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Sing Me Who You Are
Sometimes we are all in need of a change…
And a change is just what Harriet seeks when she quits her librarian job to move with her two Siamese cats into a musty, moldy, leaky old bus she inherited from her Aunt Esther.
Located in a field near her cousin Magda’s big house, the bus is considered by the locals as an impractical, eccentric habitat.
So Harriet is not at all surprised when her cousin Magda shows up to protest and question Harriet’s plans for the future should she sell the field.
Meanwhile, Harriet, who has never married and is considered plain, can’t help but be pleased that domineering Magda has lost her tweedy good looks…
Despite Magda being convinced that Harry will not last in the bus during the winter, at first Harriet finds herself enjoying the experience.
The woods and fields are beautiful, she plays with her cats, she reads a lot of poetry.
And Magda's husband Greg proves to be an amiable companion…
But there is another, unseen, presence on the land that haunts all three.
Scrubbs was the man with whom both Harriet and Magda fell in love, whose internment in a Japanese POW camp and subsequent death is, for Greg, an uncomfortable and menacing memory that one day must be exorcised…
Sing Me Who You Are is a tale of love and loss, and of finding oneself again in a changing world.
And a change is just what Harriet seeks when she quits her librarian job to move with her two Siamese cats into a musty, moldy, leaky old bus she inherited from her Aunt Esther.
Located in a field near her cousin Magda’s big house, the bus is considered by the locals as an impractical, eccentric habitat.
So Harriet is not at all surprised when her cousin Magda shows up to protest and question Harriet’s plans for the future should she sell the field.
Meanwhile, Harriet, who has never married and is considered plain, can’t help but be pleased that domineering Magda has lost her tweedy good looks…
Despite Magda being convinced that Harry will not last in the bus during the winter, at first Harriet finds herself enjoying the experience.
The woods and fields are beautiful, she plays with her cats, she reads a lot of poetry.
And Magda's husband Greg proves to be an amiable companion…
But there is another, unseen, presence on the land that haunts all three.
Scrubbs was the man with whom both Harriet and Magda fell in love, whose internment in a Japanese POW camp and subsequent death is, for Greg, an uncomfortable and menacing memory that one day must be exorcised…
Sing Me Who You Are is a tale of love and loss, and of finding oneself again in a changing world.
187 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1967
15 people are currently reading
147 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Berridge
20 books3 followersElizabeth Berridge grew up in the ‘safe London suburb’ of Wandsworth Common. A year in Switzerland and a ‘hateful’ period at the Bank of England, described in Be Clean, Be Tidy (1949), was followed by work in a photographic news agency. She married Reginald Moore in 1940, published her first short story in 1941 and, in 1943, after the birth of the first of her two children, moved to a remote house in Wales, where Moore edited Modern Reading and other wartime anthologies and she wrote the stories reprinted in Tell It to a Stranger – published as Selected Stories in 1947; they returned to London in 1950. Elizabeth Berridge published nine novels, Across the Common winning the Yorkshire Post Award for Best Novel of the Year in 1964. She reviewed fiction for the Daily Telegraph for twenty-five years. Her last novel, Touch and Go, was adapted as a play by BBC Radio 4.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
April 20, 2024
This has been republished in the British Library women writers series and was originally published in 1967. Elizabeth Berridge wrote novels and short stories and reviewed books. This is set in the mid-1960s and the main protagonist is Harriet (Harry), a late 30s single librarian. Her aunt leaves her an old bus. The bus is sat in a field on the Uplands estate in rural Cambridgeshire owned by her cousin Magda and her husband Gregg. Harry decides to give up her job and move into the bus with her two Siamese cats and all her worldly goods. This is about change and this is the 1960s after all: The Times they are a Changin! There are a number of themes, housing and the need to build new houses as opposed to preserving the countryside. This was a time when the government did build houses. The effects of the war, which was only twenty years away and the young men who fought in it now in their late thirties and forties; many still suffering PTSD. More surprising for the time Ecology and environmental issues are explored as well. Berridge also explores the tensions between Magda (a landowner and local politician) and Harry who is effectively a tenant.
