Other Times

by Leslie Thomas

At the start of the war in 1939 James Bevan is a junior officer approaching middle-age, attached to a small anti-aircraft unit on the south coast.Abandoned by his wife, the soldiers he command are his Bairnsfather, whose sexual encounters with his girl friend Muriel take place in an air-raid shelter; Cartwright, trying to keep two women on his gunner's pay of a shilling a day; Hignet, cosily educating himself in the orderly room. It is a rude awakening when they are called upon for the real war.Hugely absorbing, rich and rewarding, Other Times brims with history and experience, love, sorrow and humour.

Genres: Fiction

512 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Born in Newport, Monmouthshire, 1931, Leslie Thomas is the son of a sailor who was lost at sea in 1943. His boyhood in an orphanage is evoked in This Time Next Week, published in 1964. At sixteen, he became a reporter, before going on to do his national service. He won worldwide acclaim with his bestselling novel The Virgin Soldiers, which has achieved international sales of over four million copies.

Reviews

[R N Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it difficult to follow - it shifted from WW1 to WW2 without proper warning - for me, anyway!

[Mr Stewart R Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little disappointed but in the end enjoyable. Unlike other books on the World Wars it concentrated generally on the people at home at the beginning of the two wars. With honest relationships and a mixture of humour and tragedy. The two eras were linked by the one character with sudden and unexpected leaps back in time, difficult to manage at first but finally enjoyable. Once in the plot I enjoyed it but wished it had continued. Let’s hope there is another in the series.

[Paul William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book

Leslie Thomas has always been one of my favorite authors, this book is excellent giving vivid beautiful scenes of Britain at War, I broke out laughing many times at the theme of the story, this was that rare book you do not want to end.

[Sue Garwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very under-rated writer, in my humble opinion. Conjures up a particular time, in this case the "phony" war and 1940, and makes it real.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

9/10

[Ian Laird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Once you realise none of the key characters are going to die you can relax and enjoy the story

Leslie Thomas hit the big time early with The Virgin Soldiers, about British conscripts in Malaya and followed it up with the almost equally successful Onward Virgin Soldiers and Stand Up Virgin Soldiers. Over the next thirty years, the steady stream of his novels often had a wartime theme.

This is one of the later ones and follows a pattern: one ‘normal’ character in this case James Bevan, is surrounded by interesting and colourful personalities who all need to go off and fight a war: enlisted man Hignet, reads ‘The Times’, Bairnsfather (‘same as the famous cartoonist’) finds himself with girlfriend Molly in an air raid shelter, with time on their hands and in desperate need of a torch; the veteran regular army sergeant Runciman, of the sardonic, withering manner, nevertheless, remains sensible and sundry others who we know include some who are not going to survive.

Captain Bevan, much assisted by Runciman, has to mould his ragtag group into a fighting troop; after the phoney war, the unit sees action soon enough in Norway, Dunkirk and in the Battle of Britain, all the while living their uncertain private lives as best they can. But the strength of the story and what I really like about Thomas’ writing is his humanity. He creates quite a community; complete with local copper, the local magistrate, Lady Violet, with the comely daughter Penelope, the refugees running an impromptu orphanage for displaced children from Europe.

This is where Bevan meets Renee, who chooses the children rather than him. Bevan may not find happiness till the end – the very end. Which brings up two quibbles: one, the pattern of the various relationships is nice and predictable and two, while Thomas is well versed with life during the second world war and his portrait of the kids in the orphanage is colourful and rings true (he was a Barbados orphan himself), some of his research appears in half–digested lumps.

These are small quibbles, because Thomas manages mostly to deftly combine humour, deadly serious action and ribaldry in a satisfying way. There are number of sex scenes which he does in an entertaining way and at his best, mixes farce with poignancy, the best example being the young James Bevan’s experience with Mrs Franklyn, who at the time of her ministrations genuinely believes she is a war widow.

Bevan’s story is sad: father deserts the family early, mother later suicides, his sister Agnes becomes a prostitute in Inverness, then dies of the flu in the epidemic after World War One; his first wife dies, his second leaves him and Renee goes off to look after the orphans. But he is a good man, so you know he is going to end up happy..

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are so many books about the Second World War you have to ask what on earth could be the reason to read another one. "Other times" tells the story of the English at the beginning of the war. It follows the lives of soldiers in charge of two guns (the "Bofers") guarding the coast - at a time when they were expecting to be invaded at any point by the German army. The author takes us back to those times - from what they wore, what the weather was like, what they ate to what the kids played with. There are a few romances in this book which turns out to be quite a gentle story of waiting and hoping. Finally I think that this is more a feminine book than its cover pretends to be. I enjoyed it - just the sort of story you can imagine the BBC making a 4 part series from... everything punctuated by cups of tea.

[Fi · Rating 5 out of 5]

So clever