreen to be evacuated with other children. Then, through a woman who works in the offices she cleans, contact is made with Mr and Mrs Osborne, a well-off childless couple living in the country who are willing to take Doreen, and the child is bundled off.

Doreen is a lucky evacuee, placed in a good home where she is cherished. But as time goes on, a tug-of-love conflict develops between her mother who is missing her in London and the childless Francie Osborne. The Osbornes can offer physical safety but Mrs Rawlings is uncomfortable to see her child adapting to the soft life of a privileged home that can only be hers for a short time. Everyone has their own agenda.

This is an enjoyable, slow-moving story of the type that Persephone Books are well known for, at the same time raising some important questions about the care of children and the bond between a child and its natural parents.

[Noa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is basically an analysis of small feelings you can't quite put your finger on and an observation on class in the 20th century. When I put it like that, it sounds really boring, but this book was amazing. Noble writes with such care and a razor-sharp ability to put into the exact right words what goes through someone's head and heart, even when they themselves don't really know what they're feeling. She does this equally well for all her incredible characters, who all have a distinct voice both in point of view narrative bits and in dialogue. She writes with a warmth and completely without judgement about characters who are all in some way very imperfect, and she doesn't try to fix those imperfection with any redemption arcs or anything; this is who these people are and they are lovable and warm and real in spite and because of it. I don't think I've ever read such accurate descriptions of childlike trains of thought and emotions. The backdrop of the war worked really well to put the scale of the problems dealt with in the novel into perspective; small and seemingly insignificant, but utterly and desperately human and legitimate and understandable. And on top of that, at times it read like a fucking page turner.

[Mela · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a second novel mostly about motherhood that I had read this month. The Flowering Thorn and "Doreen" had two different settings, yet I saw many similarities.

...[children] are all real people to themselves and only half-real people to the rest of the world.

In Noble's story was more than one parent figure (in Sharp's an orphan got "a mother" only), and there were perspectives of all characters, including a child. In other words, a different but fascinating idea for a study of relations between parents and children.

Growing up was not conditioned by the time you went to bed. Growing up was finding out that grown-ups suffered.

The background, raids on London, evacuated children - were just a background. This historical background was interesting but I was much more engrossed with the human study.

That was part of loving someone, the humiliating coin in which you had to pay, the base coin which purchased nothing. For there was no ownership in love...

[4.5 stars]

[Jeslyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

One more title to remind me of how much I appreciate Persephone Books - they have brought back to life so many excellent authors and titles. Doreen explores the social ramifications of evacuating children to the English countryside (and beyond, in fact - as far away as the U.S. and Australia) in WWII during the Blitz - an excellent read, and Noble has succeeded in highlighting the conundrum of the Government's plan to protect children from German bombs but risking damage to their familial relationships through the separation. Written in 1946, Noble had seen the immediate after-effects of children separated from their parents for the duration of the war (far longer than anyone had anticipated when the evacuation measures were put into motion), and masterfully illustrates the interplay of feelings and perspectives so that the reader is as incapable of discerning a satisfactory solution now as the decision makers were 70 years ago.

[Marybeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you, Persephone, for publishing this remarkable book. Children evacuated during WWII is one of my favorite subgenres, and this book was extraordinary. Most especially because it tells the story from all perspectives: the working class mother reluctant to let her child go even if it means escaping the air raids, the well-to-do childless couple in the country who open up their home, and the nine-year-old evacuee herself, clever and loving and caught in the middle, watching her childhood fade away. Since the book was published in 1946, there's also fantastic period detail throughout.

[Susann · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite Persephone books so far - about a 9-year-old London WWII evacuee who stays with a lovely, childless, and upper-middle class couple. As Doreen adapts to her new home, we start to worry about how she'll ever adjust back to her old environment. Noble does an excellent job at exploring parent-child separation and the gulf between the social classes.
Finished on the plane to my grandmother in Palm Springs.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Certainly the most action-packed Persephone novel I've read: air raids, a kidnapping, drunkenness, high emotion, barking dog and planting carrots in the garden! Whew. Honestly, though, I loved it and read it quickly. A poignant story about a 9-year old girl evacuated to the countryside from London during WWII, and the conflicting emotions she feels in her love and loyalty for her single lower-class mother and for the kind, comfortable and childless couple that takes her in.

[Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

When 9 year-old Doreen Rawlings is evacuated from her poor East End home to a comfortable life in the country, she discovers a new world of primroses and streams, of sowing vegetables and playing in a garden.

This is a wonderful book that through Doreen's watchful eyes illustrates how the class divide impacted people's daily lives even during wartime, sometimes thought of a leveller of boundaries. My mum was an evacuee from the East End and I look forward to discussing Doreen with her, particularly around the effect that evacuation had on her relationship with her parents.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very well written and touching book about Doreen, who is evacuated to stay with a childless and loving couple in the English countryside during WWII. I thought the details about Doreen's adjustment to her new life, the couple's relationship, life in the village, and life in London during the air raids were all very well done. This is not a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, so it doesn't have a "happy" ending, but it has a realistic one. That made it perhaps not quite the story I wanted it to be, but it was probably the story it had to be.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books you nibble on, some you devour. I feasted on this title!

I could not put it down. It is lovely, heartrending, sweet and historically gripping. This is a 100% winner of a novel.

[Jana · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a change of pace after a Booker Long Lost binge, I “shopped my shelves” and decided (with enthusiastic approval from my friend Jen) to read this beautiful Persephone copy of Doreen.