Berridge writes with a comic touch, but there is sadness there too. Even some of the most comic moments have an edge to them:
“Harriet’s mother had died in the middle of Hymn No. 270 (Ancient and Modern). Her high, tuneless soprano had stopped abruptly and she had dropped forward over the back of the pew in front, hymnbook still open in her hand. Her peppermints, gloves and collection money (two sixpenny pieces, to make a modest jingle) had dropped off the shelf and rolled out into the aisle. Her chin had hit the wood, and her shiny straw hat, a new one, was jerked forward violently over her reading-glasses. All around the singing had grown ragged, heads turned. Harriet looked up the hymn afterwards, to wring some significance from it. Her mother had died with the words ‘panoply of God’ strongly on her lips. Maybe it was God’s way of whispering a private word in her ear. She deserved it at the end of a hard-working, undistinguished life; a life, Harriet had often thought of as idiotically devoted to others. Surely this God she had sung to so vigorously for so many years could give her some comfort?”
There ae some interesting characters and the trauma of the war runs deep. The concern for the environment is perhaps a surprise, but a welcome one. Harry is a bit of a lost soul looking for a purpose. There is a strong sense of place as well and a connectedness to nature:
“All the same Harriet stopped and looked over to the right, where the long curving lake was outlined by rising mist and the bamboo plantations marched along the far end. From the water came the heavy smell of autumn and she knew without moving a step that the flat leathery water-lily leaves quilted the lake, with drifts of wild plum and willow leaves for stitching. Aunt Esther had always loved to watch these changing colours. She had made, years ago, a patchwork bedcover, matching the silks and velvets to the faded tapestry colours of the tough water-lily leaves, the brilliant drifts of red plum, the frail yellow hair of willow.”
This is certainly a novel that deserves to be republished, tinged with hope and regret. It’s an good character study which takes some interesting directions.
Berridge writes with a comic touch, but there is sadness there too. Even some of the most comic moments have an edge to them:
“Harriet’s mother had died in the middle of Hymn No. 270 (Ancient and Modern). Her high, tuneless soprano had stopped abruptly and she had dropped forward over the back of the pew in front, hymnbook still open in her hand. Her peppermints, gloves and collection money (two sixpenny pieces, to make a modest jingle) had dropped off the shelf and rolled out into the aisle. Her chin had hit the wood, and her shiny straw hat, a new one, was jerked forward violently over her reading-glasses. All around the singing had grown ragged, heads turned. Harriet looked up the hymn afterwards, to wring some significance from it. Her mother had died with the words ‘panoply of God’ strongly on her lips. Maybe it was God’s way of whispering a private word in her ear. She deserved it at the end of a hard-working, undistinguished life; a life, Harriet had often thought of as idiotically devoted to others. Surely this God she had sung to so vigorously for so many years could give her some comfort?”
There ae some interesting characters and the trauma of the war runs deep. The concern for the environment is perhaps a surprise, but a welcome one. Harry is a bit of a lost soul looking for a purpose. There is a strong sense of place as well and a connectedness to nature:
“All the same Harriet stopped and looked over to the right, where the long curving lake was outlined by rising mist and the bamboo plantations marched along the far end. From the water came the heavy smell of autumn and she knew without moving a step that the flat leathery water-lily leaves quilted the lake, with drifts of wild plum and willow leaves for stitching. Aunt Esther had always loved to watch these changing colours. She had made, years ago, a patchwork bedcover, matching the silks and velvets to the faded tapestry colours of the tough water-lily leaves, the brilliant drifts of red plum, the frail yellow hair of willow.”
This is certainly a novel that deserves to be republished, tinged with hope and regret. It’s an good character study which takes some interesting directions.
August 2, 2020
There’s been a little flurry of interest in Elizabeth Berridge recently, partly prompted by a series of tweets from Simon (@stuck_inabook) and Frances (@nonsuchbook) on the Abacus editions of three of this author’s novels. Like Frances, I was intrigued by the sound of Berridge’s distinctly English style and promptly sent off for secondhand copies of two of the books, Across the Common (1964) and Sing Me Who You Are (1967). Now that I’ve read Sing, I can say that the cover matches the book to a T, perfectly capturing the rather idiosyncratic nature of the novel’s protagonist, Harriet Cooper.
