Westover

by Richmal Crompton

When Julia Gideon is widowed during the Second World War with five children to look after, she is left to manage Westover House with insufficient means for its upkeep. Urged by her solicitor brother to downsize and turn the family home into flats, she reluctantly agrees.

However, as her new tenants move in it soon becomes clear that the manor house cannot contain the fiery personalities that are now living under its roof . . .

From the hard up Godfrey and his wife Cynthia, who must share a flat with his brother Hubert and the uncouth Trixie; to Julia’s elderly aunts, Letitia and Lucy, who aspire to very different lives in their old age; and the faux-French Mrs Pollock whose overbearing presence in her daughter Ann-Marie’s life is protective to the point of suffocation – life is anything but simple at Westover.

As heated relationships simmer away and family feuds break through to the surface, Richmal Crompton’s Westover is a keenly observed study of what happens when domestic life doesn’t run so smoothly . . .

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Richmal Crompton Lamburn was initially trained as a schoolmistress but later became a popular English writer, best known for her Just William series of books, humorous short stories, and to a lesser extent adult fiction books.

Crompton's fiction centres around family and social life, dwelling on the constraints that they place on individuals while also nurturing them. This is best seen in her depiction of children as puzzled onlookers of society's ways. Nevertheless, the children, particularly William and his Outlaws, almost always emerge triumphant.

Reviews

[Jo Walton]

Terrible appalling ablism made it very difficult for me to read this -- almost physically painful. Yes, maybe her mother fussed over her too much, but honestly you're not going to cure paralysis after polio from love and country air, and demanding your wife doesn't see her mother for two years after marriage is completely unacceptable. It would be lovely if love did make you well, but you need to do more worldbuilding to make me believe it, Crompton!

Apart from that (Mrs Lincoln) um. Well, there was a selfish aunt villain, and a postwar village setting, and... a bunch of quite well drawn people making themselves miserable in very plausible ways, actually.

Not recommended.

[Louise Culmer]

Westover is a large and rather ugly country house belonging to Julia Gideon, a widow with five children. She can’t afford to run a place of its size and anyway she is quite happy living with her children in a small house nearby. At her brother James’s suggestion she has had Westover converted into three flats, and now awaits her new tenants, who of course are a varied and interesting bunch. There are her two widowed aunts, Lucy and Laetitia, and their companion, Miss Parsons. Two brothers, Gordon and Hubert, and their wives, Cynthia and Trixie. And Mrs Pollard, a volatile French widow, and her daughter Ann-Marie, who is lame due to having had polio as a child, and whose mother is fiercely protective of her. All the characters interact with each other and some interesting situations arise.
This is a very enjoyable story. The author has not overloaded the book with too many characters as she has in some of her others. And she has toned down the melodrama, even the over possessive mother (a type she usually deals harshly with) is generally funny rather than malignant (the conversation between her and Colin Gideon towards the end of the book is hilarious). And the Gideon family are delightful, one of those fictional families you wish existed in real life. It is a pleasure to spend time with them.