Long Barrow

by Gwendoline Courtney

Published as both Long Barrow and The Farm on the Downs.

Widowed Ruth Lister has four children ranging in age from seventeen to ten years old. She accepts her brother's invitation to come with her children and live on his recently inherited farm.

Genres: Childrens

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Born near Southampton in 1911, Gwendoline Courtney was the daughter of antiques dealer Edwin Courtney, and his wife Joanna. She was distantly related to author and educator Arthur Mee, and first cousins with Phyllis Norris, who wrote a number of books for girls. The family moved to Wallasey when Courtney was young, and she was educated at Oldershaw High School. She worked for a time in her father’s office, before joining Lord Goodman’s staff, during WWII, and prided herself on being the only civilian to work on Operation Overlord. After the deaths of their parents, Courtney and her two sisters lived together for the rest of their lives, moving from place to place - Courtney had sustained an ear injury, during a bomb blast, that made quiet absolutely essential - as the need arose. She died in Shaftesbury, in 1996.

Beginning with Torley Grange, published when when she was twenty-four, Courtney produced thirteen book for young readers. Her work fell out of favor during the 1960s, but she continued to write and lecture extensively. She was very active in various societies related to her interests, such as the West Country Writers Association, the Cornish Cat Society, and the Salisbury Fencing Club. She was also much involved in amateur theatricals, writing, producing and acting in plays.

Reviews

[Gina House · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5🌟 A fun family adventure full of new relationships, hard work and farm life!

I've truly adored all of the Gwendoline Courtney books I've read so far. Although this story is not quite as cozy as the other Collins Seagull Library books I read this month, it was still very good! There's so much to love...

❊ House redecorating
❊ A small Christmas scene
❊ A huge snowstorm
❊ Learning to get along with siblings and new cousins
❊ Descriptions of tending to farm animals
❊ Responsibility and also silly conversations

This is definitely a re-read for another time and will be lovingly placed beside the other hug-worthy Collins Seagull Library book in my collection. Highly recommended!

[Todayiamadaisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those town-children-move-to-a-farm stories that were all the rage back in the day, and it is a fine example of the genre. It's very sweet.

[Tig · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book infuriates me. Four children are uprooted to their uncle's farm when their mother takes on the job of his housekeeper, in return for him taking them all in. He immediately sets to work to reform the only boy, whom he clearly views as a milksop and a muff because the seventeen-year-old Paul doesn't volunteer to help on the farm as the girls do and wants to spend his time reading.

A few points: The mother takes on an arduous and demanding job for, as far as I can work out, no pay. I'm pretty sure she even mentions at some point paying board for her children. It's up to her to decide what her children do or don't do, but they should certainly not be required to be unpaid labour on the uncle's hobby farm.

Paul, the eldest son, is not lounging around - he's reading. He has a brilliant mind which is equally good in all subjects - we only discover this well over halfway through the book. He's studying, not wasting his time. If he doesn't want to chop logs, that should be up to him. The ghastly 'make a man of him' ethos that the uncle uses to justify his treatment implies there's only one way to be a good, useful man and that's to be a strong outdoorsy type. I hate this attitude that there's only one right way to be - cf Blyton and her ilk.

The children are uprooted from their schools and the mother makes no attempt to find new ones - she seems to have handed over all parenting to the uncle, because he's a man and all that (no one actually says they need a father's hand but it's implied). The children vaguely hope that uncle may at some point decide to send them back to school, but he doesn't - he takes on teaching them himself, with the help of the mother who was a teacher before her brother 'rescued' her by making her wash his clothes and cook his food. The children do farm work all day and school work in the evening. It's the kind of thing that happens in cruel orphanage stories. How are the girls - any of them - going to get jobs or get into university without having taken any exams? Don't any of them want other friends?

Paul, it turns out wants to be a doctor. So all that reading wasn't just studying it was working towards a worthwhile and productive career. Uncle thinks that taking him away from his school and teaching him himself for a few hours in the evening will be sufficient to get him into medical school. This is a 1950 publication - entry to medical schools was challenging and rigorous. Uncle is jeopardising Paul's chances, but this is Courtney's fantasy world where home is sufficient to meet all needs so no doubt he will get in - but why deprive a bright mind of the chance of working alongside other boys and in a more stimulating atmosphere? Oh, because home, of course.

Uncle has another nephew who also lives at the farm and also wants to be a doctor. He used to be at a school he loved, but when uncle inherited his farm, his nephew gave up the school and came to live in isolation with uncle for plot reasons I won't give away. But uncle let him. Everyone's better lives are sacrificed to what uncle wants. It's so irritating.

And talking of irritating, of course there is one of Courtney's ghastly younger children who is a complete ungovernable brat but who everyone finds hilariously awful and says 'You can't do anything with her' whenever she perpetrates another selfish action, as if no one had ever heard of discipline. Wish uncle had decided to manage her instead of harmless Paul.

Said brat - her name is Sarah - gets jealous when her sister's cut is professionally bound up by the two boys who want to be doctors and who are pleased to have someone to practise on. So she goes and inflicts a really serious gash on her arm with the farm scythe. And everyone stands around going 'What is she like?' instead of telling her how criminally irresponsible she has been to risk septicaemia (penicillin was only just entering public use at this time, and they live on a remote farm) because she is jealous. And even when she says she'll keep the cut dirty so they keep having to treat her they all just shake their heads helplessly instead of telling her she could lose an arm and how morally wrong it is to take such a risk with her own health. As you may divine, Courtney's brats make me furious anyway, but this is another level.

Plus points: the girls are well drawn, and I like the fact that Courtney has Paul wake up to the fact that they may also want careers at some point. The details of home life on a primitive farm (no running water, no electricity) are interesting and the children's attempts to entertain themselves are fun. The fact that their whole lives are centred only on the farm (they don't even go to church) is doubled down on when the children get snowed in and cut off from the outside world, a situation they treat with remarkable coolness but which it is fun to read about.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Mrs Lister told her four children that they were going to live in a remote farm on the Wiltshire downs with her brother, they wondered how they would get on. Cousin Hugh seemed the complete opposite to the town children, and why did he and Uncle John seem to have some kind of secret?

Intelligent but lazy Paul, domestic Louise who hates the thought of being far from civilisation, energetic Joanna and Sarah the family baby of course find themselves faced with adapting to country life, and this book takes us through a year where they all change and learn together, along with Hugh, one of Courtney’s characters who, with little previous affection in his life, has to learn how to open up to a large family. As with all her books, the characters are attractive and she resists easy stereotypes - this is no Six Cousins of Mistletoe Farm. And there is a warm domestic atmosphere in the cosy kitchen lit by oil lamps and the joys of making your own entertainment. Of course there is also cleaning - though in this book the virtues of good clean farm dirt are also extolled.

I was less keen on the way this book gives us a world where boys learning responsibility means that they start to boss girls around, and where the boys conveniently want the demanding careers and it doesn’t matter that the girls up sticks and leave school for a year. So this won’t be a comfort read for me as other Courtney books can be. And Sarah comes across as more like six than ten, Hugh a little too perfect (a touch of Lorna Hill’s Guy about him), and the uncle a little too domineering for being a younger brother whom the family haven’t seen for a long time. I think Mrs Lister could have managed quite well holding down a full-time job back in the city, but of course then we wouldn’t have had this book.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good comfort read, but not a very good book....there's not quite enough story to it.

[Iffah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another enjoyable read from the author. I liked this book but still love Sally's Family best .

[Tassiemouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite G.C. book. I had the hardback 1st edition growing up, and now have the Girl's Gone By version.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it