Harriet – an unmarried librarian in her late thirties – has just inherited a rather ramshackle bus from her late Aunt Esther, which she plans to make her home. As the novel opens, Harriet is arriving at Uplands – a 250-acre Cambridgeshire estate where the bus happens to be located – complete with all her belongings and a pair of Siamese cats. While Harriet has been given the bus, she does not have any claim to Uplands, which is owned by her older cousin, Magda. These two women are very different from one another, both in looks and in stature. While Harriet is dowdy and mannish-looking, Magda is wealthy and attractive, very much the moneyed countrywoman with links to the local council.
Harriet’s arrival at Uplands is a thorn in Magda’s side, the presence of the bus proving to be something of an irritation – a blot on the pastoral landscape, so to speak.
Earlier on she [Magda] had stood at the highest point of her estate, above the spinney that protected Harriet’s old converted bus, looking down over the woods and field that drifted gently to the little town below. At this time of year she could see a long way, beyond the town and over at least six counties. But all she had noticed this morning was the smoke from that absurd chimney of Harriet’s bus. The smoke rose unhurriedly from beyond the trees, for the wind which had chased the rain away had itself gone, leaving a still, damp autumn day. Harriet’s smoke irritated her, as if her cousin was deliberately writing sky signals asserting her presence on this land. And Harriet was someone whom you couldn’t very well order off, like gipsies or tramps. However much you wanted to, you couldn’t do that to poor old Harry. (p. 21)
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2020...
Harriet – an unmarried librarian in her late thirties – has just inherited a rather ramshackle bus from her late Aunt Esther, which she plans to make her home. As the novel opens, Harriet is arriving at Uplands – a 250-acre Cambridgeshire estate where the bus happens to be located – complete with all her belongings and a pair of Siamese cats. While Harriet has been given the bus, she does not have any claim to Uplands, which is owned by her older cousin, Magda. These two women are very different from one another, both in looks and in stature. While Harriet is dowdy and mannish-looking, Magda is wealthy and attractive, very much the moneyed countrywoman with links to the local council.
Harriet’s arrival at Uplands is a thorn in Magda’s side, the presence of the bus proving to be something of an irritation – a blot on the pastoral landscape, so to speak.
Earlier on she [Magda] had stood at the highest point of her estate, above the spinney that protected Harriet’s old converted bus, looking down over the woods and field that drifted gently to the little town below. At this time of year she could see a long way, beyond the town and over at least six counties. But all she had noticed this morning was the smoke from that absurd chimney of Harriet’s bus. The smoke rose unhurriedly from beyond the trees, for the wind which had chased the rain away had itself gone, leaving a still, damp autumn day. Harriet’s smoke irritated her, as if her cousin was deliberately writing sky signals asserting her presence on this land. And Harriet was someone whom you couldn’t very well order off, like gipsies or tramps. However much you wanted to, you couldn’t do that to poor old Harry. (p. 21)
To read the rest of my review, please visit:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2020...
May 27, 2023
3.5🌟 A seemingly simple story that deeply touches on many issues such as love, friendship, post-war housing and ecology.
Though I found some parts of this book to be rather more like a textbook than a novel, I did enjoy it. The characters rang true to me and the situation that Harriet finds herself in is realistic and sympathetic.
At first, the story is laid out in a straightforward way and then suddenly becomes confusing. I found myself feeling like I’d missed a chapter or perhaps I was reading the sequel to a series and I’d missed a lot of back story.
But, slowly, the situations become clearer and motivations emerge. I’m not sure if I like this style of writing, but the last few chapters truly of the book kept my attention.
No one in this novel is truly likable, except perhaps Harriet and, even more so, her Siamese cats. I’m glad I read it, but it may not be the type of book (or author) for me.
I must admit that the green bus she lived in sounded pretty cozy at times and I absolutely love the cover that the British Library chose for this book!
