Myra Carrol

by Noel Streatfeild

Myra Carrol has it all – beauty, kindness and a loving marriage. One afternoon she is searching through her barn for objects which could be of help in the Second World War, when she comes across an old picture of herself . . .

She is immediately transported back to the carefree days of her childhood. Raised to be a strong woman by her governess Connie, Myra’s honesty, confidence and angelically beautiful face gave her the best start in life . . . until her father’s death takes her to boarding school.

Through nostalgic flashbacks we learn about the events that shaped Myra’s life in this heart-warming family wartime novel by Carnegie Medal winning author, Noel Streatfeild.

225 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 6, 2018

About the author

Mary Noel Streatfeild, known as Noel Streatfeild, was an author best known and loved for her children's books, including Ballet Shoes and Circus Shoes. She also wrote romances under the pseudonym Susan Scarlett .

She was born on Christmas Eve, 1895, the daughter of William Champion Streatfeild and Janet Venn and the second of six children to be born to the couple. Sister Ruth was the oldest, after Noel came Barbara, William ('Bill'), Joyce (who died of TB prior to her second birthday) and Richenda. Ruth and Noel attended Hastings and St. Leonard's Ladies' College in 1910. As an adult, she began theater work, and spent approximately 10 years in the theater.

During the Great War, in 1915 Noel worked first as a volunteer in a soldier's hospital kitchen near Eastbourne Vicarage and later produced two plays with her sister Ruth. When things took a turn for the worse on the Front in 1916 she moved to London and obtained a job making munitions in Woolwich Arsenal. At the end of the war in January 1919, Noel enrolled at the Academy of Dramatic Art (later Royal Academy) in London.

In 1930, she began writing her first adult novel, The Whicharts, published in 1931. In June 1932, she was elected to membership of PEN. Early in 1936, Mabel Carey, children's editor of J. M. Dent and Sons, asks Noel to write a children's story about the theatre, which led to Noel completing Ballet Shoes in mid-1936. In 28 September 1936, when Ballet Shoes was published, it became an immediate best seller.

According to Angela Bull, Ballet Shoes was a reworked version of The Whicharts. Elder sister Ruth Gervis illustrated the book, which was published on the 28th September, 1936. At the time, the plot and general 'attitude' of the book was highly original, and destined to provide an outline for countless other ballet books down the years until this day. The first known book to be set at a stage school, the first ballet story to be set in London, the first to feature upper middle class society, the first to show the limits of amateurism and possibly the first to show children as self-reliant, able to survive without running to grownups when things went wrong.

In 1937, Noel traveled with Bertram Mills Circus to research The Circus is Coming (also known as Circus Shoes). She won the Carnegie gold medal in February 1939 for this book. In 1940, World War II began, and Noel began war-related work from 1940-1945. During this time, she wrote four adult novels, five children's books, nine romances, and innumerable articles and short stories. On May 10th, 1941, her flat was destroyed by a bomb. Shortly after WWII is over, in 1947, Noel traveled to America to research film studios for her book The Painted Garden. In 1949, she began delivering lectures on children's books. Between 1949 and 1953, her plays, The Bell Family radio serials played on the Children's Hour and were frequently voted top play of the year.

Early in 1960s, she decided to stop writing adult novels, but did write some autobiographical novels, such as A Vicarage Family in 1963. She also had written 12 romance novels under the pen name "Susan Scarlett." Her children's books number at least 58 titles. From July to December 1979, she suffered a series of small strokes and moved into a nursing home. In 1983, she received the honor Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). On 11 September 1986, she passed away in a nursing home.

Reviews

[Farah Mendlesohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excruciating reading.

This is a portrait in the attic of a life messed up through silences. I’d go as far as saying it’s a lost masterpiece.

[Avril · Rating 3 out of 5]

Utterly unrealistic. The protagonist is stunningly beautiful, The uncle of the protagonist kills his wife and himself halfway through. The protagonist, despite spending most of her time away from her family, including five years living with another man’s home she loves, discovers at the end that her husband and children still adore her and settles down happily with them. Very much a Streatfeild book; an isolated upper-middle-class child raised by servants; a well-meaning nanny; a talented child who speaks like an elderly professor. But far from her best.

[Martyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took quite a while to get into this. It's hard work reading a book without any chapter divisions to give you that incentive to read 'just a few more pages' to get to a convenient stopping point. It's just one seemingly endless course of drudgery. Once I got into it it became easier, but even then it had a rather depressing feel so while you felt a bit curious to know where things were going or how it would turn out, it still wasn't a particularly pleasurable reading experience. It's hard to imagine anyone wanting to read such dreary stuff - especially during wartime. I've not read a lot of this type of 'adult' literature outside of Noel Streatfeild or Richmal Crompton, and I don't really want to - and I can't see why people would. The book reminds me of O.Douglas in some respects, except that O.Douglas tells a heartwarming and engaging story that you want to read again - instead of this kind of thing that makes you shudder and want to run a mile. It's books like this that convince me I'm right to stick predominantly to the escapist world of children's literature.

[Jessica Gilmore · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am absolutely loving discovering these reissues of Noel Streatfeild's adult work. Bleaker, darker and more brutally realistic than her gorgeous children's fiction, they are a fascinating look at the earlier half of the last century from someone who lived both a respectable middle to upper class and bohemian life and is therefore almost uniquely qualified to capture both the poverty and the excess, the morality, hypocrisy and freedom of those times. They're not always easy to read, but they are compelling and Myra Carrol is a perfect example of this as the eponymous heroine looks back over her life. Born into comfort but raised by servants, adored for her face whilst patronised for her youth and unworldliness, Myra grows up terrified of being made vulnerable by love. It's an often heartbreaking unflinching read.

[Louise Culmer · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1943, Myra Carroll, a woman of forty, is sorting out junk in the barn, looking for things that can be useful to the war effort. She finds a portrait which sparks a memory of her childhood, and a succession of other objects brings back memories of other episodes in her life. Unfortunately, I did not care much for Myra as a character, finding her rather tiresome. By the end of the book, I was quite tired of her.

[Margaret Wolfe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Readable period piece

A bit ponderous in style and dated in manners although reasonably interesting tale of the times from WWI through WWII.

[Kim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring and shallow.