Written in 1946, it was just a short look back for the author who writes of 9-year-old Doreen evacuated to the countryside during the Blitz, her cleaning woman mother who stays in London, and the couple who lovingly take her in.

I learned so much. Between getting caught up in this specific novel and then reading the preface after I had finished, I now have a much better understanding of the trauma that happens when children are separated from their parents. And this was the biggest en masse of that type. Ever.

Fantastic book.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first this seemed a little too dreary, even for a Persephone book (which I often read wholly because nothing much happens in them), but as it went on this did become a good novel about class and motherhood, and despite some small lapses it wasn't sentimental, either, with a satisfyingly unsatisfying, open-ended ending, and no easy answers to the conundrums about class mobility and escape that it throws up.

[Emma Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this directly from the Persephone shop, I remember coming in and having a look around for that particular book. Persephone is very hit or miss with me, some books I've loved and others have made me so angry I was left wondering why on earth I'd paid so much for one particular story.
Doreen, thankfully, was a wonderful book which really explores children's evacuation during WWII and its consequences for the child, their family and their adoptive family. Beyond the period detail, the characterization is amazingly rich and it was a superb read. The very end is rather gloomy, as if the author had planned a sequel, but it fits the rest of the story so I don't mind too much. I'd never thought about the consequences of evacuation and what it really meant in terms of how affected families were, it's a topic that's often just mentioned in passing as a matter of course but Doreen is a very poignant novel that explores that in a way that I'll always remember whenever the subject is brought up again. Highly recommended.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

The House Opposite is another Barbara Noble novel which I read within this month. I gave it five stars and since I consider this one superior to the other, I must award it five stars (a rarity for me).

I have known forever that during the Blitz, countless London parents made the selfless decision to send their children out of harm's way to volunteer hosts. It was known officially as Operation Pied Piper. But I never stopped to consider what the psychological effect was on all concerned. This novel puts you in the middle of the pull and tug between "adoptive" parents and biological parents, of the child's aching loneliness for home vs. guilt for successful adaptation and all the rest of it. It is so sensitively done. so beautifully fair to all, that it is simply unforgettable.

You might try your local library system, but mine which is quite large, did not have either. I found my copies on bookfinder.com

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this in a charity shop and snapped it up without really knowing what it was about. I always buy Persephone Books publications if I see them, as they're so beautifully produced. Anyway, it's a really good read: very well written and full of psychological insight. It is the story of Doreen, an evacuee during the Second World War. It is very interesting and seems to realistically portray the emotional struggle entailed in the separation of child from mother and the forming of new attachments with substitute parents. It also has some insightful things to say about the British class system. It is far more satisfying than you might expect from the blurb. I would also recommend reading the introduction for context.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

The touching story of an evacuee in World War 2. Superb! I was upset by the ending, though. Beautifully written and the definition of parenthood touchingly observed. I felt completely absorbed in this book, and felt deeply for the nine-year-old girl torn between her mother (a cleaner living in reduced circumstances in war-torn London) and her temporary mother (a well-t0-do woman with a big house in the country). Both women love Doreen in different ways and want what's best for her. Noble underlines the tyrannies of the English class system. A restrained and penetrating piece of storytelling.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am such a fan of the publishing company, Persephone, which reissues well loved but forgotten novels. This novel takes place in the United Kingdom during World War II. As London was unsafe due to the frequent bombings, children were evacuated to the countryside. This novel tells the story of one such child and the issues (predominantly class) she and her family encounters and struggles with as a result of this experience.

[Linden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A 9-year-old girl is evacuated to the country during the Blitz and comes to love the couple that takes her in. However, there is rather a tug of war between them and her mother. Sweet and very touching. I loved this book-a Persephone.

[Hebe Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sooooo well written.

[Austen to Zafón · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so very good. It's the blitz in London. A hard-working poor mother reluctantly allows her only child, a 9 year old girl, to be evacuated to a family in the country, as happened to thousands of children during the blitz. Unlike many children, Doreen ends up with a kind, childless couple with money to give her things she's never had before, like a room of her own, books, and a garden to run around in.

What makes this such a good read is that the author doesn't take sides. The mother, who is very class-conscious, is concerned that her daughter is "getting above her station," and that that will make her unhappy with her lot when she returns home. Also, she feels envious and frightened of losing her daughter's love and respect.

The couple quickly become attached to Doreen, especially the woman, who wanted children but could not have them. Doreen is bright and open and blossoms in their company.

Doreen is torn, loving her mother and the new family, and she feels disloyal for that. The author does a wonderful job of presenting everyone's case and writing creditably from each character's perspective. It was a binge read for me. And I haven't picked anything else up since, as whatever it is will doubtless wither in comparison.

[Sophy H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how Barbara Noble managed to get inside the head of so many people so expertly. The woman is a genius.

Doreen is an incredible story, carefully written to convey the absolute bewilderment felt by a child in their uprooting from one place to another, being removed from their mother and learning to love a new "set of parents". The raw emotion, confusion, sense of betrayal and anxiety is perfectly captured. I felt a real sense of protectiveness towards the character.

The senses of place and surroundings of war torn London and the expanse of the countryside are brilliantly portrayed, as are the people Doreen meets and interacts with.

I got really caught up in the story and was so invested in the protagonist, I almost cried at the end line.

An absolute gem of a story that quietly delivers a master literary punch. Bravo Mrs Noble.

[Chrystal · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Pretty good novel about what could happen to a child from the slums, evacuated to a well-to-do family in the country. Explores the difficult decisions a parent must make to protect a child from immediate danger while also thinking about the long-term effect a separation will have on them.