Though I found some parts of this book to be rather more like a textbook than a novel, I did enjoy it. The characters rang true to me and the situation that Harriet finds herself in is realistic and sympathetic.
At first, the story is laid out in a straightforward way and then suddenly becomes confusing. I found myself feeling like I’d missed a chapter or perhaps I was reading the sequel to a series and I’d missed a lot of back story.
But, slowly, the situations become clearer and motivations emerge. I’m not sure if I like this style of writing, but the last few chapters truly of the book kept my attention.
No one in this novel is truly likable, except perhaps Harriet and, even more so, her Siamese cats. I’m glad I read it, but it may not be the type of book (or author) for me.
I must admit that the green bus she lived in sounded pretty cozy at times and I absolutely love the cover that the British Library chose for this book!
August 3, 2020
Review to follow.
March 9, 2017
Lovely read with a few minor weaknesses - 4 stars that should have been 4.5, really (Goodreads, please add that function already!).
The protagonist Harriet Cooper, “a tallish, near-sighted woman with fading red hair and a bully-boy assurance” moves into an old, refurbished bus she inherited from her aunt Esther. She used to work at “the Library with its neat cards and its shelves packed with every inflammable emotion tight between covers” and has come to regard life as “a capsule to be swallowed, not tasted.” Of course, she chain-smokes, with her cigarette “held with a man's firmness between middle and third finger” and is a cat lady who lives with two strong-willed Siamese.
Unfortunately, Esther has only left her the bus, not the land on which it sits. That still belongs to Harry’s cousin Martha, and, as soon as Martha comes to visit, the “old banked-down antagonisms of adolescence” surface again: “Harriet had always been jealous of her cousin's good looks, for they had been brought up together, and it had always been Magda who looked English and delicate and attracted notice”.
In contrast to the cat lover Harry, Magda is a dog person, which spells trouble as soon as the reader is introduced to her: Harry “was rinsing the kitchen floor when she heard the barking of dogs. Magda was on her way. Now she knew how the fox felt”. Harry realises very quickly that, as she had expected, Magda doesn’t exactly like her living in the bus on her land, and “Harriet felt very much the unmerry peasant being visited by the lady of the manor”.
Returning to the place where she grew up in and the people who she grew up with wakes up old memories for Harry, particularly concerning Scrubbs, her crush from her teenage years (and beyond). However, Scrubbs, a heavy-drinking, smoking womaniser, “never knew me as a woman, as myself. Only as a sort of adoring kid sister, climbing roofs with him and covering his tracks”, Harry thinks. In school, he even used to tease her as ‘four eyes’ because of her glasses (how original!). Instead, he courted Magda who, in turn, wasn’t interested in him, which Harry has realised is a “pattern in Scrubbs's relations with women. The more indifferent they were, the more feminine, the more they attracted him. He invited kicks”.
Magda ended up marrying Gregg, but “what had attracted Gregg to Magda in those days was purely the feeling they shared about Scrubbs. They had both rumbled him”, and there was not much more to found the relationship on. “[Gregg] was running to flab in his early middle age, but his blue eyes and grey hair still gave him the deceptive appearance of a tough old soldier”. He gets along well with Harry, especially “the spiky honesty that so annoyed other people, being unfeminine, was right for his mood”. Magda isn’t too bothered about their relationship: “she had no qualms in leaving her husband to be entertained by dear old Harry, who never had been — and certainly wasn't now — a sex bomb”. Despite Magda’s negative evaluation of Harry’s looks,
As I’ve come to expect from Berridge, having read and enjoyed her short story collection “Tell it to a Stranger”, the writing is lovely and, in a very British way, strewn with wit. Here’s a nice example of Berridge’s dry humour and penchant for absurd situations:
“Harriet's mother had died in the middle of Hymn No. 270 (Ancient and Modern). Her high, tuneless soprano had stopped abruptly and she had dropped forward over the back of the pew in front, hymnbook still open in her hand. Her peppermints, gloves and collection money (two sixpenny pieces, to make a modest jingle) had dropped off the shelf and rolled out into the aisle. Her chin had hit the wood, and her shiny straw hat, a new one, was jerked forward violently over her reading-glasses. All around the singing had grown ragged, heads turned. Harriet looked up the hymn afterwards, to wring some significance from it. Her mother had died with the words 'panoply of God' strongly on her lips. Maybe it was God's way of whispering a private word in her ear. She deserved it at the end of a hard-working, undistinguished life; a life, Harriet had often thought of as idiotically devoted to others. Surely this God she had sung to so vigorously for so many years could give her some comfort?”
So, why not 5 stars, you might ask? Sometimes, both the characterisation as well as the writing (albeit usually excellent) wander off topic and slide into platitudes. Also, the ending was a bit of a let-down for me because it seemed out of character.
Many thanks to Endeavour Press for providing me with a review copy!
The protagonist Harriet Cooper, “a tallish, near-sighted woman with fading red hair and a bully-boy assurance” moves into an old, refurbished bus she inherited from her aunt Esther. She used to work at “the Library with its neat cards and its shelves packed with every inflammable emotion tight between covers” and has come to regard life as “a capsule to be swallowed, not tasted.” Of course, she chain-smokes, with her cigarette “held with a man's firmness between middle and third finger” and is a cat lady who lives with two strong-willed Siamese.
Unfortunately, Esther has only left her the bus, not the land on which it sits. That still belongs to Harry’s cousin Martha, and, as soon as Martha comes to visit, the “old banked-down antagonisms of adolescence” surface again: “Harriet had always been jealous of her cousin's good looks, for they had been brought up together, and it had always been Magda who looked English and delicate and attracted notice”.
In contrast to the cat lover Harry, Magda is a dog person, which spells trouble as soon as the reader is introduced to her: Harry “was rinsing the kitchen floor when she heard the barking of dogs. Magda was on her way. Now she knew how the fox felt”. Harry realises very quickly that, as she had expected, Magda doesn’t exactly like her living in the bus on her land, and “Harriet felt very much the unmerry peasant being visited by the lady of the manor”.
Returning to the place where she grew up in and the people who she grew up with wakes up old memories for Harry, particularly concerning Scrubbs, her crush from her teenage years (and beyond). However, Scrubbs, a heavy-drinking, smoking womaniser, “never knew me as a woman, as myself. Only as a sort of adoring kid sister, climbing roofs with him and covering his tracks”, Harry thinks. In school, he even used to tease her as ‘four eyes’ because of her glasses (how original!). Instead, he courted Magda who, in turn, wasn’t interested in him, which Harry has realised is a “pattern in Scrubbs's relations with women. The more indifferent they were, the more feminine, the more they attracted him. He invited kicks”.
Magda ended up marrying Gregg, but “what had attracted Gregg to Magda in those days was purely the feeling they shared about Scrubbs. They had both rumbled him”, and there was not much more to found the relationship on. “[Gregg] was running to flab in his early middle age, but his blue eyes and grey hair still gave him the deceptive appearance of a tough old soldier”. He gets along well with Harry, especially “the spiky honesty that so annoyed other people, being unfeminine, was right for his mood”. Magda isn’t too bothered about their relationship: “she had no qualms in leaving her husband to be entertained by dear old Harry, who never had been — and certainly wasn't now — a sex bomb”. Despite Magda’s negative evaluation of Harry’s looks,
As I’ve come to expect from Berridge, having read and enjoyed her short story collection “Tell it to a Stranger”, the writing is lovely and, in a very British way, strewn with wit. Here’s a nice example of Berridge’s dry humour and penchant for absurd situations:
“Harriet's mother had died in the middle of Hymn No. 270 (Ancient and Modern). Her high, tuneless soprano had stopped abruptly and she had dropped forward over the back of the pew in front, hymnbook still open in her hand. Her peppermints, gloves and collection money (two sixpenny pieces, to make a modest jingle) had dropped off the shelf and rolled out into the aisle. Her chin had hit the wood, and her shiny straw hat, a new one, was jerked forward violently over her reading-glasses. All around the singing had grown ragged, heads turned. Harriet looked up the hymn afterwards, to wring some significance from it. Her mother had died with the words 'panoply of God' strongly on her lips. Maybe it was God's way of whispering a private word in her ear. She deserved it at the end of a hard-working, undistinguished life; a life, Harriet had often thought of as idiotically devoted to others. Surely this God she had sung to so vigorously for so many years could give her some comfort?”
So, why not 5 stars, you might ask? Sometimes, both the characterisation as well as the writing (albeit usually excellent) wander off topic and slide into platitudes. Also, the ending was a bit of a let-down for me because it seemed out of character.
Many thanks to Endeavour Press for providing me with a review copy!
January 11, 2017
4 Stars
Harriet arrives with her car loaded down and her cats to claim her inheritance from her Aunt Esther.
Gregg and Magda, Harriet’s cousin, own the land on which Harriet’s bus sits. Magda and Harriet have a love/hate relationship. Rivals as children and always thrown together, they vied for everything.
We learn about their relationship with Scrubbs. Friends with both girls, he liked Magda better and this upset Harriet. We learn about Magda’s relationship with Gregg and why she married the man she now cannot stand.
This book is about the relationship between the two women, including their history with all its warts.
This is a very well written book with memorable characters. Their emotions are drawn quite well and I liked Harriet.
I am sending many thanks to Netgalley and Endeavour Press for forwarding to me a copy of this delightful and interesting book to read.
Harriet arrives with her car loaded down and her cats to claim her inheritance from her Aunt Esther.
Gregg and Magda, Harriet’s cousin, own the land on which Harriet’s bus sits. Magda and Harriet have a love/hate relationship. Rivals as children and always thrown together, they vied for everything.
We learn about their relationship with Scrubbs. Friends with both girls, he liked Magda better and this upset Harriet. We learn about Magda’s relationship with Gregg and why she married the man she now cannot stand.
This book is about the relationship between the two women, including their history with all its warts.
This is a very well written book with memorable characters. Their emotions are drawn quite well and I liked Harriet.
I am sending many thanks to Netgalley and Endeavour Press for forwarding to me a copy of this delightful and interesting book to read.
March 10, 2017
Harriet, an unmarried librarian in her 30s, inherits an old bus in the wilds of Cambridgeshire that has been made habitable, and she gives up her job to go and live in it with her two cats. However, she hasn't inherited the land it stands on. The land belongs to her rich cousin Magda, who lives with her husband in the local big house.
This is the slow-burning story of relationships that have roots in childhood rivalries and adolescent crushes. Harriet, Magda and Gregg may seem to make a triangle, but all are closely tied to a dead man who remains a shadowy figure because they all saw him differently.
I much enjoyed this book with its meandering plot and its slowly revealed secrets.
This is the slow-burning story of relationships that have roots in childhood rivalries and adolescent crushes. Harriet, Magda and Gregg may seem to make a triangle, but all are closely tied to a dead man who remains a shadowy figure because they all saw him differently.
I much enjoyed this book with its meandering plot and its slowly revealed secrets.
June 19, 2025
I loved the book's synopsis and the first few chapters and thought I was in for a treat. Then, the tone seemed to change, and it became both confusing and unengaging for me.
February 23, 2017
A good read
I received a free download of this novel. These two quotes, taken from different parts of the novel, are what defined this book for me.
"...Harriet found herself afloat in a thick white mist that pressed up against the windows and surrounded her with utter chilly silence. Not afloat as much as submerged. She might have been at the bottom of the sea or hidden high up in a cloud ..."
"Falling out of love, if this was it, was like waking from a confused nightmare, opening one's eyes to the uncomplicated daylight. In this state, if it lasted, one might make a free choice."
If you enjoy good literary fiction, you'll like this book.
I received a free download of this novel. These two quotes, taken from different parts of the novel, are what defined this book for me.
"...Harriet found herself afloat in a thick white mist that pressed up against the windows and surrounded her with utter chilly silence. Not afloat as much as submerged. She might have been at the bottom of the sea or hidden high up in a cloud ..."
"Falling out of love, if this was it, was like waking from a confused nightmare, opening one's eyes to the uncomplicated daylight. In this state, if it lasted, one might make a free choice."
If you enjoy good literary fiction, you'll like this book.
September 12, 2024
3.5*
Harriet Cooper is 37 years old and a spinster described by others as “too fat”, “not much to look at” and with a “mannish stride”. Her mother has recently died and when we first meet her she is on the way to Cambridgeshire to start a new life in a green, ramshackle bus which sits on her cousin Madga Witheridge’s 250 acre estate. Harriet and Magda grew up together but they are far from friendly - the damp, dark bus seeming more of a snub than a gift, each having what the other wants. Whilst Harriet is preoccupied with setting up her home, looking after her cats and fending off both welcome and unwelcome advances from the men she meets, Magda is sitting on the planning committee at the local council and working on a way to sell the land Harriet’s bus sits on.
To be honest before I started this book I was expecting a happier and cosier story and I thought she would find herself and live happily ever after. But it is not about that. Instead there is a lot of tension created by Harriet’s behaviour, particularly around drinking, men and drinking with men... and her precarious living conditions seem isolating and dangerous especially for a single woman. There are several traumatic messages about World War II and its ongoing effects on the physical and mental health of those who fought, about housing and the effect rebuilding has on environment. I thought more could have been done with the plot as its message was weak and only really came into the story towards the end and did not wholly tie up with Harriet's attitudes, nor her background as a librarian.
Harriet Cooper is 37 years old and a spinster described by others as “too fat”, “not much to look at” and with a “mannish stride”. Her mother has recently died and when we first meet her she is on the way to Cambridgeshire to start a new life in a green, ramshackle bus which sits on her cousin Madga Witheridge’s 250 acre estate. Harriet and Magda grew up together but they are far from friendly - the damp, dark bus seeming more of a snub than a gift, each having what the other wants. Whilst Harriet is preoccupied with setting up her home, looking after her cats and fending off both welcome and unwelcome advances from the men she meets, Magda is sitting on the planning committee at the local council and working on a way to sell the land Harriet’s bus sits on.
To be honest before I started this book I was expecting a happier and cosier story and I thought she would find herself and live happily ever after. But it is not about that. Instead there is a lot of tension created by Harriet’s behaviour, particularly around drinking, men and drinking with men... and her precarious living conditions seem isolating and dangerous especially for a single woman. There are several traumatic messages about World War II and its ongoing effects on the physical and mental health of those who fought, about housing and the effect rebuilding has on environment. I thought more could have been done with the plot as its message was weak and only really came into the story towards the end and did not wholly tie up with Harriet's attitudes, nor her background as a librarian.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 24, 2023
This was a really engaging little read and I feel it is now setting me on a path of collecting the whole of this British Library Women Writer's series! A great mix of fabulous covers and little known stories!
Harriet is at the heart of this book and we follow her as she's left an old bus by her Aunt Esther. Seemingly looking for a new outlook and lifestyle she moves lock, stock and barrel to take up residence in a field in her old bus and finds herself at the centre of the village gossip. She reconnects with old family and friends and the twists and turns of relationships becomes centre of the story. Being a single women she's used to the prejudice of the time. We also get a glimpse at the concerns of environmental issues set against the needs of a nation recovering from wartimes, a subject very relevant nowadays with the battle between green spaces and homes needed.
Some of the characters aren't very pleasant but that just made it more 'real'! The storyline got a little muddled through the middle for me and I did lose track a bit but all came back on point towards the end and made for a really good read!
Harriet is at the heart of this book and we follow her as she's left an old bus by her Aunt Esther. Seemingly looking for a new outlook and lifestyle she moves lock, stock and barrel to take up residence in a field in her old bus and finds herself at the centre of the village gossip. She reconnects with old family and friends and the twists and turns of relationships becomes centre of the story. Being a single women she's used to the prejudice of the time. We also get a glimpse at the concerns of environmental issues set against the needs of a nation recovering from wartimes, a subject very relevant nowadays with the battle between green spaces and homes needed.
Some of the characters aren't very pleasant but that just made it more 'real'! The storyline got a little muddled through the middle for me and I did lose track a bit but all came back on point towards the end and made for a really good read!
July 22, 2023
Republished by the British Library as part of their Women Writers series, this was the first time I'd read any Elizabeth Berridge. This is the story of Harriet, a woman out of time. Unmarried, scarred by the war and finally freed of the shackles of respectability by the death of her mother, she loads her two, Siamese cats into her car and goes back to the village she grew up in. She has inherited a bus on the edge of a field in her cousin's farm where she intends to live, but when she gets there, things do not go according to plan. At times droll and at others, devastatingly sad, this is a fine novel that explores the fate of unmarried women and the lack of place for them in a world still in thrall to the memory of a war and not willing to move forward into a different future. The fractures in society are highlighted by a growing concern for environmentalism and the demands for housing from a growing post war population. This reminded me a little of the novels of Barbara Pam in a good way.
October 1, 2023
I went into this expecting to enjoy it in a casual sort of way, and ended up adoring it. Everything about the setting and atmosphere—the autumnal Cambridgeshire fields of its setting, the broken-down green bus which our protagonist Harriet inherits from her eccentric aunt, the Siamese cats she brings with her, her large body and unaccommodating personality allied with a practical kindness and an obvious sexiness (since two local men are immediately interested)—hit the mark for me. It’s an idiosyncratic book about, amongst other things, the fierce devotion to land, and the search for a place to call home, two subjects that are very close to my heart. Berridge also incorporates the scars of the Second World War through the enigmatic (and now dead) Scrubbs Malone, with whom both Harriet and her cousin Magda became entangled as teenagers, and whose experiences in a prison camp with Magda’s now-husband Gregg have haunted both men for two decades. It seemed an unusual choice for a novel written in the late ’60s to make, but one that, to me, reflects what must have been a common experience among families. This might well make my Best of 2023 list.
August 17, 2025
There were parts which seemed unnecessary to me and to be more confusing than adding to the story. For me it felt like this is a preamble to a novel... Just the start of the real story. But in that case it should have been shorter, more to the point. I think it could be a good starting point into an adventurous story....
Most of the time it was an easy read, but some vocabulary showed that it's written 50+ years ago which made it a bit tough to read for me as I not a native. Never came across e.g. spinny before.
It's good to read books published years or decades ago, to get a different perspective on the past. I can't say that I enjoyed the book a lot, but I don't regret spending time with it.
Most of the time it was an easy read, but some vocabulary showed that it's written 50+ years ago which made it a bit tough to read for me as I not a native. Never came across e.g. spinny before.
It's good to read books published years or decades ago, to get a different perspective on the past. I can't say that I enjoyed the book a lot, but I don't regret spending time with it.
July 22, 2025
Chatting to a friend after I had read this book and she perfectly encapsulated what I thought of Harriet, she is a passenger in her own story. While she is looking for something different she just seems to go along with everything that comes her way including the affair with Greg up until the end where I hope she is taking her future into her own hands. I think the author did a good job of portraying the complexity of characters, familial connections, and their reasons for making choices as they do. This book is well written and has a satisfying ending. This wouldn’t be a book that I would reread.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 25, 2023
This is ok as a novel, I did like the descriptions of the countryside vs town but at the same time there wasn’t much of a story. It all got a bit bogged down what with countryside matters vs people living off the land vs affairs vs petty jealousies from childhood. It just didn’t really go anywhere and it got a bit too poetical. It’s not bad but I wouldn’t think about it much either.
October 10, 2021
All I can remember is that I liked this book very much!
August 31, 2023
I really couldn’t like any of the characters except the Siamese cats. TW for animal trauma/death/rehoming.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 11, 2023
2.5 stars - not really for me but contained some good, dark humor and characterizations that you could sink your teeth into
January 22, 2024
I have the British Library Women Writer series version
August 10, 2025
A 3.5 really but it didn’t feel right giving it a 4. Readable, a story well unfolded, with quite a few nice touches and quirks, but at the end of the day it did little for me.
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